--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: Friends image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79aed5df23c2047a/69869f1955a85961a0a821e7/t100_tv_friends1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 11, 2014 # _Friends_ by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Everett No sitcom has ever been as deliberately self-effacing as _Friends_. The title, the theme song, the episode names (“The One Where…”) were self-explanatory at best, insipid at worst. They were friends; they were there for each other. Move along, nothing more to see. But it wasn’t just the sharp writing or the comic rapport that made _Friends_ great. Its Gen-X characters were the children of divorce, suicide and cross-dressing, trying to grow up without any clear models of how to do it. They built ersatz families and had kids by adoption, surrogacy, out of wedlock or with their gay ex-wives. The show never pretended to be about anything weightier than “We were on a break.” But the well-hidden secret of this show was that it called itself _Friends_, and was really about family. [Get This TV Series](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00005YU81/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3101660/friends/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3101660/friends/"},"headline":"Friends","datePublished":"2014-08-11T21:45:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:01:17.206Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3101660/friends/","keywords":["Comedy","NBC","Friends","Sitcom"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79aed5df23c2047a/69869f1955a85961a0a821e7/t100_tv_friends1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79aed5df23c2047a/69869f1955a85961a0a821e7/t100_tv_friends1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"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":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3101660/friends/","name":"Friends"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Friends","description":"The show never pretended to be about anything weightier than \"We were on a break.\" But the well-hidden secret of this show was that it called itself Friends, and was really about family.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/EdAMh2YX/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2007-09-04T18:42:01.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EdAMh2YX.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3101660/friends/","duration":"PT31S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3101660/friends/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```