Why did Friends end?
Largely because the Friends cast was growing up
While the cast of Friends has barely aged at all, their characters were aging out of being a crowd that hangs out at a coffee shop every day instead of raising families and nurturing their home lives. (That’s obviously not to say that you can’t do both, but that would have changed the dynamic of the show significantly.) Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman told Entertainment Weekly, “Everybody was growing up. This is part of why the show had to end. This was no longer that time in your life when your friends are your family. You’re starting your own family.” Co-creator David Crane explained that the cast was growing out of their respective roles, so the showrunners basically went into every season thinking it may well be the last. “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?’” he recalled. “And then amazingly there was a rising from the ashes, last minute: ‘Oh my god, there is one more season…’ Season 10, we said, ‘We can’t keep stopping and starting and rethinking everything.’ And that also jived with what some of the cast was thinking.” Crane also told Newsday that even if the cast wanted to return after Season 10, he wouldn’t have wanted the show to continue. “It took us a while to get onboard with the idea of Season 10,” he admitted. “We had to really sort of examine what stories we have left to tell that would justify coming back. I’m glad we did, because I really liked this season a lot. But you don’t want to overstay your welcome.”
Friends creators worried fans would get sick of the show (and especially of Ross and Rachel)
First of all, um, never. That said, Kauffman was concerned that after 10 seasons, the series may get stale. “You don’t want them to feel like, ‘Thank God it’s over!’ And leaving them wanting more is always a nice thing,” she said. What also would have posed a challenge: Ross and Rachel’s storyline, which had clearly run its course. Crane explained, “The only thing we absolutely knew from very early on was that we had to get Ross and Rachel together. We had d**ked the audience around for 10 years with their ‘will they or won’t they,’ and we didn’t see any advantage in frustrating them.” Crane also admitted that the series finale could have taken a different turn for the beloved couple. “We did talk about, with Ross and Rachel, a gray area of where they aren’t together, but we hint there’s a sense that they might be down the road,” he said. “But we thought, ‘No, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it.’”
Jennifer Aniston was rumored to have a tough time in the final season of Friends
Aniston admitted in a 2004 Farewell to Friends special that the end of the series came at a particularly difficult time for her. “I had a couple issues that I was dealing with,” Aniston confessed. “I wanted it to end when people still loved us and we were on a high. And then I also was feeling like, ‘How much more of Rachel do I have in me?’” Though she didn’t specify it at the time, her then-husband Brad Pittwas working on Mr. And Mrs. Smith with Angelina Jolie at the time. Though Aniston and Pitt didn’t announce their split until January 2005, it’s been speculated that, especially since he didn’t attend the final taping of the series finale, there were huge cracks in the marriage at that time. The end of the show, compounded with Pitt’s alleged emotional unavailability to her at the time, made it especially tough on Aniston. “That was really painful. It was a family, and I don’t do great with families splitting up,” Aniston recalled to Vanity Fair in 2005. “It was hard to have such a wonderful constant in your life, a place to go every day, and then all of a sudden it’s not there.” She added of Pitt, “He just wasn’t there for me.” Next, get the inside scoop on the HBO Max Friends reunion!
