Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing across 10 seasons of Friends, once said he wished the sitcom had been slightly less appreciated. In a 1997 Entertainment Weekly interview, Perry explained that he felt the show lost a special quality once it became a pop culture sensation. He recalled that early on the series was about "six loserish people" hanging out and talking about their lives, not famous people or magazine covers, and said he would have liked it to return to that original idea.
The show's pre-phenomenon phase did not last long. Friends became a phenomenon as early as the Season 2 episode "The One After the Superbowl," which drew nearly 53 million viewers and ranked among the best post-Super Bowl sitcom performances ever. Even before that, the show was routinely attracting more than 20 million viewers a week. In Season 1, much of that was attributed to its airing directly after Seinfeld, but after the Super Bowl episode it was clear Friends was drawing viewers on its own.
Perry's affection for the first season was tied to its tone. He saw the characters as more grounded, with more relatable financial concerns, and the season had a cozy, relaxed atmosphere that later seasons lacked. Season 1 spent more time simply letting the characters enjoy each other's company.
His favorite episode was the seventh-ever episode, "The One With The Blackout," which TVLine ranked as one of Perry's funniest episodes. In it, Chandler is trapped in a room with a model and struggles to think of how to woo her. Because Chandler was physically isolated from the other characters for much of the episode, Perry could sit back and watch the other five actors work without him. He told People that watching "these five great actors doing ensemble work" was amazing, and that it was the first time he realized the show was really clicking.
Sources: TVLine.