Reception
In 1997, TV Guide ranked this episode #100 on their list of the "100 Greatest Episodes of All Time".
Entertainment Weekly rates the episode "A", welcoming the return of Burrows as director and calling the prom video "witty character development disguised as a standard flashback." The authors of Friends like Us: The Unofficial Guide to Friends write that it is "a watershed in the history of the show" and "It's the sign of a good show that they can switch so effortlessly from comedy to pathos to romance in one short scene." Robert Bianco wrote in USA Today in 2004, "If any one outing can take credit for moving Friends from good to great, it's Prom Video" and describes the resolution as an "ingenious, unexpected twist."
The episode is popular among fans of the series. It appeared on one of the first region 1 "best of" DVD releases and is one of the two episodes to feature an audio commentary on the region 1 DVD release of the complete second season. In a poll conducted shortly before the series finale, "The One with the Prom Video" was voted the best episode of Friends, with 1.6 million people polling on the Internet. The episode is the favorite of Schwimmer, who liked the comedic and emotional origins of the Ross/Rachel relationship, as well as the exchange between Monica and Chandler as she defends her weight on the video.
Read more about this topic: The One With The Prom Video
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
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“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
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