The Friends spin-off that was about to be made and left us wanting to see it

In 1994, the cast of Friends was a group of unknown kids to the general public, but ten years later they couldn’t even step outside without being stopped by fans every five seconds for a photo or autograph: that’s the price of fame. Well, that and the million dollars they pocketed for each episode, making it so that basically none of them had to work again for the rest of their lives. But there was one of them, Matt LeBlanc, who still wanted to continue the game a little longer: Joey, the series that told us what happened to the character after that final joke, lasted 2 seasons and didn’t interest too many people, but… would things have been different with the other spin-off that they considered?

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Friendspin-off

Obviously, NBC wanted, by any means, for Friends to continue. It makes perfect sense: the final episode was watched by 52 million people in the United States, how could they not want to continue with the success? What is less known is that it was not Matt LeBlanc who first took the bait, but Lisa Kudrow, who was eager to continue the saga of Phoebe Buffay now that she was married and had her life well on track. After the series ended, in fact, she met with the producers to try to move forward with Girlfriends, a spin-off that made perfect sense.

In this series we would see Phoebe’s new life and her friendship with an old acquaintance from the series, Charlie Wheeler, the paleontology professor who during the end of season 9 and the beginning of season 10 was Joey’s girlfriend (first) and Ross’s (later). However, the executives preferred to give Joey the benefit of the doubt, even though Phoebe was a much more popular character… And could lead to many more guest stars. But many, many more.

After all, her twin sister, Ursula, was the waitress in Mad About You, and Phoebe also appeared (in character) in an episode of Hope & Gloria, so she was already connected to that universe. And considering that Mad About You shared a world -through crossovers- with Seinfeld, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Style & Substance, and that Seinfeld had a crossover with Murphy Brown, which in turn… Well, you can get an idea. Little is known about what Girlfriends could have been, but Phoebe was undoubtedly the character that could contribute the most to a sitcom, if only because of the wide world of people she interacted with. It’s a real shame she almost had a second chance.

What Could Have Been and Was Not

But don’t think that this is where it ends: in 2017, it was rumored again that Marta Kauffman and Lisa Kudrow, who worked together again on the series Grace and Frankie, were preparing a new spin-off entirely focused on Phoebe. In this case, the character would be divorced from Mike and living in New York again, which made it likely that her old friends would appear from time to time… including an episode that would bring them all back together! It would have been television history, but Kudrow explained shortly after that she had no plans to resurrect the character, let alone appear in such a project. Our joy, down the drain.

But there is indeed another person who has been asking for a chance to star in a spin-off. You might not recognize the name Maggie Wheeler, but if I say “Oh my god,” I’m sure you can hear in your head the high-pitched voice of Janice, Chandler’s on-again, off-again girlfriend who also had her moment of glory with Ross. The actress stated that after Friends ended, she tried to pitch her project, and she wasn’t entirely sure why it didn’t happen.

Moreover, the plot sounds -frankly- incredible: Janice working in New York as a therapist who solves people’s problems. Janice trying to fix people’s minds? Take all my money. The last we heard from her is that the actress stated “If the right circumstance arose and the people behind Janice asked me to do something, I would definitely be there in a heartbeat. It’s not too late for a spin-off!”. And yes, it is late, but that’s okay: we would definitely be there to watch it. Worse things are produced every year! How many more spin-offs of The Big Bang Theory do we need while this great project rots on a shelf? Oh my god!

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