We were on a break! Should the Friends gang really be getting back together?
The sitcom reunion is sure to be emotional and downright bizarre, writes Micha Frazer-Carroll, but will it be any good?
After 17 years, it is here. Viewers around the world had cried out for it. There were endless rumours and hoaxes. But now, at a time when it feels like no one’s really asking for it anymore, it has finally happened. The Friends reunion is upon us.
This week, the trailer dropped for a one-time-only rehash of the sitcom about a run-of-the-mill group of twenty-somethings in New York. The show’s original stars, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, will join none other than James Corden in an hour-long, unscripted HBO Max special, to reminisce on old times, play Friends games and reflect on the show’s impact. Guest stars already announced include the baffling combination of Malala Yousafzai, Justin Bieber, BTS, Lady Gaga, Cara Delevingne, David Beckham and Taylor Swift.
The creators of Friends – which became one of the most popular series of all time over its 10-year run – had promised this would never happen. In fact, as the concept of a reunion was doggedly pursued by audiences, it seemed like the cast were becoming actively annoyed by it. For years after the show ended in 2004, each time one of the six stars attempted to promote a new project, they were haunted by interview questions about the gang getting back together. Kudrow previously discussed the reactions she would get when she debunked rumours of a reunion, saying in 2013, “People got mad at me recently, because I said, ‘No, that’s never going to happen.’ They were angry, like I’m the one who shut it down.” The following year, Graham Norton asked Aniston, “Why don’t you just do the reunion so people will stop wanging on about it?”
But of course, the stars of Friends are not the only ones stalked by the overwhelming success of their previous shows, particularly those of the Nineties and Noughties. No one is ever going to see Sarah Jessica Parker without thinking of Sex and the City – another runaway hit that ended the same year, has been back for two critically panned films and is now getting a reboot. And reunions, spin-offs and sequels are only becoming more prevalent. In 2020, after their show returned to Netflix with great success, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air clan got back together, a meet-up that grabbed headlines after Will Smith reconciled with estranged co-star Janet Hubert. This year, it was announced that the Cheers spin-off Frasier is coming back, joining Saved by the Bell, Arrested Development, Full House, Gilmore Girls and iCarly in the kingdom of recent sitcom reunions and reboots. It seems audiences have a problem with letting go.
We know, in practice, that sometimes it’s best to draw a line under the past. The infamous unpopularity of Joey, a Friends spin-off that followed former gang member Joey Tribbiani (LeBlanc) in his new life in LA, showed us it really wasn’t worth revisiting Friends so soon (a matter of months) after its conclusion and without the full cast. The series was cancelled after two years due to poor ratings.
Reunions don’t always go well, either. Take Britain’s own The Inbetweeners. In 2019, after two follow-up movies, the cast came back together for a 10th anniversary reunion that was blasted by fans as “shambolic”. The response was so bad that star James Buckley publicly apologised. The problem, audiences and critics suggested, was a combination of poor planning, a lack of anecdotes for the cast to actually reminisce on, and, awkwardly, the fact that no one seemed like they really wanted to be there.
TV reunions – just like real-life ones – are inherently uncomfortable. Some of my peers who grew up on Friends couldn’t be less interested in tuning in, saying that participating in anything that resembles rampant, Noughties Friends-mania feels a little, well, cringe. Friends may have been the most popular show on Netflix in 2019, but for many it has moved out of the “favourites” category and into the “guilty pleasures” one. It has aged badly, and has been picked apart for “problematic” plotlines and gags. While I’m not expecting the reunion to have the relentless “gay jokes” that featured in the cast’s final Oprah interview in 2004, its history does make it difficult – embarrassing even – to uncritically call yourself a Friends superfan in 2021.
But for HBO Max, the Friends reunion is undoubtedly a lucrative financial investment. Dredging up history is very profitable for networks and streamers. As historians, critics and fashion designers have noted over the decades, pop culture trends tend to come in cycles of around 20-30 years, as people in a given age group gain buying power and simultaneously become nostalgic for their youth. Disney is obsessed with remaking its own movies from the golden age because millennials keep buying tickets to see them. Remakes – no matter how poorly reviewed – keep coming around to feed the beast.
Today, it seems that reboots and reunions are an inevitability. They come for most shows sooner or later. As Friends becomes the latest to get the nostalgia treatment, all we can do is hope that it’s well-executed. The best reunion episodes are undoubtedly the ones that tap into the emotional dynamic between the cast – whether that’s Married at First Sight Australia, where they fight it out, or The Fresh Prince, where they reminisce and reconcile. My prediction is that this one will be a mix of cringe, insightful, emotional and downright bizarre (have a go at picturing Malala, BTS and Justin Bieber hanging out in Central Perk with Gunther). That said, I am obviously going to watch it, if only for old times’ sake.
The ‘Friends’ reunion special will air on HBO Max on 27 May