Over the course of the last few days, there has been a lot of excitement on social media at the thought of the return of one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. With the returns of Will & Grace and Roseanne confirmed after the likes of revivals of The X-Files , Full(er) House , Gilmore Girls , and Twin Peaks , it seemed only a matter of time until Friends returned for one more season. Well, despite what a David Schwimmer Facebook page says, it isn’t happening.
Will & Grace will return for a ninth season consisting of 12 episodes, and Entertainment Weekly recently reported it will return “this fall.” Roseanne was just revealed to return within the last month or two as well, but is Friends coming back too?
On May 5, a Facebook page for actor David Schwimmer revealed a poster that simply featured the famous golden door frame with the NBC logo and the words “FALL 2018.” Immediately, social media lost their minds and began sharing the image on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and everywhere else to spread the news.
We interrupt your regular programming for… WAIT WHAT IS HAPPENING???????? #FriendsReunion #Friends2018 pic.twitter.com/aSAp1cFZiY
— Nina Mohanty (@ninamohanty) May 6, 2017
As with numerous viral stories online, there was not a lot of thought put into what was going on before it was repeatedly shared. The David Schwimmer page in question was a fake that had been created on May 5 and has already been removed from Facebook entirely, but the Friends poster is still making the rounds.
Mere hours after the poster was posted on Facebook, it had already received more than 215,000 likes to go along with more than 200,000 comments and more than 300,000 shares. After being taken down on FB, it was still out there and going around Twitter.
Looking at the “David Schwimmer” page, it was easy to tell it was a fake if someone took a little bit of effort to verify it.
- The search name was “@RossGheler”
- The page had no other posts other than the poster and a profile pic update.
- There are numerous other “David Schwimmer” pages on Facebook, but none appear to be official.
Other than those obvious problems, a Friends return is always possible, but it just isn’t going to happen, and the cast has said that on many occasions in the past.
Last year, Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman told Variety that despite the NBC reunion special, it wasn’t really a reunion since Matthew Perry wasn’t there. When asked if a full return or reboot would happen, she simply shook her head and just said “no.”
In December, E! News reported that Jennifer Aniston was asked about the Friends reunion that all the fans wanted. She appreciated their admiration of the famous TV show, but she doesn’t believe it would work or that it will happen.
“Honestly, I don’t know what we would do. I think that period of time was sort of nostalgic. I think why people have such an affection for it is because even though it was only 12 years ago it ended, or 13—God, it’s getting farther and farther away—there was something about a time where our faces weren’t stuffed into cell phones. We weren’t checking Facebooks and Instagrams. We were in a room together, in a coffee shop together. We were talking, having conversations. We have lost that.”
Lisa Kudrow spoke with Heat magazine last month and said she feels like she is “constantly bursting that little bubble” every time a fan asks her about it.
“It’s been 13 years, 13 years of the same question and right now, or in the future, it’s not going to happen. And every time I say that, I get yelled at.”
It wasn’t happening last year. It isn’t happening this year. That poster may have stated that it was coming in the fall of 2018, but as reported by Snopes , it was fake and isn’t happening next year either.
Friends will always be seen as one of the greatest sitcoms and television shows in history, but it is very likely that there will never be another new episode again. While some of the other past shows have come back together for reunions, returns, and revivals, the cast of Friends has said many times before that they are done. Social media was caught up in the poster for a return to NBC in 2018, but that poster ended up being as fake as the “David Schwimmer” who shared it on Facebook.
[Featured Image by NBC]
