Friends had an incredibly impressive run on NBC for 10 seasons, and the show has only spiked in popularity ever since it hit syndication and streaming platforms.
The staggering popularity of Friends in the years that have passed since its finale can be best attributed to the show’s consistency of quality.
Shows like Seinfeld or The Simpsons had several egregiously dull or offensive storylines that make them harder to rewatch, and while Friends hasn’t aged perfectly, it reached a natural conclusion that felt satisfying given where the characters had gone and how they had changed.
However, the penultimate series of the show started to indicate a decline in quality that could’ve threatened Friends’ delightful ending.
It took Paul Rudd’s character Mike Hannigan to help set the series back on the right foot.
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