Something huge happened this week. We shared a collective human moment, in which we finally laid to rest a huge cultural icon which had cast a long, inescapable shadow. Everything that came after it was forever marked by it, directly or indirectly, for good or for ill. It was finally confirmed, chums: that Friends reunion you were secretly hoping against hope for, desperately willing into existence? It’s not happening. It will never happen. Marta Kauffman has said so, and she should know, seeing as she is one of the creators of what became a cultural juggernaut. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. In my best approximation of Chandler Bing, could I BE any sadder? (No. I could not.)
Of course, we knew it could never happen. Are you crazy? Remember Adam and Joe’s marvellously silly low-budget but high-entertainment Channel 4 show, called, er, The Adam and Joe Show? They did an excellent spoof of Friends, called FURENDS in which the glossy Hollywood cast was played by stuffed furry creatures. Here’s a clip:
In case you missed it, the refrain goes: “we’ll be here for you, for a hundred grand a show”.
It would take all the money in the Emirates to bring new Friends to any screen – big or small – near you. And anyway, everyone’s moved on. Jennifer’s keeping a cottage industry of tabloids going by remaining unwed, female and attractive, Matthew’s working on Go On (and guest starring on The Good Wife from time to time, one hopes), Courtney made quirky comedy Cougar Town, David wears a beard and directs and Lisa (for my money the best actor on the show) continues to do interesting film and TV work from time to time. Friends is over. They were there for us, for ten years, and now they are no longer there, except via DVD and Comedy Central. In a world where Matt Le Blanc – reborn as an older, more silver and even wildly more attractive version of his 90s self – is in turn playing a version of himself/Joey Tribbiani on the very enjoyable Episodes, the message is clear. We rocked your TV worlds and changed your TV lives, we get it. But you need to let us go. In any case, “a hundred grand a show” was laughably modest. If nothing else, they must be too busy counting their money (pre-recession interest rates, no less) to consider a reunion.
I’ve thought about this a lot (too much?), and concluded that Friends is probably my favourite show of all time. I was awed by State of Play, flabbergasted by The Shadow Line, charmed by Frasier, warmed by The Cosby Show, excited by Misfits and moved by The Wire. But I loved Friends. I’ve watched every episode, from beginning to end, over and over. It’s comfort food, familiar and requiring little to no effort from me at this point, which I appreciate as I get older and the boxsets accumulate. It is often betrayed by its scene furniture: the music references (oh, Hootie and the Blowfish), its now-dated cultural icons (Jean-Claude van Damme and Noah Wyle and George Clooney, at the height of their ER fame, playing doctors etc.) and its awful, awful fashion. But the gags display a calibre that was often hard to beat. Yes, they were self-absorbed, privileged twenty-somethings living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, but they were funny and real and human. After a lifetime of watching television in unhealthy quantities, Friends provides the biggest chunk of the references I have stored away in the intricate pop culture Rolodex in my mind. Sometimes, I still whisper “seven” when giving out a number. And when the person gets it, I give them a mental – or sometimes physical – high five.
It is not perfect, of course. At the New Statesman Centenary debate earlier this month, I bemoaned the lack of diversity in Friends, from a curiously monochrome New York to the recycling of a storyline for two black female guest stars over the course of the show. And the fat-suit-clad young Monica (a standard TV trope of the “ugly duckling made good”) always struck a weird note, even if it tried to pinpoint a solid and satisfying back-story for the character. The central relationship of Ross and Rachel was finely observed, their initial breakup actually harrowing for a sitcom. It had great recurring guest stars with proper arcs – Paul Rudd, Aisha Tyler, Lauren Tom, Tom Selleck, Jane Sibbett – as well as the type to draw a whoop from the studio audience – Bruce Willis, Jeff Goldblum, Kathleen Turner, Christina Applegate and Reese Witherspoon aka the Green sisters. It’s a hard trick to pull off stunt casting without you know, looking like stunt casting, but when Friends was the biggest show in the world, it managed just that. It had its doldrums seasons too: 9 and 10 were often watchable, but showcased a show that was a former shadow of itself. As for the Emily debacle of Season 4/5, the less said the better, even though it did give us a corker of a season finale and also this marvellous quiz. When one considers a ten-year run which contained an unbroken string of sparkling seasons, it would be churlish not to forgive and forget those indiscretions.
The legacy of Friends is best seen in the television its absence has bequeathed us. From New Girl to Happy Endings, nothing quite lives up to it and perhaps nothing ever will. And we need to be okay about that and just let it die, already.
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