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Confirmed: ‘Friends’ Cast To Reunite In Two-Hour Special In February

By Val Powell
Published on: 00:20 PST, Jan 14, 2016

The TV comedy hit Friends was among the most loved sitcoms of our time, and after more than 12 years, a Friends reunion will finally take place.

The reunion for the cast of the sitcom was announced at the Television Critics Association’s press tour in Pasadena, California, on Wednesday.

The sitcom’s cast, which consists of Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, and Lisa Kudrow, will have a reunion on February 21 in a two-hour NBC special.

Unfortunately for fans who have gotten very excited about this event, the show will not be a Friends reunion special, but rather an event to celebrate esteemed sitcom director James Burrows’ recent feat.

The veteran TV director has reached 1,000 TV episodes, the most recent of which is in the TV series Crowded in November. NBC will hold the special event as a tribute to this milestone in his career.

Burrows, who started his TV directorial career in the 1970s, also worked and directed Friends episodes in the 1990s.

After the announcement, fans of the comedy TV series show immediately shared their excitement on social media, saying that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the cast together again after the show aired its last episode in 2004.

In recent years, there has been high demand for NBC to air a Friends reunion or even an actual reboot of the series.

However, conflicting schedules have always been a problem, so a Friends reunion had not been possible over the last decade.

“We’ve not really had a Friends reunion. We’ve gotten about 80 percent there, but there’s always one person that flakes at the end,” said Cougar Town actress Courteney Cox in an interview with Yahoo News last April.

“I’m not going to name names,” she jokingly added.

In addition, NBC Chairman Bob Greenblatt also said that while he hopes to have everyone in the Friends cast film in the same room at the same time, it has never happened and still might not happen this time.

This statement has also dampened hopes of a reboot of the TV comedy series.

Aside from Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross, the two-hour NBC special will also feature the cast of other TV sitcoms that director James Burrows has worked with in the past.

The cast of Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Will & Grace, The Big Bang Theory, and Mike & Molly will also appear in the show.

Reports said that the NBC special is being compared to the 40th anniversary special of Saturday Night Live that aired in February 2015 and featured dozens of stars and personalities as well.

The star-studded cast of the TV sitcoms will reportedly meet sometime this month for the taping of the Burrows tribute and Friends reunion. The special is scheduled to air on NBC on February 21, at 9/8c.

The hit comedy sitcom Friends aired its first episode in September 1994. Its plot revolved around the lives of six friends and their dynamic with one another. The show topped TV ratings in its eighth season, whereas all the other seasons managed to get into the top 10 of the annual ratings.

The final episode, which aired in May 2004, was watched by 52.5 million American viewers, making it the most-watched TV series episode of the 2000s. The famous cast members have since gone on to develop their careers in TV and film.

[Image via YouTube]

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