Why “Friends” is still the world’s favourite sitcom, 25 years on

By J.T.

“LOOK AROUND, you guys,” says Chandler Bing to his newly adopted twins, as his friends and family leave his apartment for the last time. “This was your first home. And it was a happy place, filled with love and laughter. But more important, because of rent control, it was a friggin’ steal!” The Bing twins would be 15 now, and September 22nd marks a quarter of a century since the “Friends” gang made their debut on NBC. Their floppy haircuts, enormous phones and quaint dating rituals belong to a distant past, in which coffee was seldom pumpkin-spiced and people jotted down their contact details on napkins. Yet somehow, decades on, the happy place that Chandler describes—and the 236 episodes of love and laughter that occurred there—remains the world’s favourite location for an evening’s entertainment.

For proof of the enduring charm of “Friends”, consider that in late 2018 Netflix paid the programme’s owner, WarnerMedia, about $100m for the right to stream it for the next 12 months. That is not far shy of the $130m that it reportedly spent producing “The Crown”, its most expensive original show. Netflix is secretive with its data, but estimates from Nielsen, a research firm, suggest that “Friends” was the second-most watched programme among American subscribers in 2018, with an average of more than 20 episodes per account. Devoted fans might have to switch next year to HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s new streaming service, which will have exclusive rights to “Friends” in the United States.

In Britain figures released by Ofcom, a broadcasting watchdog, disclose that twice as many people watch the comedy on Netflix as stream any other show on any other service. And data from Google reveal that, even though “Friends” is now available on subscription services, more people around the world use the search engine to look for it than for any other sitcom. (Google identifies whether people are seeking the show, rather than “friends” in general, from the context of other keywords, such as “watch” or “episode”. A spokesperson confirmed that the data in our chart, below, accurately represented the relative popularity of various shows.) Other sitcoms released since “Friends” finished have briefly overtaken it, including “The Office”, “How I Met Your Mother” and “The Big Bang Theory”. But eventually viewers break up with them, and return to the gang in Central Perk.

What has made the popularity of “Friends” so long-lasting? The show is certainly funny, but no more so than its rivals. Critics often point out that the humour of “Seinfeld” is more sophisticated in the way that it contorts everyday situations into hilarious episodes. The cringe-inducing interactions of a boss and his employees in “The Office” induce more belly laughs. By contrast, “Friends” gets most of its gags from its characters’ foibles: a pretentious one (Ross), a vain one (Rachel), an insecure one (Chandler), an uptight one (Monica), a stupid one (Joey) and an eccentric one (Phoebe).

Plenty of sitcoms before and since have relied on such a clash of personalities to make the audience chuckle. Where “Friends” stands out is its ability to make viewers care about those characters. It achieved this partly by weaving them together romantically. The decade-long “will-they-won’t-they” intrigue between Ross and Rachel at times turned the comedy into a soap opera. Chandler and Monica began the show as acquaintances and ended it as spouses and parents.

But the scriptwriters did not merely develop these relationships over the series’ ten years. The best-reviewed episodes on IMDb, a ratings website, tend to be those which delved into the past: either through flashbacks, recovered video-tapes or interactions with parents. By the time the last episode aired in 2004, the 50m Americans who tuned in had learned almost everything there was to know about the six characters. (The strength of the series finale, which has the highest rating on IMDb of any episode, has undoubtedly helped its legacy.)

The other great appeal of “Friends” is its idealistic portrait of 20-something life. The theme tune claims to be about a quarter-life crisis: “So no-one told you life was gonna be this way / Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love-life’s DOA [dead on arrival]”. Yet none of the characters spends much time at work, or worries too keenly about their income. The rent control that Chandler describes in the final episode is rarely mentioned, but it means that Monica can pay $200 a month for her flat in the West Village, rather than the estimated $8,000 it would cost today. All of the characters have exciting romantic lives—and with much funnier and more attractive partners than the audience could ever hope for.

This is surely why the show continues to find new, young fans. A survey this year of British children aged nine to 16 found that “Friends” was their favourite series, even though most of them were born after the final episode aired. What could be more captivating than a vision of your future in which you are no longer weighed down by school, but instead spend most of your time larking around with close friends in an enormous apartment, while Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon flit in and out of your lives?

Some aspects of “Friends” have aged badly. A few jokes about gay characters now seem clumsily homophobic, and Chandler’s father, a trans woman, is often used as a punchline. But the warmth that the writing brings to viewers in search of light entertainment after an enervating day has endured. They’ll be there for you.