Monica's apartment became as much of a character on the show as any one of the series' six friends, and it served as the backdrop for many of the show's most iconic scenes. Found inside – Page 8Thus viewers would have to wait until the next season to find out if network ... In the final episode, the visiting best friend of main character Billy ... The thinking was that a still-homeless Phoebe saw a group in Central Perk and proceeded to imagine having a friendship with these people, who were all so very different from her, as a means of coping with her devastating reality of living a violent street life. And then, after stopping herself from admitting her feelings for him and still somehow sabotaging his vows, she ended up stranded by Ross on a flight to his Grecian honeymoon! From behind him, Rachel appears and says she did, and they get back together for good. After so many scenes of him not being ready for this or that, it was fitting that he'd have one last adjustment to acclimate to before the final credits rolled on their story. In Canada, the finale aired simultaneously on May 6, 2004, on Global, and was viewed by 5.16 million viewers,[3] becoming the highest viewed episode of the series. and they all laugh as they head down the hallway. Television's most popular series finale ever, "M-A … Even though Phoebe and Mike were looking to expand their budding family —and even though Ross and Rachel were getting back together, too — none of the main characters wanted to take over the apartment. Back at Monica and Chandler's apartment, Ross decides not to tell Rachel, for fear of rejection. Filming took place at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California; part one was filmed on January 16, and part two on January 23. The last episode that aired, the Season 7 finale in 2017, attracted a series high of 16.5 million viewers . One shown after the Super Bowl in 1996 was seen by 52.9 million viewers. Friends came to an end in 2004, a decade after viewers first watched its cast sip mugs of coffee at Central Perk. A decade later, the beloved sitcom is still all around us through omnipresent reruns, ceaseless requests for a reunion and, of course, the undying celebrity of its six stars. Found inside – Page 71Friends (NBC, 1994–2004) Friends, anchoring NBC's Thursday night Must See TV ... the series finale (not close to as many viewers as for Seinfeld's finale, ... The will-they-or-won't-they saga of Ross and Rachel began in the Friends pilot and kept right on chugging up until the end. "[11] The producers promised a tearful ending, and the cast admitted their crying was not faked when they filmed their scenes. It had no bearing on what we were doing for the finale.". Found insideA best friend would like you if you're poor or have buck teeth, ... And closure is what this mega-hyped series finale gives loyal and faithful viewers who ... Found inside – Page 91... History Following a chance meeting with his old friend Katie O'Connell of ... fewer than 3 million viewers tuning in to the second season finale.13 In ... She explained that the cast was "all just nerves and raw emotions ... No one knows how to feel. [10], A month before the filming of the final episode, Aniston said that with each episode it got "harder just to read the lines." The finale of the first Survivor series, which aired in August 2000, came in at a close second, drawing about 51.7 million viewers. Note: If you’re not seeing the updated chart, please try reloading the page or view it here. This allowed When it came to pets, the friends' choices of companions were odd (for example, Ross' monkey Marcel), but Chandler and Joey's baby chick and duck became an important part of the series for a long time. It was written by series creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman, and directed by executive producer Kevin S. Bright. So, how did the last episode, which featured a walk through Monica's purple apartment, tie together the group's ten years of relationship drama, career challenges, and personal pratfalls while ending on a high note? [21], The episode was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards at the 56th Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Multi-Camera Sound Mixing for a Series or Special and Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing for a Series, but lost to the final season of Frasier in both categories. [4], The music playing as the camera pans across the empty apartment at the end of the episode is "Embryonic Journey" by Jefferson Airplane. Prior to the airing of the episode, a one-hour retrospective of clips from previous episodes was shown. M*A*S*H // 1983. LOS ANGELES – "Friends" (search) was a friend to the end for NBC, with the sitcom's final episode boosting the network to its best weekly showing in two years. At his apartment, Joey shows Phoebe his house-warming gift for Monica and Chandler: a chick and duckling to replace the ones that died. In other categories ''Friends'' also hit ratings numbers that seemed a throwback to a different era of network television. "[28], An editorial in USA Today highlighted the view of many critics who found problem with the aging cast, commenting, "Friends was getting creaky even as it remained popular. However, it wasn't just about ending their journeys; it was also about beginning new ones. Closure. The fact that Joey ended up happening also had no influence on the script, as David Crane insisted, "That was its own thing. Viewing parties were organized by local NBC affiliates around the United States, including an event at Universal CityWalk featuring a special broadcast of the finale on an outdoor Astrovision screen. Some 52 million American viewers tuned in to bid the “Friends” adieu, the fourth-largest finale audience in history. Its viewership continues to grow, even after seven seasons. Friends is my favorite TV series hands-down. I need a comforting show on in order to sleep, and Friends is that show for me. Every other season gets 4.5- 5 stars from me, but season 10 is the only season that gets 4. The quality of storyline just wasn’t as strong as previous seasons. From here, there will be SPOILERS. [19][20], The finale was watched by 52.5 million American viewers[1] making it the most watched entertainment telecast in six years, and the most watched episode of the decade 2000s on U.S. television. That means more that half the audience in that age group watching television at that hour watched ''Friends. The “Friends” finale, which aired May 6, 2004, had 52.46 million viewers, making it one of the most watched final episodes of a TV series in history. The Friends finale was the fourth most watched overall series finale in U.S. television history, behind the finales of M*A*S*H, Cheers and Seinfeld, which were watched by 105.9, 84.4 and 76.3 million viewers, respectively. Once reality set in that not taking another chance at their romance meant putting an actual ocean between them though, Ross wisened up and finally declared his love for Rachel — despite a little hesitation after watching Gunther (played by James Michael Tyler) crash and burn with a similar reveal. Ross didn't get the answer he wanted right away, of course, but, once Rachel realized she wanted a forever with him too, she went back to Ross. And after meeting the new little birds, we learned that the original chick and duck had died — though Phoebe swept in to spare Joey's feelings by saying they "dove headfirst into fun on the farm." But it's far from the most watched series finale of all time. Chandler and Joey, who are emotionally attached to the foosball table, find they are unable to break it open, but Monica does gleefully with a crowbar and mallet. Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) leaves Ross Geller's (David Schwimmer) bedroom after their apparent reunion in the previous episode. As a whole, the series' showrunners intended for the Friends series finale to mark an end to the moment when people tend to lean on their friends the most. Joey, which initially snagged Friends ' coveted Thursday at 8 p.m. timeslot, premiered to 18.6 million viewers. "We always knew that we basically had to end with them leaving Monica and Chandler's apartment," co-creator Marta Kauffman explained. Found insideThis season had done admirably in the ratings scramble, averaging about 3.6 million US viewers per episode, with the season finale bagging a respectable 4.1 ... Even casual viewers of the show have probably heard how this show ends since it's one of the most popular sitcoms ever. It even nosed out the most-watched reality show finale, the last episode of the original ''Survivor'' on CBS four years ago, which brought in 51.7 million viewers. "[31], The cast members reportedly got together in Los Angeles; David Schwimmer, who plays Ross, said, "It's exactly what I had hoped. On Friends, Cox played Monica Geller, a caring and neurotic friend who shared an apartment with her best pal … "[4] [9] At the party at the Park Plaza Hotel, The Rembrandts performed the theme song of Friends, "I'll Be There for You", and the cast gave a re-enactment of the pilot episode's first scene. Sure, she still tried to mother some "rat babies," and it took him a while to come around to the idea of remarrying after the bitter experience of his divorce, but the same woman who'd once played around on a barge and spent her formative years escaping a mental patient in a tire yard started seeing herself as a wife and mother. Found inside – Page 139Among the iconic final images viewers were left with in the series finale is the ... and is now reuniting with other friends who have died—“some before you, ... Friends has never gone on a break, and this is the story of how it all happened. In this episode, Jerry and George 's Jerry pilot is finally picked up as a series by NBC. The idea earned enough attention to eventually elicit an official response from Marta Kauffman, who shut it down as "a terrible theory" and called it "the saddest thing [she'd] ever heard" in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. [9] Although some guests were invited, around 75% of the studio audience were 'ordinary' members of the public so that their reactions would be congruous with the rest of the series. The Insecure TV series has done well in the ratings for HBO but it’s been more than a year since the last season aired. Unsurprisingly, the UK audience was once again there for their favorite sitcom 17 years later. This was made possible by the behemoth of a streaming deal between Netflix and WarnerMedia, which cost the former $80 million to $100 million, according to some reports, to continue licensing the show for 2019. However, some media sources are saying the deal could continue for multiple years after that. The "Friends" finale was the second most-watched TV show of the year, behind the Super Bowl, which had almost 90 million viewers. So, when Monica and Chandler decided to move into a house, the place that had been such a hot commodity for the six — and was even involved a betting war between the girls and the guys one time — was suddenly available to new occupants. NEXT: 8 Unpopular Opinions About Ross On Friends (According To Reddit) Its finale episode garnered, at the time, the fourth-largest audience for a show's ending ever with a whopping 52.5 million people tuning in. Kauffman found that she liked the ones that stayed true to the series. Survivor: Season 41 Contestants and Premiere Teased by CBS (Watch) Tom Swift: The CW Orders Nancy Drew Spin-Off Series for 2021-22 Season … By the end of its run, Friends had transformed into a pop culture phenomenon. [9], 17th and 18th episodes of the tenth season of Friends, fifth most watched overall television series finale, "Friends finale draws over 5 million in Canada", "Outstanding Multi-Camera Sound Mixing For A Series Or Special", "Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing For A Series", "Complete list of primetime Emmy nominations", "The Long Farewell is Over; Lots of Fans, Little Fanfare for Mich-Anticipated Finale of, The One with Monica and Chandler's Wedding, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Last_One_(Friends)&oldid=1036671090, Short description is different from Wikidata, Television episode articles with short description for multi-part episodes, Television episode articles with short description and disambiguated page names, Pages using infobox television episode with unnecessary manual displaytitle, Pages using infobox television episode with unnecessary title parameter, Pages using infobox television episode with image-related values without an image, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, "It may have been impossible for any one episode to live up to the hype and expectations built up around the, This page was last edited on 2 August 2021, at 01:27. Found inside – Page 10Television shows about friendship and dating that take place in New York City like ... with five of the six friends happily paired off by the series finale. The television season was once as certain as death and taxes. Joey decides to bring home a new chick and duck — affectionately named Chick Jr. and Duck Jr. — as a gift for Monica and Chandler. As we learned in the last episode, it was a home for every one of them at some point in their lives. Found insidePulling in almost 53 million viewers (the most for the show in its history—but more on that later), Friends emerged as the true winner of the Super Bowl ... Found insideFINALE. The finales of popular TV shows like M*A*S*H or Friends are big media events, wrapping up the series neatly and bringing in huge numbers of viewers. Found inside – Page 146Nevertheless, for many viewers, Seinfeld was funnier; others loved the new ... a series finale that drew over fiftyYmillion viewers, and an everYrabid ... 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