Friends was one of the most popular tv shows of all time. Even though it ended on a positive and satisfying note, fans have long clamored o have the series make a return. And now it seems HBO has come close to granting the wish. The networking giant is in close negotiations with the original cast of the show to have them film a one-hour special, catching up with what the gang of Ross, Rachel, Joey, Chandler, Monica, and Phoebe have been up to since the show ended.
While the news was met with great glee by fans, the ultimate product might end up being a mixed bag, for the following reasons:
Great: Tying Up Loose Ends
The new episode will be a great way to move the story for the cast of characters forward and tie up the loose ends left by the series finale. Do Ross and Rachel make it work this time as a couple? Do Phoebe and Mike also have children? Did Gunther finally get over Rachel and find someone else to be with?
All these questions and more can be finally answered by the upcoming episode, and provide closure to the storylines that fans have been following for over two decades now through countless rewatchings of the original ten seasons.
Not Great: Creating New Loose Ends
While a great many loose threads may be resolved, there will inevitably be new dangling plot points created by a new standalone episode. After all, Friends was at its best when the gang was facing some kind of crisis with each other’s support. Whatever the crisis in the new episode turns out to be, it will likely leave us with more than a few questions that will never be answered, unless the main cast makes yet another return for a reunion when they’re all in their seventies or something.
Great: Seeing The Gang Again
The single greatest attraction for the new episode will be to see the gang back together again. For entire generations, Rachel and the rest of the gang became their surrogate bunch of friends, always there on tv to cheer us up with a laugh or two and teach some life lessons about growing up in the Big Apple. It will be a joy to see the cast once again onscreen and doing their thing for our entertainment.
Not Great: The Reality of Aging
Friends was about a very specific period of time in a young person’s life, before the care of children and marriage and huge amounts of workplace responsibilities change you forever. It is impossible to imagine that the gang in their forties and fifties will look the same, talk the same, or have the same priorities as their younger counterparts. Every new photo of the cast in present times on social media is filled with shocked comments by fans on how much everyone has aged.
The show’s creators chose to end their series on a high note at the end of the tenth season, instead of trying to struggle against the march of time, while the new episode will attempt to recapture that same earlier magic, only much later in the character’s lives.
Great: Original Cast Chemistry
The show had arguably the best chemistry among a cast ever seen on a sitcom. While the new episode may get new writers, they will be able to retain the crackling chemistry between the characters, which is what the fans really want to see. It will be a rare treat to see Joey and Chandler riffing off of each other, Monica and Ross engaging in their familial sniping, and Rachel being both amused and slightly concerned by Phoebe’s wacky antics.
Not Great: Unrealistic Expectations
Ever since the show ended its final season, every fan has had a slightly different idea of where the characters ended up and what they are doing now. Consequently, each fan will go into the special expecting certain things, a certain amount of classic jokes, a certain amount of callbacks, and a certain amount of emotional payoffs.
Naturally, with such vast and varied expectations, quite a few fans are going to end up disappointed. Especially if the special makes the mistake of providing too much fan service to trade on the nostalgia.
Great: Cast Return To Their Best-known Roles
As successful as the lead characters were on the show, they never found anything close to the same acclaim in their later careers. As such, there is something immensely satisfying about seeing a talented group of actors returning to the iconic roles that they know like the back of their hands.
Instead of getting a reboot with all-new actors, we get to see Matthew Perry bring his inimitable wit to the character of Chandler, and Lisa Kudrow play straight Pheobe’s strangeness in the way that only she can.
Not Great: Cast Cannot Escape Their Best-known Roles
As useful as the show was to the cast’s careers, they have on more than one occasion expressed a strong desire to break out of the stereotyped roles they were being offered based on their Friends characters. David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston in particular have been quite firm about wanting to move away from the long shadow cast by Ross and Rachel. If the cast does get back together for a successful reunion episode, it is difficult to imagine them ever getting known for any other part for the rest of their careers.
Great: New Addition To Series Canon
Since the reunion will hardly be like one of those flashback episodes which occurred every season, where characters just sat around talking about events that took place in past episodes, there will likely be a lot of new stuff added to the series canon for fans to feast on. We will get to see new people in the main cast’s lives, what happened to their children, who must be teens or older now, in addition to seeing how a lot of their older significant relationships with previous supporting characters progressed. It will be like a friendly visit to the present lives of friends who were practically our family at one point in our lives.
Not Great: Half-hearted Cash Grab
Everyone knows that the main reason the cast is finally gearing up for a reunion show after years and years of insisting that there was no possibility of it happening is because they are all getting paid a ridiculous amount of money for it. There was no creative impulse which brought the cast back together, or a desire to tell an important new story about the lives of the characters. It is simply the studio and actors’ desire to cash in on that sweet nostalgia gravy.
To some fans, this fact won’t matter if it means seeing the gang back together again on TV, but for others who watch the special, there will be that nagging reminder in the back of their minds that all of this is just a giant paycheck for most of the actors and the people involved in making it, rather than a labor of love.
