Fans have certainly been clamoring for a Friends reunion and the cast doesn’t seem opposed to the idea. However, Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman has been vocal more than once about the fact that she does not want a reunion to happen. Recently, the Friends creator explained exactly why she feels the incredibly popular nineties sitcom doesn’t need to return in any way, shape or form. Apparently, it has a lot to do with what Kauffman has been able to accomplish on her Netflix series Grace & Frankie. Here’s what she had to say at the TCA winter press tour:
For me, why go back to that territory again? I get to do [on Grace & Frankie] what I loved about Friends, which is, make a show that's got some hope and joy to it and explore something completely new. That was about a certain time in your life, and I had just left the Friends time of my life. This is about the time of my life I'm looking toward.
In a lot of ways this makes sense. Friends was a series about young people living in New York City and making connections that seemingly served as support systems and really, as family. Marta Kauffman is a lot older than she was when she was writing episodes for Friends. The will they or won’t they plotlines and the goofy shenanigans Ross, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Rachel and Chandler got up to may not be as easy to write as something like Grace & Frankie, which follows the friendship between two retired women who are getting divorced after they learn their husbands have been having an affair for years. In addition, TV has changed in the years since Friends aired.
Still, at the panel (via Us Weekly), she also called the continued popularity of Friends “shocking,” which is an odd response. You would think if you had co-created a series that later resonated with millions and millions of people around the world years and years later, you’d be proud and grateful. Still, Marta Kauffman is not a woman who holds back when it comes to her thoughts on the NBC sitcom that made her a much bigger player in the TV industry, even pointing out that she thought the cast’s salaries were ludicrous back in the day.
NBC, in fact does have a sort-of Friends reunion coming up in 2016 as part of a special meant to pay homage to longtime comedy director James Burrows. Burrows helmed several episodes of Friends back in the day, and at first it seemed as if the entire cast would be reuniting to pay tribute to the popular director. Unfortunately, now it looks as if Matthew Perry will be unable to attend, making the reunion a little bit less exciting than it initially seemed.
It’s clear that Friends is still really popular among its fans and that a reunion might one day happen between the cast members, even if it doesn’t come in the form of a reboot. In terms of revisiting Friends, however, it’s very clear that Marta Kauffman is out.
