Main article: The Last One (Friends)
The cast became very emotional while filming the final episode. Jennifer Aniston explained, "We're like very delicate china right now, and we're speeding toward a brick wall."[53]The series' creators completed the first draft of the hour-long finale in January 2004, four months before its original airing. Crane, Kauffman and Bright watched the finales of other sitcoms to prepare the episode's outline, paying attention to what worked and what did not. They liked the ones which stayed true to the series, citing the finale of The Mary Tyler Moore hiển thị as the vàng standard. Crane, Kauffman, and Bright had difficulty nghề viết văn the finale, and spent several days thinking about the finale scene without being able to write a word. They did not want to do "something high concept, hoặc take the hiển thị out of the show".[54] The most critical parts of the finale were shot without an audience, and with a minimum amount of crew members. The main cast enjoyed the finale and were confident that the những người hâm mộ would react similarly:[54]
It's exactly what I had hoped. We all end up with a sense of a new beginning and the audience has a sense that it's a new chapter in the lives of all these characters.
—David Schwimmer on the series finale. [54]
NBC heavily promoted the series finale, which was preceded bởi weeks of media hype.[55] Local NBC affiliates organized viewing parties around the U.S., including an event at Universal CityWalk featuring a special broadcast of the finale on an outdoor Astrovision screen.[18] The finale was the subject of two episodes of Dateline NBC, a weekly ti vi newsmagazine, one of which ran for two hours. A one-hour retrospective of clips from trước đó episodes was shown before to the airing of the episode. Following the finale, The Tonight hiển thị with chim giẻ cùi, jay Leno was filmed on the set of the Friends' Central Perk coffee house, which featured the series' cast as guests.[1][56] The advertising rates for the finale averaged $2 million for 30 giây of commercial time, breaking the record held bởi the Seinfeld finale at $1.7 million.[18]
In the U.S., 52.5 million viewers watched the finale on May 6, 2004, making it the most-watched entertainment telecast since the Seinfeld finale in 1998.[1] Although it was not the series' most-watched episode,[57] the finale was the fourth most-watched series finale in ti vi history, only behind the finales of M*A*S*H, Cheers and Seinfeld, which were respectively watched bởi 105, 80.4 and 76.2 million viewers. The retrospective episode was watched bởi fewer than 36 million viewers, and the finale was the một giây most-watched ti vi episode of the year, only behind the Super Bowl.[1] Following the finales of Những người bạn and Frasier, media critics speculated about the fate of the sitcom genre. Expressed opinions varied between a signaling of the end of the sitcom genre, a small decline in the large history of the genre,[18] and a general reduction of scripted ti vi in favor of reality shows.[55]
The cast became very emotional while filming the final episode. Jennifer Aniston explained, "We're like very delicate china right now, and we're speeding toward a brick wall."[53]The series' creators completed the first draft of the hour-long finale in January 2004, four months before its original airing. Crane, Kauffman and Bright watched the finales of other sitcoms to prepare the episode's outline, paying attention to what worked and what did not. They liked the ones which stayed true to the series, citing the finale of The Mary Tyler Moore hiển thị as the vàng standard. Crane, Kauffman, and Bright had difficulty nghề viết văn the finale, and spent several days thinking about the finale scene without being able to write a word. They did not want to do "something high concept, hoặc take the hiển thị out of the show".[54] The most critical parts of the finale were shot without an audience, and with a minimum amount of crew members. The main cast enjoyed the finale and were confident that the những người hâm mộ would react similarly:[54]
It's exactly what I had hoped. We all end up with a sense of a new beginning and the audience has a sense that it's a new chapter in the lives of all these characters.
—David Schwimmer on the series finale. [54]
NBC heavily promoted the series finale, which was preceded bởi weeks of media hype.[55] Local NBC affiliates organized viewing parties around the U.S., including an event at Universal CityWalk featuring a special broadcast of the finale on an outdoor Astrovision screen.[18] The finale was the subject of two episodes of Dateline NBC, a weekly ti vi newsmagazine, one of which ran for two hours. A one-hour retrospective of clips from trước đó episodes was shown before to the airing of the episode. Following the finale, The Tonight hiển thị with chim giẻ cùi, jay Leno was filmed on the set of the Friends' Central Perk coffee house, which featured the series' cast as guests.[1][56] The advertising rates for the finale averaged $2 million for 30 giây of commercial time, breaking the record held bởi the Seinfeld finale at $1.7 million.[18]
In the U.S., 52.5 million viewers watched the finale on May 6, 2004, making it the most-watched entertainment telecast since the Seinfeld finale in 1998.[1] Although it was not the series' most-watched episode,[57] the finale was the fourth most-watched series finale in ti vi history, only behind the finales of M*A*S*H, Cheers and Seinfeld, which were respectively watched bởi 105, 80.4 and 76.2 million viewers. The retrospective episode was watched bởi fewer than 36 million viewers, and the finale was the một giây most-watched ti vi episode of the year, only behind the Super Bowl.[1] Following the finales of Những người bạn and Frasier, media critics speculated about the fate of the sitcom genre. Expressed opinions varied between a signaling of the end of the sitcom genre, a small decline in the large history of the genre,[18] and a general reduction of scripted ti vi in favor of reality shows.[55]