Courteney Cox appeared in Dirt, a show you’ve probably never heard of. Matt LeBlanc’s failed Joey spinoff was conveniently left out of the documentary, and he does increasingly resemble his Episodes character, an aging television star, more and more.
HBO FRIENDS REUNION MOVIE
Aniston never quite became the movie star she was supposed to be, while her personal life dominated the tabloids. It’s been decades since they were on the show together, the finale aired in 2004, and nothing in their lives looks the same. But frankly, the best way to watch Friends: The Reunion is as a psychodrama about the actors. The last (and worst) part features the six cast members sitting in front of the infamous fountain for a brief interview before a live studio audience, just like the old days. The second part is a full-on documentary about the show, getting into the casting, the details about what jokes landed and didn’t, and how the writers decided to let Chandler and Monica fall in love. First there’s the reunion part, where the cast sits in the old set, watches scenes from the show, and reads scripts together. The Friends special, which inexplicably borders on a two-hour runtime, is divided into three sections. There I was, clutching my little Grinch heart, feeling it growing in size as I watched adults cry over how one of them couldn’t remember their lines and hid their script in the sink. I thought the Friends reunion would be mealymouthed sap (a lot of it is) and that they’d conveniently sidestep elements of their history that betray the show’s rampant sexism, anti-gay, fatphobic, and anti-trans jokes, but I was surprised to be so touched by the actual people who made this wretched show. But I’m not so proud I can admit when I’m wrong. It’s not a new episode, it’s not scripted content, and it’s not necessary. So naturally, I sat down to watch Friends: The Reunion, which premieres Thursday on HBO Max, with a healthy dose of skepticism. People are also still wearing Crocs, there’s only so much I can do. But still, Friends once averaged 25 million viewers a week, and even now - as host James Corden told the cast - it’s been watched over 100 billion times across all platforms. As with much of what I write on this now-cursed site (my impact!), I was right, but my inbox was bloated with reader mail for weeks, ranging from polite dissent (“you’re pathetic”) to the normal things you’d send to a stranger on the internet (“go fuck yourself you fucking pees of shit”). In August 2019, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Friends - a show that had an entire plotline about Chandler’s transgender parent’s possible penis - I wrote about how the show sucks.