Here’s why Friends was cancelled
It was May 2004, and 50 million people tuned in to watch Rachel Green get off the plane. It was ‘The Last One’ – after 10 years on air, Friends was over.
Despite its cancellation, the gang of six and their Central Perk chats remained a fixture in many living rooms across the country, thanks to endless re-runs and a new home on Netflix.
Despite the flaws visible with hindsight, the ’90s sitcom, for many, has become the epitome of a comfort binge; that trusty and familiar televised hug that provides an instant hit of nostalgia.
But with so much love out there, why did Friends finish in the first place?
As it turns out, the series could have ended a whole lot earlier than it did. “We had several years where we thought this was going to be the last year,” co-creator Marta Kauffman explained during a 2014 interview with EW.
Fellow creator David Crane put this down to “the actors’ contract negotiations”, and said that when they decided that season 10 really would be the last it was because they couldn’t “keep stopping and starting and rethinking everything”.
While contemplating the direction that the finale episode would take, and how the story would wrap, Kauffman also noted that “one of the things was: Everybody was growing up.”
“This is part of why the show had to end,” she added. “This was no longer that time in your life when your friends are your family. You’re starting your own family.”
As far as the cast were concerned, it sounds like they were divided about the longevity of the show.
“Some people just felt ready to move on and be done,” Lisa Kudrow revealed during a previous interview with Television Academy Foundation. “And other people felt like, ‘No, you don’t leave until they ask you to leave. This is like a part-time job and we have so much fun together.’ Some people had different opinions about that…”
It was also previously revealed that Jennifer Aniston had hesitations about returning for the tenth season (how different things could have been!).
During a 2004 interview with NBC, she admitted that she had “wanted it to end when people still loved us and we were on a high”, and that she hadn’t been sure “how much more of Rachel” she had left in her before that final season. Reflecting on the bittersweet feeling of the show actually ending, she also said, “but now, of course, I don’t want it to end at all”.
Matthew Perry has since expressed regrets about the show’s decision to end. While recalling what filming days were like and how it felt to have a live audience, he told Hollywood Reporter back in 2013: “Why in the world did we stop? We all decided, ‘You know what? Let’s stop.’ But I’d love to get in a time machine right now and say, ‘Please, let’s not stop!'”.
monica, chandler, phoebe, ross, rachel joey in monica’s apartment in a still from friends season 7
By the tenth and final season, the main cast – including Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courtney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow were said to be earning a whopping $1 million per episode. According to Business Insider, the six were able to get this agreed because they had all negotiated together.
The circumstances had been ripe for this deal too; Friends was said to be averaging 24.7 million viewers a week and was a huge success story for NBC (with no other shows on the horizon that looked likely to be able to replace it).
Having said that, the huge cost of production could have played a part in the decision to eventually end the series while it was on a high with audiences – it’s no mean feat that the Friends finale became the most-watched television episode of the 2000s, and at the time was the fourth-biggest ever for a series ending (via New York Times).
Over 20 years since it first debuted, as Rachel left Barry at that altar to start her new life with her friends, interest in the show is still as big as it’s ever been. The highly-anticipated Friends reunion – with the original six, as well as special guests – is celebrating its legacy, and fans are finally getting to see their favourite stars on that famous sofa once more.
The Friends reunion is available to watch now on HBO Max in the US and on Sky in the UK. It will be broadcast at 8pm tonight (May 27) on Sky One, while it is also available on NOW.
Friends streams on Netflix in the UK, where it also airs daily on Comedy Central. In the US, you can stream the show on HBO Max. The Friends reunion special is available on Sky and NOW in the UK, and HBO Max in the US.
