Airing between September 22nd 1994, and May 6th 2004, the Friends TV show became a cult classic. By the time the show ended it’s ten year cycle, more than fifty-two million viewers were tuning in each episode. By this time ten complete seasons had been edited, and the show had screened two-hundred and thirty-six episodes.
The final episode of Friends attracted the most viewers of any episode over its ten year period, confirming the episode as the fourth most watched finale on television. When the show finally came to a close, it remained ranked in the top ten television shows for a full week, and it is still considered to be one of the top television sitcoms in history.
So what is the Friends TV show? Well it was based around a small group of close friends living in Manhattan. Each episode was filmed at the Warner Brothers Studio, in front of an appreciative live audience. During its time on air, the show was nominated for an unprecedented sixty-three Primetime Emmy Awards. By the end of the series, a spin off show called “Joey” had been created.
If you were not fortunate enough to have seen the show as a sitcom, it used to air every Thursday. It was one of those shows that for half an hour, and sometimes an hour each week, people would laugh, cry and the share the episode at work the next day.
Typically with any sitcom, there were characters, six in total, who you would fall in love with, and sometimes hate. Two of the main characters, Rachel Green and Monica Geller, were always the best of friends. Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston were the two actors who played these parts. Rachel was a skilled enthusiast of fashion, whilst Monica earned her reputation as the Mother hen to all of the friends. The third of the girls in the show was Phoebe Buffay who was played by Lisa Kudrow. She was not only a masseuse, but a very eccentric self taught musician.
Then there was Monica’s brother, Ross Geller, a part played by David Schwimmer. He worked as a palaeontologist at a local museum. One of the most popular and recognized characters was Joey, somewhat of a womanizer. and played by Matt Le Blanc. Last but not at all least, was the character of Chandler Bing, a part played by Matthew Perry. He eventually married Monica in the 3rd last season.
Seven years on, the show is still being aired as reruns, and the DVD collection is available for people who enjoy watching episodes over and over. Friends was known to be responsible for a massive cultural impact. As an example of this, the Central Perk Coffee house has in fact inspired so many other coffee houses around the world.
The Friends TV season was a huge success for NBC. No other TV show since has seemed to have recieved the same amount of success as that of the Friends TV show
