Just What Was It That Made 'Friends' So Great?

We’re feeling pretty nostalgic (and old) because it’s been ten years since the final episode of Friends aired. We’d sort of been getting by on the hope that a reunion episode would take place, but mean Matt LeBlanc ruined that dream. The actor, who played Joey, recently said: “That show was about a finite period of time in life, after college and before your relationship and family starts and where your friends are your support system. That’s what the magic of the show was - everyone goes through that and can relate to that.”

That wasn’t the only magic that Friends had. The reason that the show was so popular for so long was a combination of a dozen or so factors that just worked. The chemistry between the cast was palpable, you could just tell that Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox were best friends in real life and that translated onto their onscreen friendship.

MORE: Courtney Cox has said it, Friends reunion is not going to happen

Each actor couldn’t have been picked more perfectly. No-one could argue that David Schwimmer wasn’t perfect as geeky (but sort of hunky) palaeontologist Ross, or that Matthew Perry didn’t have the dead-on comic timing combined with a hint of vulnerability that made him Chandler. We laughed with them, most of us grew up with them, the Friends gang went through their rites of passage onscreen before lots of us, letting us know what we were in for.

Fans watch the Friends finale in Times Square [Photo: Getty Images, credit: Getty archive]