The creators of Friends have revealed two episodes of the classic sitcom they regret making. And no, neither is the one where Ross couldn’t handle having a male nanny. Or where Ross tried to hook up with his cousin. Or where he got uncomfortable with his son playing with a Barbie.
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In fact, neither of the storylines involve Ross at all, but a certain Phoebe Buffay.
Speaking at the Friends 25th anniversary panel at the Tribeca TV Festival, writers Marta Kauffman and David Crane first revealed they don’t look back fondly on her stalker storyline – the episode where Lisa Kudrow’s character dates a man (played by David Arquette) who is creeping on her twin sister Ursula.
“We did a lot of rewriting of that to make it work,” Kauffman explained (via THR).
The pair also revealed they weren't too happy with the episode which saw Phoebe dating a Navy lieutenant (played by Charlie Sheen) who contracts chickenpox – “I’m not sure the chickenpox worked either,” Kauffman said.
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Speaking about Friends re-runs airing constantly on TV, Crane continued: “I don’t watch the show at home, but occasionally if I’m travelling it’ll be on and sometimes I’ll see something and I’ll be like, ‘Wow, that actually holds up!’ And there are times where I’m like, ‘Yeah, alright, really? We went with that?’”
Kauffman added: “I watch the show once in a while and it’s much harder for me to enjoy the good moments when there are moments in it that I’m just going, ‘Oh my God, we let that happen? We did it?’”
However, despite some misgivings, the two said that they feel they "got it right" for the most part.
The two also confirmed, once again, that they’d never want to reboot Friends. "We really feel like we did the show that we really wanted to do. We got it right and we put the bow on it,” explained Crane.
“If you visited those characters now, it would just have a different DNA. It would just not be the same show. Chances are it wouldn't be as good as a show."
Thomas is Digital editor at BBC Science Focus. Writing about everything from cosmology to anthropology, he specialises in the latest psychology, health and neuroscience discoveries. Thomas has a Masters degree (distinction) in Magazine Journalism from the University of Sheffield and has written for Men’s Health, Vice and Radio Times. He has been shortlisted as the New Digital Talent of the Year at the national magazine Professional Publishers Association (PPA) awards. Also working in academia, Thomas has lectured on the topic of journalism to undergraduate and postgraduate students at The University of Sheffield.
