The creators of Friends decided to end the TV show on the most positive note — Chandler and Monica had their babies, Phoebe planned one with Mike, and Ross and Rachel were back together. The only one left out, actually, was Joey, as he didn’t become a superstar or met anyone.
It was only natural that there were no new episodes after that, although based on the success of the show, I’m sure it was tempting. That is, until the pandemic.
This reunion showcased the bigger problem for Hollywood. It loses everything right in front of our eyes. They are loosing production to tech companies. Can you imagine? Some Silicon Valley nerds are now kings of movies and TV shows. If you want something made you don’t go to the establishment, you go to Apple, Amazon, or Netflix. And nobody cares about the stars anymore. With the growing popularity of TickTock and Instagram, influencers are the new kings.
And it was only accelerated by the pandemic. First they started to complain about how hard it is for them, in their mansions. Then they tried to show their life and this is when the wall broke down. Before it was something magical, something people craved peaking in. The whole paparazzi industry was created. Now you could just see it all in the open, and people stopped caring.
I knew about Friends TV show because local station put on some episodes when I was a kid. Now, when I try to remember, it seems that there were a couple of episodes that were shown over and over, but still, I liked it.
Only when I was about 20 years old, I’ve decided to watch the whole series and I fell in love. The most shocking thing was the end — all this time watching random episodes, I didn’t know how it ends (as an aside — don’t watch the end of Tom and Jerry). But even binge-watching this TV show, I got invested in the characters, in the story, in the relationships.
After that, I’ve watched the whole series about 4-5 times. Every time knowing what will happen next, but I didn’t care. I loved the show, I still do.
The first minutes of the Friends Reunion made me cringe. That is until Matthew Perry came out, at that point I couldn’t believe somebody thought it would be a good idea. They risk losing the perception of those young fun people living in New York. You see them getting old, Matthew at times couldn’t even say a sentence. Even Joe Biden looks more alive.
I know that time passes and even Jennifer Aniston can’t stay perfect forever (she is close though still), but that is why humans invented fiction. So, we can go to that happy place, to see our favourite characters at their best, not as fucked up by drugs old people.
Friends Reunion is breaking that magic. If you didn’t see it already, my advice — don’t. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose.