Friends: A (Completely Subjective) Look at Ten Historic Seasons
I grew up on Friends. I fell in love with it in junior high, my group of girlfriends was all mutually obsessed with it in high school, and I graduated in 2004, the year the series ended. I threw a Friends finale party just a few weeks before my high school graduation, and I recall the room being filled with crying teenagers, mourning both the loss of our favorite show and what it had come to represent for us, as we (just like the characters on our beloved show) prepared to move on to the next chapter in our adult lives.
Fast-forwarding to the current decade, I have been elated to see Friends recently discovered by a whole new generation of superfans over the past few years (thank you, Netflix!). My 15-year-old self would have killed for the level of Friends merchandise, clothing, online fan communities, and Friends-themed trivia events that now seem to exist everywhere you turn. Some people have noted that the level of Friends fandom and the merchandising bonanza has become a bit too much; while this may be the case, I still can’t help but celebrate the fact that so many new people are falling in love with lots of the same things that made this show so special to me back in the 90s and 00s.
One of my personal favorite Friends-related discussion topics is the evolution of the seasons and which ones I consider to be the pinnacle of Friends’ comedic brilliance. The graph above is my attempt at a completely subjective visualization of the seasons that I think are the cream of the crop and those that aren’t quite the best-of-the-best (but, I do still have a place in my heart for them all… even you, season nine). I have based this visual on both my own opinions as well as what I’ve generally heard as fan sentiment over the years. Admittedly, fan sentiment is a bit tough to quantify, and so consider this graph to be a just-for-fun look into comparing the seasons - a more data-driven approach to comparing Friends seasons (based on IMDB fan ratings or the like) may be a graph topic for another day.
With all the caveats now in place, here’s where I’ve placed each of the seasons (comments and discussion are strongly encouraged on this one!):
Legendary: Seasons 4 & 5
Great: Seasons 2, 3, 6, & 8
Very Good: Seasons 1, 7, & 10
Okay: Season 9
Seasons 4 and 5 were Friends at its strongest, and the ones that I’m most overjoyed to come across in reruns. The show was fully in its groove at that point (but was nowhere near close to overstaying its welcome yet), and the Monica/Chandler relationship had put a massive surge of comedic energy into the show.
Seasons 4 & 5 gave us such gems as “The One with the Embryos” (pictured here), “The One with Ross’s Wedding,” “The One Where Everybody Finds Out,” “The One with All the Resolutions,” and so many other legendary episodes.
Source: NBC
Season 2 was fantastic as well - I could even see a case to be made for putting it in the highest bucket. I ended up grouping it alongside other great seasons: 3, 6, and 8. One season I want to give a quick shoutout to here is season 8 - it truly was a resurgence of the show’s popularity in a post-9/11 world (and also culminated in some Emmy love!). The quality storytelling and the show’s ability to get us to still deeply care about these characters were hugely impressive for a sitcom that had already been on the air for eight years.
Moving into the ‘very good’ range, I’ve put seasons 1, 7, and 10 into this category. I actually have a big soft spot for season 1 - it sometimes feels like a bit of a different show, but there’s something innocent and almost a little bit magical about many of those earliest episodes.
And finally, season 9 is the one season to me that never quite gets into its groove, and started to show some signs of age. Thankfully, the show came back with a strategically shorter season 10 that completely nailed its landing in the final few episodes.
One thing that is fascinating to me about the history surrounding the last few seasons of Friends is just how many times it almost ended. The contract negotiations of the cast was a huge, front-page-caliber news story, and there was a definite risk of the show ending after season 8 (and again after season 9). The revitalized ratings love for the show in season 8 came during a time in the nation’s history (late 2001) when everyone was craving “TV comfort food”; this likely played a big part in saving the show and ultimately giving the fans two more seasons. In February 2002, it was announced that the cast had signed on for $1 million per episode for season 9 (I vividly remember the excitement I felt at the time when the news was announced). The show was again in jeopardy towards the end of season 9, but the cast ultimately signed on for season 10 (alongside a chorus of “we reallllly mean it this time, this season is actually going to be the last one!"). Ten ended up being the magic number, as the series did indeed end after its tenth season, posting a series finale audience of 52.5 million viewers. Due to the recent shifts in TV content viewership and the explosion of streaming platforms, Friends likely will go down in history as the last TV sitcom finale to surpass the 50 million mark.
52.5 million viewers (and nearly that many tears pouring out of my 17-year-old eyes…) marked the occasion of the Friends series finale on May 6, 2004.
Source: NBC
So, here’s to you, Friends. While I’ll always love graphing, discussing, and debating which of your episodes and seasons were the most epic, I also love just appreciating you for what you are: a brilliant, heartfelt, and historic piece of television.