Friends

[TheBakersSon]

I enjoyed it, I laughed a lot and it was great to look back at some funny moments. I didn’t know how Matt LeBlanc ended up in the sling so that was interesting.

Thankfully James Corden was not used as much as I dreaded and I could have done with Kit, Beckham etc. telling me what happens in a particular scene, I know, I’ve watched it before!

also Matt LeBlanc back in the day so was damn sexy.

 

[cleggar]

I absolutely loved it, it made me so warm and fuzzy. I wished it was three hours long, it was so touching.

 

[HolyWater]

I really really enjoyed it. A little bit of filler which wasn’t necessary, we didn’t need to hear David Beckham & Kit Harington’s thoughts on Friends. All of the focus should’ve been on the cast and the special guests over the years.

 

[_Gru_]

David Beckham will jump on any popular bandwagon to get publicity for brand Beckham.

I thought it was just ok myself, certainly didn’t live up to my high expectations but hey what would? I kinda think they should’ve waited until 2024 though to give it more purpose.

 

[Mvnl]

I've yet to start watching but it's more of a 'celebration' than a 'tell-all documentary' I assume?
Which I guess is fine but also a lot less interesting to me than 'what was it all really like for you guys'

 

[SockMonkey]

I enjoyed it. I think I would have preferred some sort of moderated round table discussion rather than J*mes C*rd*n reading pieces of paper.

I’m sure I saw a publicity shot of one of the ‘fashion show’ turns being Monica’s turkey on the head. Guess they cut it.

Any celebrity talking heads or appearances should have been strictly limited to people who were in it. Gunther’s 28 seconds was just weird. “Hi, I really loved being part of it.” OK BYE NOW.

On the whole it was weirdly constructed but nice to see them all together. It’s nice that their friendships are real and genuine, it’s warm and comforting.

 

[Drew]

I've yet to start watching but it's more of a 'celebration' than a 'tell-all documentary' I assume?
Which I guess is fine but also a lot less interesting to me than 'what was it all really like for you guys'

I don't think there's anything to 'tell' really. They've always been open about how they felt during the show - that they cared for one and other, were incredibly grateful, and while the fame aspect can be hard they leaned on each other. The biggest story out of the reunion being Jennifer and David had crushes on each other in the first season is pretty on brand - sweet, comforting, and mostly innocent. That's always been the backstage narrative of Friends and now 25 years down the line I think its safe to say it isn't just narrative - it was the reality of that atmosphere.

 

[thequinntessential]

I have very mixed feelings after watching this. Of course seeing all of them together again was special and emotional but after you see what HBO Max did with the Fresh Prince reunion, this felt so underwhelming at times. There was just so many poor decisions made and it was way too "Hollywood".

First of all, whoever edited this should be fired. What a hot mess.

Everything looked so rushed and way too fast paced. I wish they had just chilled out and let things be a bit more natural in its flow and style. Even the cast looked a bit confused about what was going on at times. It was bit disconnected.

It was trying to be part biography, part talk show, part celeb fawning, part retrospective, it was just a lot of different angles going on for less than 2 hours; combine that with all the back and forth segments, it was too all over the place and lacked focus.

I wish instead of celebrity talking heads they had used that for Maggie Wheeler, Tom Selleck, Christina Pickles, etc. and even the Friends themselves would have been nice to have had solo segments too.

The international segment with random people all over the world telling their stories was awkward and unnecessary. The fashion show was stupid (except at the very end; I won't spoil it) tho the cast seemed to enjoy it and get into it. I wish for the fashion show, they had brought out other 90s supermodels in addition to Cindy like Naomi, Tyra, Linda, etc. to spotlight the era the show aired in instead of Cara... I mean, no Jill Goodacre?!

The celebrity cameos were awful for the most part. I will never understand the decision to do all this stunt casting. Nobody asked for it nor wanted it. They didn't need to do that. It just killed the intimate vibe and set up the reunion had going for it. If you're going to do celeb cameos, they could have brought out Isabella Rosselini, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn. At least they actually were a part of the show at one point.

I was a little confused by the Lady Gaga cameo especially. I love her but the idea/skit was very awkward and kind of fell flat. It took me a while to realize they were paying homage to the Smelly Cat commercial episode. While that episode was funny, it's not really an iconic or super memorable moment that needed to be featured. It just didn't work. Even Lisa Kudrow seemed unaware of what was going on and seemed completely taken aback by it and not in the Phoebe acting way.

I'm surprised it wasn't Taylor Swift. That cameo would have made way more sense since she brought out Lisa Kudrow for a duet on one of her tours and they have similar style & quirkiness and good chemistry together.

I can't believe they gave so much time to someone unrelated to Friends like David Beckham and Kit Harrington who nobody cared to hear when they gave a pathetic 10 seconds to favourites like Christina Pickles and Elliot Gould (who didn't even speak) who were an incredibly important part of the show along with Gunther and Janice.

I wish someone else had produced/directed this reunion and at least waited until COVID was completely over. It could have been so much better.

 

[chriscrk]

dd NOT Reese Witherspoon saying "each character is so distinct, that they could hold the television show by themselves"; are we just going to forget Joey's existence?

 

[Lately]

I gotta say, I was pleasently surprised by this. I loved Friends just like any sane person but I haven't been one of those who keep rewatching it religiously. I was zero excited for this but I couldn't help but have a smile on my face through most of it. The celebrity cameos and random people testimonies were unnecessary but overall it was a pleasent experience.

 

[Mike]

My expectations weren't high, but I enjoyed it for what it was. Editing and pacing was all over the place, and there's no way we should have spent more time hearing from David Beckham and Kit Harington than Elliott Gould and Christina Pickles, but overall a fun watch.

I'm also glad they were so definitive in saying that this is the last word on the show. It's high time the world's most tired 'slow news day' staple was put to bed. We don't need another show unravelling all its happy endings in the name of milking the cash cow yet further. We have Sex And The City for that already.

 

[ZsDbk88]

I agree it was all over the place and that it should have been directed better but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Corden really wasn't that much in it so he didn't ruin anything and Matt actually seemed ok, not sure what was going on in that recent interview. Guests were ok I guess, they all breezed through. I mean, Gaga was the longest and that is only because she sang a song with Lisa.

Overall it was simply fun and sweet. If anything, my family decided to rewatch the series again, my brother and I keep joking around with PIVOT! since we watched the reunion.

 

[thequinntessential]

I wish they had done the reunion with NBC who originally aired the series. We'd have gotten that more traditional retroactive/retrospective reunion rather than the HBO Max quasi-documentary approach.

 

[dylanaber]

The way I screamed when Malala came out.

I enjoyed this, the six of them gave you what you wanted, and once you know it's just a one-off and they're all being paid $2million apiece there was little else it could have been beyond this very expensive and sentimental tick-bock celebration of the show's mythology. For what it was it was perfectly satisfying, and had just the right amount of 'how much of a budget did they have for this' absurdity to make it feel a little bit camp as well.

 

[SBK]

We'd have gotten that more traditional retroactive/retrospective reunion rather than the HBO Max quasi-documentary approach

I don't think a documentary style would have been bad, I just wish they had picked one documentary style, rather than doing 4 kinds and mashing them up.

 

[Vasilios]

This was good, only Gaga's cameo was an event. Imagine not being spoiled and watching that live?

 

[thequinntessential]

I don't think a documentary style would have been bad, I just wish they had picked one documentary style, rather than doing 4 kinds and mashing them up.

Yeah, very true. Good point. It was very sloppily structured which really took me by surprise especially after how well done and well executed the Fresh Prince reunion was.

 

[Andrew]

@thequinntessential the Smelly Cat Music Video Episode, is iconic, I know that doesn't happen to every episode, but it is a big deal

 

[bonnieetclyde]

I have very mixed feelings after watching this. Of course seeing all of them together again was special and emotional but after you see what HBO Max did with the Fresh Prince reunion, this felt so underwhelming at times. There was just so many poor decisions made and it was way too "Hollywood".

First of all, whoever edited this should be fired. What a hot mess.

Everything looked so rushed and way too fast paced. I wish they had just chilled out and let things be a bit more natural in its flow and style. Even the cast looked a bit confused about what was going on at times. It was bit disconnected.

It was trying to be part biography, part talk show, part celeb fawning, part retrospective, it was just a lot of different angles going on for less than 2 hours; combine that with all the back and forth segments, it was too all over the place and lacked focus.

I wish instead of celebrity talking heads they had used that for Maggie Wheeler, Tom Selleck, Christina Pickles, etc. and even the Friends themselves would have been nice to have had solo segments too.

The international segment with random people all over the world telling their stories was awkward and unnecessary. The fashion show was stupid (except at the very end; I won't spoil it) tho the cast seemed to enjoy it and get into it. I wish for the fashion show, they had brought out other 90s supermodels in addition to Cindy like Naomi, Tyra, Linda, etc. to spotlight the era the show aired in instead of Cara... I mean, no Jill Goodacre?!

The celebrity cameos were awful for the most part. I will never understand the decision to do all this stunt casting. Nobody asked for it nor wanted it. They didn't need to do that. It just killed the intimate vibe and set up the reunion had going for it. If you're going to do celeb cameos, they could have brought out Isabella Rosselini, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn. At least they actually were a part of the show at one point.

I was a little confused by the Lady Gaga cameo especially. I love her but the idea/skit was very awkward and kind of fell flat. It took me a while to realize they were paying homage to the Smelly Cat commercial episode. While that episode was funny, it's not really an iconic or super memorable moment that needed to be featured. It just didn't work. Even Lisa Kudrow seemed unaware of what was going on and seemed completely taken aback by it and not in the Phoebe acting way.

I'm surprised it wasn't Taylor Swift. That cameo would have made way more sense since she brought out Lisa Kudrow for a duet on one of her tours and they have similar style & quirkiness and good chemistry together.

I can't believe they gave so much time to someone unrelated to Friends like David Beckham and Kit Harrington who nobody cared to hear when they gave a pathetic 10 seconds to favourites like Christina Pickles and Elliot Gould (who didn't even speak) who were an incredibly important part of the show along with Gunther and Janice.

I wish someone else had produced/directed this reunion and at least waited until COVID was completely over. It could have been so much better.

Spoiler

So you HATED it.

 

[bonnieetclyde]

I did enjoy this. I will agree, some of the editing was a bit off here and there but overall I had a great time reminiscing and seeing them all together again. James Corden was actually fine. If it was an entire show of him asking them questions then of course it would have been a nightmare but in total he was probably on screen for, what, 20 minutes out of the 1 hour and 30?

It might have been nice for the show's writers to have written them a little new scene they could have recorded at the end or something (other than the round-table read throughs of old scenes) but other than that I think the show worked fine and I was entertained.

I agree with everyone that there's no need for Friends the movie or a new series etc. You end up going down the Will & Grace routine of un-doing what you've done before and ultimately repeating the same storylines for no real purpose.