Friends: The Reunion (2021)

Friends: The Reunion arrived in May of 2021 as a launch vehicle for a streaming service and a chance for six wealthy adults to walk through a doorframe again. It is hosted by James Corden, which tells you most of what you need to know about the ambition on display. The special returns to Stage 24, revisits Central Perk, stages table reads, and lets the cast weep at archival footage of themselves. Nostalgia is the entire business model, and business was good. Roughly 29 percent of American streaming households tuned in, and subscription numbers spiked accordingly.

The social consciousness on offer is measured and brief. In one segment, the cocreators acknowledge, with visible discomfort, that the original series was overwhelmingly white and that they failed to fix it. This is the closest the special comes to an argument, and it lasts about as long as it takes to microwave a burrito. A few references to the show's lesbian characters survive in the domestic cut and were quietly excised in several markets, which reveals more about international distribution than about any commitment to the material. Elsewhere the running order favors trivia games, celebrity cameos, and Matt LeBlanc being agreeable.

We are left with a document of affection and commerce in roughly equal measure. The special does not sermonize at length, does not interrogate its own legacy with any rigor, and does not pretend to be anything other than a warm bath for the perpetually nostalgic. That is a legitimate artistic choice. It is also a modest one. The classification is straightforward: a reunion, a product, and a light dusting of contemporary self-awareness applied sparingly, the way we apply sunscreen on a cloudy day, aware of the obligation and unconvinced of the need.