Adam Chase Movies

The weekly, half-hour UPN comedy series Love, Inc. revolved around a dating service run by a woman named Clea (Holly Robinson Peete), who had hoped to use her own happy nine-year marriage as publicity for the organization -- but had to resort to "plan B" when that marriage ended in divorce. In each episode, Clea dispatched her "wing-men" and "wing-women" to play Cupid for a variety of unattached males and females, many of whom were so eccentric that the task of finding an appropriate mate seemed all but impossible. In the original pilot episode, Clea's chief "wing-woman," Denise Johnson, whose success at bringing couples together was matched only by her spectacular failure in finding love on her own, had been played by Shannen Doherty. According to the source one believed, Doherty either tested badly with a sample audience or was given the thumbs-down by a group of potential sponsors: whatever the case, by the time the series debuted on September 22, 2005, Doherty had been replaced by Busy Philipps. The rest of the cast included Ion Overman as Viviana, the service's Argentinean receptionist, who needed to land an American husband to stay in the country; Reagan Gomez-Preston as Francine, the resident style expert; and Vince Vieluf as Barry, the service's technical wizard. Love, Inc. was created by Andrew Secunda, formerly a writer on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first half of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single hour-long episode), the divorce of their friends Barry and Mindy leads the gang to imagine how their lives might have turned out had they made different choices in life. In this parallel universe of the mind, Monica (Courteney Cox) is overweight and a virgin; Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) has a crush on famous soap opera leading man Joey (Matt LeBlanc); Ross (David Schwimmer) is still wed to a "straight" Carol (Jane Sibbett); and Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) has a high-paying job on Wall Street -- and a bad heart condition! The "alternate reality" theme of this episode is even carried over into the opening credits. ~ All Movie Guide

Was the fifth-season finale of Friends merely a misleading "teaser," or did Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) really get married during the gang's tumultuous trip to Las Vegas? The answer, provided in the series' season-six opener, is both "no" and "yes": no, it wasn't a tease, and yes, Ross and Rachel are husband and wife (though having been drunk during the ceremony, it takes them a while to become aware of the fact!). Elsewhere on the romantic scene, Monica (Courteney Cox) and Chandler (Matthew Perry), upon returning to New York, decide to move in together, even though (unlike Ross and Rachel) their planned Vegas wedding never came off. And poor Joey (Matt LeBlanc) is also back in town, his latest "big break" in show business having blown up in his face, obliging him to head back to the Big Apple with feckless Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) at the wheel. The hilarious "hyphenated" closing credits of this episode reflect the recent marriage of Courteney Cox and actor David Arquette. ~ All Movie Guide

Yes, they go to the beach, but a lot more happens in this third-season finale of Friends. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) wants to find out just how much an old family friend (Teri Garr) knows about Phoebe's past (setting up a key plot point in the traditional season-ending cliffhanger). Ross (David Schwimmer) must choose between Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and the hedonistic, hairless Bonnie (Christine Taylor). Chandler (Matthew Perry) is surprised by Monica's (Courteney Cox) reaction to a personal question. And Joey (Matt LeBlanc) loses everything in a game of strip poker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joey (Matt LeBlanc) finally -- and rather abruptly -- realizes how Chandler (Matthew Perry) feels about Joey's girlfriend, Kathy (Paget Brewster). This leads to a serious schism in the boys' friendship. Elsewhere, Ross (David Schwimmer) loves to play the keyboard, but practically no one loves to listen, nor has anyone the heart to tell Ross that he has Van Gogh's ear for music. Curiously, Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) enjoys Ross' "sound" -- but it depresses her all the same. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story, Joey (Matt LeBlanc) tells Chandler (Matthew Perry) that Janice (Maggie Wheeler) may still be in love with her ex-husband. Swallowing his pride, Chandler decides to allow Janice to make up her own mind. Elsewhere, little Ben makes an innocent statement of fact that gets both Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Monica (Courteney Cox) into trouble. And Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) finds a new reason to be afraid of the dentist -- and it centers around a string of sudden deaths, the Ugly Naked Guy, and the Giant Poking Device of the title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Already displeased that Ross (David Schwimmer) is attached to Julie (Lauren Tom), Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) isn't prepared for the news that Monica (Courteney Cox) is becoming friends with Julie. In other developments, Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and a rival in love (Joel Beeson) are hired as department-story models, Joey as the Bijan Cologne Man and the other fellow as The Hombre Guy. And apropos the episode's title, Carol's (Jane Sibbett) breastfeeding of baby Ben -- to say nothing of her cache of bottled breast milk -- causes discomfort amongst the boys. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ross (David Schwimmer) chooses to be the only one who doesn't know the gender of his unborn baby. After Paolo (Cosimo Fusco) gets fresh with Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) dumps him -- and Monica (Courteney Cox) gives him a sort of present. As for Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc), weren't they supposed to buy a kitchen table instead of what they ended up bringing home? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Few ensemble sitcoms of the 1990s and early 2000s commanded as much love and devotion from its fans as the immensely popular NBC series Friends -- and few such sitcoms generated as many "water-cooler conversations" as the characters' lives and loves evolved over the series' ten-year run. Set in New York City, the action largely took place in two neighboring loft apartments. One of these was the home of Monica Geller (Courteney Cox), who can be described as the series' "rock" -- or better yet, "den mother." An assistant chef who later ran her own restaurant, Monica lived with her best friend, Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston), who had come to New York after running out on her wedding; employed as a waitress in the earlier episodes, Rachel later became a buyer for a retail fashion chain, and finally an assistant to a high-profile designer. Occasionally dropping into Monica's apartment was her brother, Ross (David Schwimmer), a paleontologist who spent most of the first season coming to grips with the fact that his wife, Carol (Jane Sibbett), had declared herself a lesbian and divorced him (Carol would later give birth to Ross' son Ben, whom she and her partner insisted upon raising themselves). Across the hall from Monica's flat lived Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc), an aspiring actor whose professional luck was generally bad until he landed a continuing role on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives -- as a man with a woman's brain! Joey lived with "corporate guy" Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), who was regarded as the class clown of the bunch. A frequent guest at both apartments was Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow), an airheaded will-o’-the-wisp who never quite got it all together at any one time.

When the "friends" weren't at home or at work, they could be found hanging out at Central Perk, a Greenwich Village coffeehouse manned by Gunther (played by real-life "coffee guy" James Michael Tyler, who did not receive screen credit until well into the series' run), where Phoebe occasionally performed as a folksinger. Gradually and inevitably, many of the friends became lovers. First it was Ross and Rachel, a relationship that came to a screeching halt in season three when Ross slept with another woman when the couple was "on a break." Ross then ended up marrying the prickly Emily Waltham (Helen Baxendale) during a jaunt to England in season four. That this alliance was doomed from the start was demonstrated when, during the ceremony, Ross said Rachel's name instead of Emily's. After the dissolution of the marriage, a drunken Ross and Rachel impulsively got hitched in Las Vegas at the end of season five, but they soon realized that they'd acted too hastily, and were themselves divorced. In season eight, Rachel gave birth to Ross' baby, a girl named Emma. Meanwhile, Chandler and Monica, who after "getting it on" at Ross' wedding ceremony tried to keep their relationship a secret from everyone, were married at the close of season seven. They would later discover that they could not have children, whereupon they adopted a baby from a woman named Erica (Anna Faris). In a similar vein, the whimsical Phoebe had earlier agreed to be artificially inseminated so that she could bear a child for her half-brother, Frank (Giovanni Ribisi), and his wife (and former teacher), Alice (Debra Jo Rupp). Ultimately, Phoebe gave birth to triplets. Phoebe also had another sibling, a twin sister named Ursula -- actually the same character played by Lisa Kudrow in the earlier NBC sitcom Mad About You, which was still in production when Friends debuted on September 22, 1994.

The series' tenth and final season (2003-2004) wrapped up several loose plot strands. Having admitted that he always loved Rachel, Joey proposed to her, but the marriage never came off -- and in an eleventh-hour decision, Rachel forsook plans to move to Paris, and returned to Ross. After several desultory relationships, Phoebe married a nice guy named Mike (Paul Rudd). And as Friends approached its two-part finale, Erica, the birth mother of Monica and Chandler's soon-to-be-adopted baby went into labor -- and surprisingly delivered twins, which they named Erica and Jack. After the storyline of the series ended, Joey would end up moving out of New York, heading to L.A. to pursue a film career, thereby setting up the premise of Matt LeBlanc's spin-off sitcom Joey. At or near the number one ratings slot throughout most of its run, Friends also earned a veritable warehouse of Emmy Awards -- not to mention full-fledged stardom for all of the series' regulars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This drama is set in Montreal when in the mid-'50s a young woman is impregnated by a petty thief who is caught and given ten years in the slammer. In the meantime, the woman bears a son and marries another. The time passes quickly and the thief is eventually released. He immediately goes to her and this nearly destroys her marriage. Fortunately, he realizes that taking the woman away from her husband will only hurt his son and so backs off. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide