Friends: the one where the cast got back together

Friends: The Reunion will not only bring together the six stars of the most successful sitcom of the 1990s and early 2000s, it will answer the question which challenged a generation of TV viewers: were Ross and Rachel really on a break?

The special, which will feature actors Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer will also tackle one of the most complex questions in pop culture: can you ever really go back in time?

Reunion television specials and re-boots have, during the past decades, tried to rekindle the romance between audiences and the television programs which became iconic chapters in a shared cultural narrative: Will & Grace, The West Wing and now Friends.

Friends: The Reunion might well be titled The One That Was Bigger Than All of Them, because it represents not just a monumentally valuable programming asset, but it will pivot on the sentimental hindsight of an audience who saw themselves reflected in the story of six friends sharing neighbouring apartments and embarking on life in New York City.

The special was commissioned for the US market by the studio Warner Bros, which produced and distributed the original series. Sentiment aside, the studio had a singular purpose: to use one of its most powerful television brands as a subscription driver to the studio’s new US streaming platform, HBO Max.

Clockwise from top left: Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox.Credit: Warner Bros

Despite what would assuredly be overwhelming international interest, Warner Bros has been slow to confirm broadcast details for the special outside the US. In Australia the streaming platform Binge has confirmed it will release the special day-and-date with the US, making it available from 5.02pm AEST on May 27.

When plans for the reunion were first announced the reaction was intense and immediate. The Friends audience was still there, and still very loyal to the six friends and their fragile and complex relationships, nurtured over a decade and 236 half-hour episodes: Ross’ son Ben, his and Rachel’s daughter Emma, Phoebe’s marriage to Mike, Monica’s to Chandler, and, ultimately, Ross’ reunion with Rachel.

The way we were ... the cast of Friends as they appeared in the original series.Credit: Warner Bros

And on that point: it appears, from the trailer released by HBO Max in the US this week, that indeed, as claimed so often over the years, that Ross’ infidelity, during a supposed pause in his relationship with Rachel, was sanctioned by the fact that they were on a break. Indeed the clue is in the episode title: The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break.

But that schism became one of the enduring story notes of the series, and propelled its characters through to a heart-wrenching final episode when Ross and Rachel were finally reunited. It is also a question that continued to dog the actors long after the series wrapped. “It’s not even a question,” Schwimmer told talk show host Jimmy Fallon last year. “They were on a break.”

In a bid to close debate once and for all, the question is formally put to the cast by the reunion’s host, British-born American talk show host James Corden, and one by one Aniston, Cox, Perry and Kudrow answer yes, only to be interrupted by LeBlanc who says, coughing, “bullshit”.

Champagne comedy ... Friends remains one of Warner Bros most valuable programming assets.Credit: Warner Bros

The trailer includes clips of the cast being interviewed by Corden next to the fountain which featured in the show’s opening titles. The fountain was originally located on an LA film lot called the Warner Ranch but was relocated to the main Warner Bros studio several years ago when the ranch was being prepared for sale.

It also includes glimpses of the cast walking back onto Sound-stage 24 on the Warner Bros lot, where the show’s interiors were filmed, and where the show’s key sets have been pulled out of storage and rebuilt for the filming of the reunion.

There are also clips of a round-table script read of memorable scenes, and the playing of a trivia game which mimics one of the show’s most memorable episodes, in which a trivia match between Chandler and Joey, and Monica and Rachel, turns into a high-stakes gamble on who gets to live in the better apartment.

“I was flooded with 10 years of irreplaceable memories,” Cox told US media this week. “It’s funny, when we do get together, it’s like no time has passed, we pick up right where we left off,” LeBlanc said. In the trailer, Kudrow speaks of the bond the cast shared which, they say, remains firm to this day.

The cast of Friends at the taping of the final episode in 2004.Credit: Warner Bros

In a sense, Warner Bros is betting a bob each way on Friends: The Reunion. A scripted reunion episode or film would have been risky given the age of the cast and the unusually poor pattern such reunion specials follow. Remember Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding, L.A. Law: The Movie or The Facts of Life Reunion? Don’t worry, neither do we.

Scripted reunions and re-boots are tricky to get right. Will & Grace’s return to the screen after a decade’s absence, aided by the fact that the cast did not seem to have aged too noticeably, was a rare success and even that reboot struggled to sustain itself after three additional seasons.

The cast of Friends are now aged between 51 and 57-years-old, which makes shared-apartment living, nights spent at the well-worn sofa at the Central Perk and typical sitcom shenanigans tough to take seriously. Instead, HBO is gambling on sentiment to bring an audience to a more believable reunion: six actors, on the Hollywood sound stage that was home for a decade, while the world watched.

Warner Bros had planned to film the reunion episode in early 2020 but it was delayed twice - in March and August - because of COVID-19. The reunion was finally filmed in April this year, with a small audience of guest stars and other friends of the Friends.

The original series is considered one of the most valuable blue-chip programming assets of the streaming era: it was the most-viewed series on Netflix between 2015 and 2019 until Warner Bros took back rights to the series in preparation for its launch on the studio’s own platform, HBO Max.

The choice of Corden as a host was met with a mixed response on social media. “All these people could’ve been a part of the Friends reunion but Warner Bros chose Justin Bieber and James Corden,” said one comment, referring to the show’s notably absent guest stars including Brad Pitt, who played Ross’s schoolfriend Will Colbert, and Paul Rudd, who played Phoebe’s boyfriend (later husband) Mike Hannigan.

Aside from some peculiar celebrity guest inclusions, including Bieber, Cara Delevingne, Lady Gaga and Kit Harington, the special will feature appearances by Elliott Gould and Christina Pickles who played Ross and Monica’s parents Jack and Judy Geller, James Michael Tyler, who played Central Perk barista Gunther, Maggie Wheeler, who played Chandler’s girlfriend Janice, Reese Witherspoon, who played Rachel’s sister Jill, and Tom Selleck, who played Monica’s boyfriend, Richard Burke.

Friends: The Reunion will be released on Thursday, May 27 on HBO Max in the US and on Binge in Australia.