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FRIENDS has been a close-to-heart show for its fanbase & as we get closer to its reunion, we’ve started digging into the extremely rare trivia about the show. In an old interview with the creators of the show David Crane and Marta Kauffman, we got to know the idea of how they planned the iconic finale to an iconic show.
Interestingly, the talks of the show getting a finale was on since season 7, but it was the fans’ love that forced the creators to come back every year for three more seasons. They also opened up about the idea of leaving an open-ending for the spin-offs or more seasons.
On deciding the season 10 being a finale, Marta Kauffman, in a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, had said, “It was maybe a little different than other shows, only because we had several years where we thought this was going to be the last year.”
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David Crane added, “Because of the actors’ contract negotiations, and it seemed as though, “Oh, season 7 is the last season.” Or season 8. Or season 9. So each of those seasons, we had an eye toward, “Okay, if this is the last year, what are we doing?” And then amazingly there was arising from the ashes, last-minute: “Oh my god, there is one more season…” To which Kauffman said, “At which point we said: ‘This is it. This is the last. season.'”
David Crane also said, “We can’t keep stopping and starting and rethinking everything. And that also jived with what some of the cast was thinking. The only thing we absolutely knew from very early on was that we had to get Ross and Rachel together. We had dicked the audience around for ten years with their ‘will they or won’t they,’ and we didn’t see any advantage in frustrating them.”
In the same interview, Marta Kauffman opened up about if they had a plan to leave a room in the end for the spin-offs. She said, “Never. We never, ever from the beginning, ever wanted to do a spin-off or Grown-Up Friends or Friends Kids or Baby Friends. We always knew and felt very strongly that not only would it never happen, we never wanted to be part of that because it so rarely works. We just felt like this show is about a certain time in your life, and once you’re past that time in your life, the show is over.”
David Crane added to the same, “Also, it was enough of a job to put the right bow on this to not be worrying about, ‘Well, what are they going to do after this?’ This is done. If anyone wants to … and they did, obviously: Scott [Silveri] and Shana [Goldberg-Meehan] and Matt [LeBlanc] and Kevin went off to do Joey, but at no point did anyone ask us to lay the groundwork for that or prepare for that.”
FRIENDS’ fans, did you know this bittersweet trivia about the ending of the show? Let us know in the comments section below.
