Intro; Acknowledgements; Contents; List of Figures; 1 Introduction: The One where They Take Stock and Identify the Strategy of Intimacy; The One with the Backlash; The One with the Scholarship-Or (Relative) Lack Thereof; The One with All the 'Quality TV'; The One with Genre and Authorship; The One where They're Reflecting on Their Methodology; The One with All the Intimacy: From Structure of Feeling to Strategy; The One with All the Chapter Outlines; Bibliography; 2 The One with All the Laughing and the Hugging: Specificity of Humour and Comedic Types

The One where They're Feeling Humour: Comedic Sensibility and TonalityThe One about Sitcom and Humour; The One where They Look from the Pitch to the Pilot: A Comedic Typology; The One with Rachel Green: 'So here she is, trained for nothing' (Kauffman and Crane 1993); The One with Monica Geller: 'For all her toughness, she has a real maternal side' (Kauffman and Crane 1993); The One with Phoebe Buffay: 'She's sweet, flaky, a waif, a hippie' (Kauffman and Crane 1993); The One with Ross Geller: 'He really really really doesn't want to be single' (Kauffman and Crane 1993)

The One with Joey Tribbiani: 'He really thinks he's God's gift to women' (Kauffman and Crane 1993)The One with Chandler Bing: 'He's the droll observer of everybody else's life' (Kauffman and Crane 1993); The One with the Group Identity, Comedic Dialogue and the Laugh Track; Conclusion; Bibliography; 3 The One where They Tame the Three-Headed Monster: Foregrounding Holistic Performance; The One with David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston: Performing Ross and Rachel; The One with the Leather Pants: David Schwimmer and Physical Comedy

The One with the Hollywood Guest Stars: Wrestling with the Three-Headed MonsterThe One with Rachel and Joey: Matt LeBlanc and Emotionally Truthful Performance; Conclusion; Bibliography; 4 The One where They Look at Monica's Apartment: Style, Space, Set Design; The One with the Iconic Space: Set Design and Texture; The One with the Couch: Multi-Camera Sitcom and Creative Engagement with Space; The One with the Diachronic Space: Layers and Patterns; The One with Multi-Camera Sitcom's Regime of Looking In and Rupture; Conclusion; Bibliography

5 The One with the Emblematic Problematic Fave: Friends and the Politics of RepresentationThe One with the Paratextual Patterns; The One where They Emphasise the Importance of Context and Tone; The One with the Dominant Whiteness; The One where Aisha Tyler Plays a White Woman on Friends; The One where Aisha Tyler Doesn't Play a White Woman on Friends; The One with Representation, Performance and Tone; The One where They Come Full Circle on Intimacy: Re-evaluating Friends and the Genre of Sitcom; Conclusion; Bibliography; The One with the Orbit of Failure: The Joey Spin-Off, Other Adaptations and the Global Reception of Friends