Like many people, I watched the Friends reunion recently and thought it was very interesting in this era of obsession with reunions and revivals. The thing that made it work, in spite of the silly extemporaneous segments and James Corden’s annoying-ness (he was not the right host for this type of event) was the enduring love and respect that still binds the cast together. The scenes of them moving around the set, reminiscing, watching old film reels and bloopers and talking about their experiences with only each other...it was so heartrending and pure. They love each other so much, they loved making the show, and they loved the show. It made everything else seem really shallow. I would have watched the entire two days of footage from just that part of the special, uncut, and I’m sure a lot of viewers felt the same. And I love how they’re able to say the quiet part out loud in terms of this nostalgia-fueled revival madness - all the characters had their endings, and to bring the show back would be to undo those endings in a certain sense. They’ll never be able to fully capture what viewers want, which is to just watch more Friends in that very specific life phase.
To be honest I think that the connection between the cast is really, really rare, more rare than we like to admit, and is what elevates the show above its mediocre phases. (And don’t get me started on the revelation that Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer had real feelings for each other, oh my god. They were the reason Ross and Rachel still work and feel compelling as a couple...a lot of about that relationship has aged poorly, but damn, those actors had/have a connection that was so magnetic, so tangible, so undeniable...they were so good at communicating how when Ross and Rachel looked at each other, they saw nothing else.)