Netflix balls pretty hard on a regular basis and has really taken its game up a notch in the past few years with a commitment to high-quality original programming. But the streaming service just posterized all of us and its competition by announcing that all of Friends will be available come January 1, 2015.
Friends is one of those shows where if you claim to not like it, you’re just lying to impress someone, and it isn’t working. There really is no room for dissenting opinions when it comes to this show. It was consistently funny for most of its sprawling ten-season run, which spawned a decade-plus of failed copycats revolving around a whole bunch of white people sitting around talking about stuff and possibly falling in love with each other (if their shows were allowed to live that long). And in terms of influence, there isn’t much that reached the nuclear level of Friends. Ross could have spoken straight into the camera one week and told you to burn down your house and you would have done it. Imagine what’s going to happen now that we all have instant access to every episode ever made.
Netflix’s white whale will be figuring out a way to get Seinfeld streaming on there, because if that ever happens, nothing will stop the company from being able to demand our souls for payment. But still, the addition of Friends means Netflix is treating the competition like it’s Mankind in a Hell in a Cell match.
