For fans of some of the best sitcoms in history, it was surely just yesterday. But Exactly 20 years have passed since the end of Friends, the series about six friends who will no longer be able to get together again.. Never more. One of them, actor Matthew Perry, died last year. But His time in multi-award-winning fiction will remain in the memory of many forever..
Released in the United States on September 22, 1994, Friends revolved around six friends, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross, who were coming of age. crossing their paths of loyalty, complicity, confidences and romance, all set in New York in the ’90s. And all nuanced with an unfailing sense of grace.
Starring Courteney Cox Monica), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe), Matt LeBlanc (Joey), Jennifer Aniston (Rachel), Matthew Perry (Chandler) and David Schwimmer (Ross), the series showed its last episode on May 6, 2004, with an overwhelming rating: it was seen by 51 million people.
Since its debut, which was good but did not predict the audiovisual phenomenon that was to come, it has transformed in one of the most watched comedy in history, consecrating its six protagonists, who received awards of all kinds. And being an emblematic cable series, his repetitions made the jump to different platforms of streamingincluding Netflix, on which it is no longer available.
Video
Last scenes of Friends, broadcast on May 6, 2004.
In total, throughout the decade that it was on the air (not counting repetitions, of course), it received 63 Emmy nominationsin categories like “Best comedy series”a statuette he received in 2002, along with six other Emmys.
The ten seasons it aired, which consisted of 236 episodes, They earned him 220 nominations for international television awards, of which he took home 77 statuettes..
The goodbye chapter: a May 6 like today
The last episode of the series opted for a great sequence shot (without cuts) of the empty West Village apartment, and with the keys of the six characters on the table. A while before she had seen him, along with the two babies who, among other things, marked the passage of time for the characters, she had seen them shipping the boxes for the move. It was dismantling a house, it was dismantling a studio in which many felt like family..
David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Matt Leblanc, Courteney Cox, Paul Rudd and Lisa Kudrow in the finale.
The last sandwich of the series remained in Chandler’s mouth. The scene showed that Rachel was asking her friends – almost with a nostalgic pout – if there was a little time left to have coffee and he tells her: “Where?”. It was clear that the site would be Central Perkthe emblematic meeting point where they met daily to talk about life and lost oxen.
Since May 6, fans and many channels were betting that the legend would continue, but to no avail. And, if there was any chance left, The death of Matthew Perry closed that page forever. The news of his death shocked everyone. The actor was found dead in his Pacific Palisades home in Los Angeles, California on October 28, 2023, at the age of 54.
But two years earlier, in 2021, there had been a comeback attempt, with Friends: The Reuniona special that brought together its six again at Stage 24, the main studio where the series was recorded.
For those who want to see it or see it again, it is available in full on the MAX platform, it is a streaming from HBO.
