In February, NBC is going to air a two-hour special honoring the work of veteran TV director James Burrows, who recently directed his 1,000th episode of TV. NBC is going all out for this special, assembling all the casts of the shows Burrows has worked on. Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Will & Grace, The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly. Oh, and Friends (Burrows directed 15 episodes of the show).
TVLine is reporting that NBC has gotten all six friends — Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courtney Cox, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow and Matt LeBranc — together for the special. There is one special caveat though! While NBC is hoping they can get them all together in the same room, they’re not sure if that’s logistically possible.
“I’m hoping all six of them will be all in the same room at the same time, but I’m not sure if we can logistically pull that off,” Bob Greenblatt, NBC’s chair of entertainment, said at the recent Television Critics Association press tour. That’s a bummer! They’re all very busy people though, so I guess getting them all together and meshing six very different schedules together is tough work. However, it does feel weird to do a reunion thing and not have all of them together for it, doesn’t it? Are the other shows’ casts all getting together in the same place, or is it just the Friends crew that’s having a tough time?
I’m not a huge Friends fan, but I did enjoy the show quite a bit. It’s got a charming cast and some good broad comedy that really works for a lot of people. It’s also aged pretty well, despite the fashion, and is immensely re-watchable.
They only have a couple weeks to figure the logistics all out. The special will tape later this month and will air February 21 at 9 pm (psst, it’s also really cool NBC is doing a special centered around a TV director). [TV Line, BuzzFeed]
