It’s still the one we can’t switch off
This week marks 25 years since the first episode of Friends. In that time, the world has changed, but Friends has always been there (for you). Paul Flynn deconstructs the TV phenomenon of our lifetime
IN MANY WAYS, 1994 looks like a 25-year-old mirror to 2019. Quentin Tarantino made the most talked-about film of the year (then: Pulp Fiction; now : Once Upon A Time In Hollywood). Disney was basking in the commercial stronghold of The Lion King, and continues to do so. An atypical rapper was/is the global pop icon (then: Notorious BIG; now: Lil Nas X). The question of Europe dominates the British political agenda. To prove that in 1994 and 2019 everything is the same but different, you may want to hold your breath for this one. On 22 September, Friends will turn 25.
Friends is the simple story of six white, upwardly mobile buddies navigating the passage from youth to complicated adulthood. It wasn’t the most popular programme of the year back then. It is now. Like the theme song always promised, they’ve been there for you.
Despite perfectly valid criticisms about body-shaming, diversity and making the one trans character the butt of every joke she tailspins through, Friends regularly rates as the only show to keep Generation Z invested in the small screen. It is now more popular with the kids of its once target demographic than their parents. So much so that the show’s imminent removal from the Netflix schedule to HBO Max in the USA has caused an impending meltdown for the streaming portal and nervous ripples on the stock market.
On 23 September, Friends: The One With The Anniversary, a compendium of 10 of the finest episodes from the show’s indomitable, storied past, will tour American cinemas. Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler and Joey will, at last, become movie stars together. Listing their names now feels like writing John, Paul, George and Ringo’s did back then. It is said that a Friends episode is being screened somewhere around the world at every minute of every day. Someone, somewhere, is caterwauling to Smelly Cat right now.
The Friends anniversary game is proving a lucrative market. In its honour, Lego will release a brightly-coloured DIY brick set of Central Perk (want). The American homeware giant Pottery Barn – a star of season six, episode 11, when Rachel pretends to Phoebe that she’s found its mass-produced ‘Apothecary Table’ at a flea market, only to calamitously discover Ross has the same model in the living room of his West Village walk-up – has fashioned a set of commemorative earthenware. Selfies outside the Friends building on Bedford Place have turned it into the entertainment world’s Leaning Tower of Pisa. Primark has entire departments delegated to Friends merch. The Friends logo has appeared on the NYFW runway and been tributised by Berlin nightclub The Berghain in several appearances of the star techno DJ Rossfromfriends.
The smallest cultural currencies gleaned from Friends’ warm vernacular still sound like a shared balm. Ugly Naked Guy, Gunther, ‘how you doin’?’, purple walls, Rachel’s hair and Phoebe’s special nom de plume Regina Phalange are just the tip of a fan-worship iceberg that has defied every law and logic of television, making Friends the one TV show to have become more popular with age. The show’s success arc is more like that of a classic rock act than a homely sitcom. It would be remiss of us here at Grazia not to point out that the off-screen antics of its six awesome primary cast have fed gossip cycles in the manner Fleetwood Mac did in the ’70s.
Friends is the TV show of my lifetime. You can pick it apart as much as you like, and many still do. ‘Fat’ Monica flashbacks were never going to age well. The empty chasm of lead BAME characters likewise. But many comfort-blanket emotional truths remain at its heart. When life is catastrophising, sadness looms, in heartbreak, grief or despair, there is always
an episode of Friends that will raise an empathetic smile. In its 10-season cycle, it made good on its title’s promise. Friends
became the thing it said it was. It is the sweetest of all modern compulsions.
In 13 years of writing about TV for
Grazia, I’ve never once written about
Friends. I haven’t had to. Word-of-mouth virality is stitched into the show’s DNA, passed now from generation to generation like a favourite piece of jewellery. In honour of its forthcoming 25th year, I went back to the very first episode and my favourite:
The One Where Ross Is Fine. That electric pilot sets up everything that goes on to happen in the show’s amazing final episode. Each defining character trait swings into view, a small snapshot of science and nature. Monica’s (Courteney Cox) OCD. Chandler’s (Matthew Perry) sarcasm. Joey’s (Matt Leblanc) professional uselessness and perpetual horn. Phoebe’s (Lisa Kudrow) beautiful, damaged, perky strangeness. Ross’s (David Schwimmer) rubbishness at love.
While the five friends amiably bicker in Central Perk, Rachel ( Jennifer Aniston) arrives in a sodden wedding dress, having ditched her sensible-but-boring groom at the altar. A moment that will travel to calming resolution across the decade that Friends
dominates. In episode one, series one, Rachel is introduced as a confluence of Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Carly Simon, Cybill Shepherd and Madonna’s Like A Virgin incarnation. Her generation’s screen icon. It’s a world of flat-sharing, romantic dithering, wisecracking and learning to accept the person you are and the plans life made for you will follow. Cameos from Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Kathleen Turner and, natch, Brad Pitt will knock at the Friends door. In a storytelling valve both of the earth and fashioned from magic, younger viewers will find something to look on with light envy and hope; older viewers with nostalgia. At 25 years of age, Friends
is still The One We Can’t Switch Off.