I’m curious: do you ever go to someone else’s high-school reunion? Of a school you never attended and where you don’t know anyone? I don’t know about any of you, but I couldn’t be bothered even to attend my own high-school reunion.
Here’s the thing. I have fond memories of my past, but I don’t live in or dwell on the past. The past is, as has been said so famously, a foreign country. You pass through it once, but can never go back. For a moment to be just right and stick in your mind forever, a million little things have to come together just so to make it right—the people, the setting, the background or events leading up to the moment, etc. This is why you can never revisit the past, even if you were to reenact the scene with all the original people in the original spot. Locations change, and so do people. As they go through life, they become different, and “Mary” and “Jim”, who were integral parts of the original moment, aren’t the same people anymore. What is more, everyone would be fully aware of the reenactment, it would feel forced and artificial, and as a result, you might end up sullying a beautiful memory.
And what about that tradition to hold reunions in the school’s gym? Who wants to be in a smelly gym, sitting at folding tables on top of which tablecloths (or the janitor’s bedsheets) have been thrown to make them look like real tables? Even back in school, I couldn’t be bothered with the gym or physical education. My metabolism is ultrafast, so if I were to do sports or engage in any of the exercises, I’d literally disappear into thin air. Lucky as I was, my doctor at the time felt exactly the same way, which meant I always had an easy way out of gym class. Later on, I also discovered that one PhysEd teacher was carrying on with another PhysEd teacher, and that knowledge proved to be extremely powerful. As was my dentist’s contribution to my good cause: a walking catastrophe in his own chosen profession, he was nevertheless well-connected politically, and managed to dig up some dirty secrets from a PhysEd teacher’s past. There was no blackmail, oh no, but let’s just say that letting the target know what you know can be a tremendous motivator. Just like that, gym classes were a thing of the past for me. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe in lazying around like a bum, but the exercise has to be natural, such as the kind you do when doing household chores, going for a walk or carrying shopping bags. In other words, natural movements the human body has been designed for, rather than any of the artificial and unnatural bending, stretching, twisting and lifting that goes on at a gym. It is the latter kind, including such nonsense as jogging, that harms the body and results in people undergoing knee-replacement surgery by the time they’re forty.
Anyway, coming back to the original question. Why would you want to sit or stand around in a gym listening to perfect strangers talk about their past memories and inside jokes, none of which has any meaning to you at all. “I guess, you had to be there,” will be the phrase you’ll hear the most.
For the last few days, I’ve been bombarded in my inbox, on social media and elsewhere with ads for the Friends reunion special (available in Canada on crave): “The most anticipated event ever!” Is it really?
I watched the original show like everyone else too. In fact, due to my work at the time, I’d pass by the infamous Friends Stage 24 on the WB lot almost daily, and even spent some time, now and then, on what is called in the industry the “hot set”. But I didn’t work on that show, and the cast and crew, even though I’d chat with them occasionally, were more like neighbours, but not intimate work colleagues or friends. As a (TV) writer, though, I have to admit that the concept of the show was fairly smart, that whole Ross-and-Rachel soap opera kind of thing, which got viewers hooked and thus ensured steady ratings for many years and seasons. But like all good things, Friends, too, had to come to an end at some point, and it did. (Coinciding with my own bowing out of Hollywood.)
One thing I know from reading newspapers and listening to people over the years is that many fans wanted to see a sequel, or at least a feature-length episode, which would tell them what had become of their beloved characters. Would Rachel and Ross still be together? The one thing no one wanted was the kind of Inside The Actors Studio reunion where the actors sit on a stage and talk about their favourite moments—as they did for Dynasty or Knots Landing, for example. Unfortunately, this is precisely what HBO max is selling us now.
Even die-hard fans of a show tend to be weary of such reunions. Everyone knows about the actors and their lives from tabloids and similar-type TV shows. More specifically, in the case of Friends, about all the divorces, therapy sessions and drug rehabs. Fans know where the actors have been and what they have undergone in the last decade or so. They don’t need a TV special to remind them. So, when fans talk about a reunion, they want to see the characters, not the actors. Sometimes, fans do see their dreams fulfilled, but that, too, can be a major disappointment, if last year’s Murphy Brown is any indication: that revival was a perfect example of not being able to revisit the past, of destroying fond memories. Even fans will never look at Murphy Brown (the original show) the same way ever gain. The same disaster may also befall the upcoming Frasier revival.
I have only seen clips of the Friends reunion so far, and based on what I have seen, I don’t plan to watch the special at all. Frankly, it would be a colossal waste of my precious time. It is exactly like going to a stranger’s high-school reunion. The insiders sit around, chat and joke, and all the TV viewer hears is: I guess, you had to be there. The sudden-death factor, though, that made me decide not to watch it was the inclusion of Justin Bieber in the special, the poster boy of brain amputation. Once you Bieberize something, it becomes garbage. Simple as that.
My verdict and advice: don’t bother with the reunion special. If you enjoy streaming content, there are so many great shows and films out there that you won’t have time for this tattered group of Friends. Time is precious, don’t waste it.