Catching up on over-one-week-old Friends paeans... Edmonton's Colby Cosh::

Seinfeld and Friends should, I think, almost be regarded sociologically as one continuous series. If you're between 30 and 40, you probably remember what it was like to see Seinfeld for the first time. Here was a show without syrup, full of irritable, selfish, basically nihilistic people dealing with insane neighbours and bosses. Now this was a recognizable universe! For Seinfeld characters, family was a plague rather than a refuge, religion and traditional morality were present only as old people's cranky taboos, and the concept of a lifelong steady 'career' was simply absent. Reality TV, so-called, has never yet attained quite that level of rococo realness.

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