--- description: The sitcom, which ended ten years ago, was innocuous by design. But its message was no less important: if you came from a broken family, or were putting an untraditional one together, it was there for you. title: Friends' Tenth Anniversary image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte2281f749cb2324d/69868e33cd68488387094843/tv_friends.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # The One With the Post-Nuclear Families: Why _Friends_ Still Matters by [James Poniewozik](/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 6, 2014 3:31 PM CUT  Everett by [James Poniewozik](/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 6, 2014 3:31 PM CUT When long-running popular sitcoms come to an end, they generate a lot of discussion about what they mean or, as in the case of [_How I Met Your Mother_](http://time.com/44702/how-i-met-your-mother-finale-review/ "undefined"), what will happen. But when _Friends_ aired its last episode, [a decade ago tonight](http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/the-one-where-friends-ended-10-years-ago-tonight "undefined"), there wasn’t; it was just a popular, fun show that ran a lot of years and now wasn’t going to anymore. What else was there to say? It was _Friends,_ for God’s sake! The reason, I thought, was that there was a bias built into our definition of “important” sitcoms: they had to spur controversies (like _All in the Family_) or shake up the format and tone of the sitcom form (like _Seinfeld_). But that’s not the only way TV affects its audience: sometimes, shows are significant precisely because they’re innocuous. They make a statement not about what irritates our society but about what it has, sometimes without entirely noticing, come to accept. So I did a deep dive into the past season DVDs–this was 2004, after all–and [wrote an essay for TIME about the show’s open-secret theme](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,993866,00.html "undefined"): that the “normal” family was a thing of the past, and that a mass audience, as shown by _Friends_‘ very innocuousness, was fine with that. The essay, unfortunately, is paywalled. (TIME, fortunately, is [glad to sign up you to subscribe](https://subscription.time.com/storefront/subscribe-to-time/site/td-52for30wilred0314.html?link=1019480&fpa%5Foc=Wilen+Red+Nongated+Control "undefined") so you can read it and everything else in full!) But here’s an excerpt, and the gist: --- > “” --- It’s not as if _Friends_ changed society single-handed, or that society has changed that completely at all. Even if audiences were unfazed by _Friends_‘ gay wedding (performed by Candace Gingrich!), gay marriage is still becoming legal only state by state. But it’s certainly true that _Friends_‘ running theme of untraditional, improvisatory families is now part of the standard language of sitcoms like _Modern Family_ (in which Cam and Mitchell are readying to get hitched) and _Trophy Wife_. Transgender characters are more common, as on _Orange Is the New Black_, and given a more subtle portrayal than Chandler’s Vegas-drag-queen father. (_Friends_ wasn’t that perfectly enlightened, the major case in point being its almost entirely white universe of characters.) A decade after _Friends_, in other words, complicated is now normal. Maybe _Friends_ didn’t proselytize for these changes, and it never sought credit for them. Today, if you watch the reruns, you probably think of the show, if anything, as The One Where They Drank Coffee and Dated Each Other in Various Combinations. You probably don’t think about the importance of _Friends_ at all. And that means it did its job. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/89346/friends-tenth-anniversary-why-it-matters/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/89346/friends-tenth-anniversary-why-it-matters/"},"headline":"The One With the Post-Nuclear Families: Why Friends Still Matters","datePublished":"2014-05-06T15:31:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:40:44.652Z","description":"The sitcom, which ended ten years ago, was innocuous by design. But its message was no less important: if you came from a broken family, or were putting an untraditional one together, it was there for you.","url":"https://time.com/89346/friends-tenth-anniversary-why-it-matters/","keywords":["Television","Anniversaries","Friends"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte2281f749cb2324d/69868e33cd68488387094843/tv_friends.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"James Poniewozik","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte2281f749cb2324d/69868e33cd68488387094843/tv_friends.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"tv_friends","caption":"","creditText":"Everett","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/89346/friends-tenth-anniversary-why-it-matters/","name":"The One With the Post-Nuclear Families: Why Friends Still Matters"}}]}] ```