If the sitcom Friends were a human being, it would be old enough to buy alcohol and rent a car, though not to be used at the same time. When the NBC smash started off in 1994, the Dallas Cowboys were the Super Bowl champs and Tickle Me Elmo wasn't even a thing yet. Perhaps more importantly, the Internet and mobile phones were luxuries in their infancies, and according to Jennifer Aniston, a Friends series created in the tech-savvy 2017 would be a completely different beast.
We were jokingly saying that if Friends was created today, you would have a coffee shop full of people that were just staring into iPhones. There would be no actual episodes or conversations.
So no one told you life was gonna be this way? Maybe Amazon Echo's Alexa would have told you had you just asked. (Clap clap clap clap.) I cannot imagine that Central Perk would have been a more enjoyable experience had everyone been glued to a phone, or if each of the walls would have been covered with giant flat-screen TVs. Of course, Central Perk would probably also be a chain with a store on every corner, and the city would be alive with the clicky din of people hastily typing away on laptops and tablets. Not exactly the kind of thing that made Friends a ratings monster for a decade.
Jennifer Aniston was a guest on the very first Thrive Global podcast from the organization's founder Ariana Huffington, and it was with the internationally famed journalist and businesswoman that the former Friends star shared this mostly benign omen. It's definitely not the first time that people have talked about bringing Friends into today's world, years after the show initially ended on NBC, but it's similar in a non-positive tone. Usually, the reasons for denying any potential reunion talk were put on audiences likely not wanting to watch older versions of the characters we knew and loved in their 20s and 30s. That part doesn't seem so off-putting to me, but I definitely see the lack of appeal in spending 22 minutes listening to Joey talk about Reddit, or having Rachel get hairstyling tips from YouTube videos.
The tech revolution isn't something that's stopping all of NBC's former sitcoms from returning, though. The Will & Grace revival is happening with no issues, and as everyone learned from the mini-episode that was put out ahead of last year's election, these characters have zero problem with embracing the here and now. And nobody was syncing FitBits or flying drones through the room. I mean, just imagine how much more dinosaur news Ross could learn these days. Then again, think of how much more expensive this series would be now.
Also, can you imagine if Friends came back in 2017 and Ben was old enough to have his own kids, turning Ross and Rachel into grandparents? Yeah, this show shouldn't come back at all. Someone make a note of it in an old Nokia's Notes section.
Fans can currently catch all ten seasons of Friends streaming on Netflix. And if you need more shows in your life that you don't know by heart already, check out our summer TV schedule for all the new and returning series hitting the small screen soon.
