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Friends is an American television sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004, lasting ten seasons. [1]
Nov 8, 2019 · When the show first aired on NBC on September 22 at 8.30pm, Friends was ranked as the fifteenth-most-watched television show that week and netted nearly 22 million viewers.
- Rachael Martin
Nov 3, 2024 · Friends, popular American television sitcom that aired on the NBC network from 1994 to 2004. It won six Emmy Awards, including outstanding comedy series, and from its second season until the end of its run maintained a top five or better Nielsen rating, hitting number one in its eighth season.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- About
- Characters
- Storylines and Format
- Production
- Impact
- Awards and Nominations
- Ratings
- Merchandise
- Future
Crane and Kauffman began developing Friends under the title "Insomnia Cafe" in November 1993. They presented the idea to Bright, with whom they had previously worked, and together they pitched a seven-page treatment of the series to NBC. After several script rewrites and changes, the series was finally named "Friends" and premiered on NBC's coveted...
Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Greene, is the spoiled but warm-hearted and likeable daughter of a rich vascular surgeon and his wife. Rachel is introduced into the series in the first episode after she...
The first season introduces the six main characters: Rachel Greene, Monica Geller, Phoebe Buffay, Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing, and Ross Geller. Rachel, who left her fiance at the altar on her wedding day, has come to New York and ends up living with Monica. It establishes early on in the season that Ross has been infatuated with Rachel since the ...
Conception
David Crane and Marta Kauffman began developing three new television pilots — which would premiere in the Fall 1994 season — following the cancellation of their sitcom, Family Album, by CBS in November 1993. Kauffman and Crane decided to pitch the series about "six people in their 20's making their way in Manhattan" to NBC, which they felt best suited the network's style. Crane and Kauffman presented the idea to their production partner Kevin Bright, who had served as executive producer on th...
Broadcast
After the produced pilot lived up to NBC's hopes, the series premiered with the name Friends on September 22, 1994 on the coveted Thursday 8:30 pm timeslot. The pilot aired between Mad About You and Seinfeld, and was watched by almost 22 million American viewers. The series was a huge success throughout its run, and was a staple of NBC's Thursday night line-up, dubbed by the network as Must See TV. When Crane told reporters in 2001 that the ninth season was a possibility, critics believed tha...
Series finale
The series' creators completed the first draft of the hour-long finale in January 2004, four months before its original airing. Crane, Kauffman and Bright decided to watch finales from other sitcoms to prepare the episode's outline, paying attention to what worked and what did not. Kauffman found that they liked the ones which stayed true to the series, citing the finale of The Mary Tyler Moore Showas the gold standard. The writers had difficulty writing the finale, and spent several days thi...
Critical reception
Early reviews of the series were mixed. Tom Feran of The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that the series traded "vaguely and less successfully on the hanging-out style of Seinfeld", while Ann Hodges of the Houston Chronicle called it "the new Seinfeld wannabe, but it will never be as funny as Seinfeld." In the Los Angeles Daily News, Ray Richmond named the series as "one of the brighter comedies of the new season", and The Los Angeles Timescalled it "flat-out the best comedy series of the new se...
Cultural impact
Although the producers thought of Friends as "only a TV show", numerous psychologists investigated the cultural impact of Friends during the series' run. Aniston's hairstyle was nicknamed "The Rachel" and copied around the world. Joey Tribbiani's catchphrase "How you doin'?" has become a popular part of Western English slang, often used as a pick-up line or when greeting friends. The show also popularized the idea of the "laminated list", a list of celebrities that a person's partner will per...
To maintain the series' ensemble format, the main cast members decided to enter themselves in the same acting categories for awards. Beginning with the series' eighth season, the actors decided to submit themselves in the lead actor balloting, rather than in the supporting actor fields. The series was nominated for 63 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning...
U.S. ratings
The 66-minute series finale was named by Entertainment Tonight as the biggest TV moment of the year 2004, and was the second highest rated show in 2004, bringing in 52.5 million viewers (43% of all viewers that night), beaten only by Super Bowl XXXVIII. However, it did not surpass the ratings received by series finales for M*A*S*H (106 m), Cheers (80.4 m) or Seinfeld (76.3 m), nor was it the most watched episode of Friends-that accolade remains with the Season Two episode "The One After The S...
Australian and New Zealand ratings
Friendsdebuted on Australian television in 1996, on the Seven Network. For the first season, it averaged 1,788,000 viewers per episode, and was the 8th most watched regular program that year. The second season aired on the Nine Network by the end of 1996, and took the number 2 position and averaged 2,291,000 viewers per episode. The third season aired in mid-1997 and saw an increase in its position and viewers, being the most watched regular program, averaging 2,543,000 viewers per episode. R...
British and Irish ratings
Friends was originally aired on the terrestrial Channel 4 from 1995 onwards. New episodes were then shown on Sky One in the late 1990s, although the series achieved a more mainstream audience through repeat showings on Channel 4. The program was repeated daily on Channel 4 and S4C in Wales until recently and was until quite recently shown as back to back episodes on E4. However during the summer when the 4 network is overridden by Big Brother it was repeated three times a day usually in betwe...
A wide range of Friends merchandise has been produced by various companies. All ten seasons have been released on DVD individually and as a box set. Warner Bros. has also talked about plans of a future Blu-ray release. Each season release contains special features and footage originally cut from the series. For the first season, each episode is upd...
Joey
After the series finale in 2004, LeBlanc signed on for the spin-off series, Joey, following Joey's move to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career. Kauffman and Crane were not interested in the spin-off, although Bright accepted to executive produce the series with Scott Silveri and Shana Goldberg-Meehan. NBC heavily promoted Joey and gave it Friends Thursday 8:00 pm timeslot. The pilot was watched by 18.60 million American viewers, but ratings continually decreased throughout the series' two...
Film
Following the series finale, rumors began to emerge of a Friends film, although all were proven to be untrue. Rumors of a film reemerged after the release of the Sex and the City film in 2008, which proved to be a success at the box office. The Daily Telegraph reported in July 2008 that the main cast members had agreed to star in the project, and that filming was going to start within the next 18 months. A source commented that "Jennifer, Courteney and the rest of the cast are [eager] to repr...
Reboot
Rumors of a Friends reboot circulated numerous times following the rumor of the movie, which was eventually ruled out. Several cast members, including Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Coxrevealed that they would be open for a reunion, albeit this would depend on the network ordering a reboot to pilot; fans were happy about this, despite the time that had elapsed since Friends had ended, and the current ages of the cast. It was eventually announced that Friends would move to HBO's title streamin...
Friends: Created by David Crane, Marta Kauffman. With Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc. Follows the personal and professional lives of six twenty to thirty year-old friends living in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
- (1.1M)
- 1994-09-22
- Comedy, Romance
- 22
This is the timeline trying to list all events that happened on, before and after the series Friends. The writers keep changing dates and introducing continuity errors through the show, so not everything can be dated correctly.
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Oct 21, 2024 · Friends (1994) (a Titles & Air Dates Guide) Last updated: Mon, 21 Oct 2024 -2:00. Show Details: Start date: Sep 1994. End date: May 2004. Status: cancelled/ended. Network (s): NBC (US) Run time: 30 min.
