It’s amazing how incredibly sad the Friends theme can sound when it’s played in a minor key, isn’t it? Travis Clark of Business Insider is just one of many that are breaking the bad news for those that happen to love watching the old Friends episodes again and again that the show is leaving Netflix eventually and will be moving to HBO Max. So in truth it’s not going away forever, it’s just switching networks, but to some people this seems to be incredibly sad news for some reason as they might not want to make the switch for one show or pick up another bill that they can’t pay for. Life is just full of tough choices isn’t it? At this point it’s hard to think that a lot of people don’t have the entire collection of Friends episodes on DVD or somehow saved on their PC so they can watch it over and over, and over. Yeah, you get the point I hope.
Becca Bleznak of the CheatSheet has made it known that the cost of keeping Friends is just too great at this time for Netflix, which has been making a habit of doling out original content for some time now and has let go of other properties they were paying for as well. In fact to keep all ten seasons for just one more year cost upwards of $100 million, which is a pretty hefty sum considering that they could put that into their own productions and come up with something brand new that would possibly keep their subscribers happy. But of course those that love Friends and managed to follow it all the way until 2004 when the show was over and done with want to see their favorite show stick around, so Netflix felt willing to oblige them for a while. At this point however the cost is no longer worthwhile and as a result it would seem that things are going to change.
But the idea of people being this upset over it definitely inspired a song worthy of the 90s or possibly early 2000s since the artist in the clip above did a great job but also made the normally upbeat song into something that sounds insanely tragic. If Friends had been more drama and less comedy it might have fit, but as it stands this seems like the feeling that lot of people might be getting since the idea of losing a show or seeing it go somewhere they can’t watch it whenever they want seems to be a major catastrophe for some and kind of a minor inconvenience for others. Of course this is only true if you happened to care about the show since there were still plenty of people that either watched it when there was nothing else on or didn’t watch it all and thus didn’t get a lot of pop culture references that were pertinent at the time. Somehow those of us that didn’t watch survived it would seem, but those that were so deep into the show actually seemed to weep for a few minutes before moving on with their lives and finding something else to watch on their downtime.
Some folks still wonder how this show became so popular and why it lasted as long as it did, and the answer is pretty simple. It’s the characters that drove the story and it’s because they weren’t perfect or even down to earth all the time that made them great. Even if you didn’t watch the show for more than an episode it wasn’t hard to pick up just how the main characters reacted around each other versus everyone else to see who they were really supposed to be. At times they were awful, other times they were just silly, and at other times they seemed like the type of people you might hang out with but feel the need to roll your eyes at when it came to their antics. In short they were the regular people we hang out with and live with on a normal basis within a show that was meant to be off the wall and kind of silly as a rule.
Friends lasted for an entire decade so it’s hard to say that it wasn’t a good show as this would be a matter of perspective and not one that a lot of people might support. But to be honest after having seen a couple of episodes it was a touching and sometimes very funny program that earned its fans and had a lot of fun by not taking itself too seriously at all times. With that in mind it’s either best to remember it fondly or switch providers and get HBO Max so you can keep watching it. As for the haunting rendition above, it’s impressive to say the least.
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