Coronavirus Casualty: ‘Friends’ Reunion Show Delayed Until They Can Have a Live Audience, So Much For ‘I’ll Be There For You’

Some Friends these are. Fans of the insanely popular ‘90s sitcom have been freaking out about the upcoming reunion show, which was supposed to drop on May 27, when HBO Max launches. Well, they’ll have to wait a little longer. Or forever.

That’s because production of the much-anticipated episode is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. To add insult to injury, WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct-to-Consumer chairman Bob Greenblatt is holding off on filming the episode until a live audience is available. That could mean delaying the taping well into summer. So much for all that “I’ll be there for you” crap.

“We do think there’s a value to having a big, raucous live audience to experience these six great friends coming back together and we didn’t want to just suddenly do it on a web call with, you know, six squares and people shooting from their kitchens and bedrooms,” Greenblatt told Variety earlier this week.

While we agree that watching Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Monica (Courteney Cox), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Joey (Matt LeBlanc), Chandler (Matthew Perry), and Ross (David Schwimmer) on webcams would be lame, acting as if a live audience is going to make the reunion show any less cheesy is naïve. (We barely think it was worth watching way back when, after all.)

But if you are a Friends fan: 1) you need better taste in TV and 2) you will be able to binge all 236 episodes of the series later this month on HBO Max.

Cover Photo: David Bjerke/NBCU Photo Bank

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