Photo courtesy of LRD615, Flickr
At the end of last month, Jennifer Aniston’s throwback Instagram post of the Friends cast went viral as it included an important note: the show is coming back for a reunion special on HBO Max.
While this intrigues superfans and had social media in an enthusiastic uproar, it is hard not to question if this sequel is necessary.
The show ended perfectly; each character’s storyline was wrapped up, there were no plot holes and the final moments of the six friends leaving their keys on the counter of the famous apartment is unforgettable. There’s nothing else to add.
Spinoffs and sequels to popular television series have been the most popular and the most boring money grabs in the entertainment industry throughout the twenty-first century. The TV series Ravenswood, a Pretty Little Liars spinoff, is forgettable. The Sam and Cat spinoff was simply unnecessary, and we do not talk about Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior.
The Friends franchise, however, already has a sequel you don’t want to remember.
This will not be the first time the franchise released a sequel to the show. After its end, a sequel to the story titled “Joey” aired for one season.
The show followed character Joey Tribbiani as he lived a single, lonely life in the city without his friends by his side. On top of all of this, his acting career was failing and he held a sour persona throughout the series, the opposite of the personality that fans grew to love.
The reason why the one-season series did not last was because it simply was not at the standard that “Friends” possessed, featuring terrible writing and lack of interesting characters. It is difficult to even find the one season of “Joey” in full, as the franchise attempted to erase the sequel from existence.
One would assume that if a past sequel was a miserable failure, the franchise would not attempt at creating another. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
With this in mind, there are many questions to ask about the upcoming reunion special. For example, is the “Joey” storyline being thrown out the window? Also, how far in the future will the show be in comparison to the series’ ending?
These are questions that will hopefully be answered in the special, but not much information has been given about it. Jennifer Aniston had a mere two words about the series which had fans going wild all over the internet: “It’s happening…”
It is clear that the new addition to the show is nothing short of a straight money move for both HBO and the cast. However, I will give it a chance once I know someone with an HBO Max login that I can use. In this case, I guess I’ll never watch it.
ddeange1@ramapo.edu
