Season Five.
Early In Season Five.
In television, reaching one hundred episodes means that a show now has enough of a backlog to provide many, many years of profitable syndicated fun. For Friends, THE ONE HUNDRETH episode also marked another significant passage when Phoebe gave birth to the triplets she had been carrying for her half-brother and his wife in season four. "Hi, I'm Phoebe Buffay, and I have babies coming out of me", the multiple mother-to-be offered by way of a hospital introduction.
"Getting the hundreth episode done felt like a big deal- of course, getting every episode done felt like a pretty big deal", says David Crane.
After THE ONE HUNDRETH episode wrapped around midnight, new TV surrogate mom Lisa Kudrow- who had already given birth a few months earlier off-screen and her cast mates celebrated at a big on-set party where many friends, including Pee Wee Herman, joined the cast and crew, as THATS WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR played over the sound system.
Phoebe wasn't the only one being fruitful and multiplying in season five- the Bright, Kauffman and Crane partnership suddenly had three shows in production. Their series VERONICA'S CLOSET, starring Kirstie Alley, had opened the previous year, and in the fall of 1998 they were also overseeing another new NBC sitcom called JESSE ,starring Christina Applegate. At the start of the season, after filming the first-pilot episode of JESSE, Bright Kauffman and Crane were aware of how much they'd taken on their shoulders. Speaking to me for my book THE SHOWRUNNERS, Kevin Bright told me, "It's funny, when we finished last night I said to Marta and David, well the great news is one down, sixty seven to go".
With that unusual workload, it would be a long season for Bright Kauffman and Crane, but for Friends another quite good one. THE ONE AFTER ROSS SAYS RACHEL got things off to an excellent start, far better than Ross and Emily's marriage. Other strong episodes included THE ONE WITH THE KISSING, THE ONE WITH CHANDLER'S WORK LAUGH, the two part THE ONE IN VEGAS and THE ONE WITH THE COP, which introduced Michael Rapaport as Gary, a man in blue who was for a time on Phoebe's odd romantic beat. "Michael was wonderful", Kudrow recalls, "I thought, this show is so good if Michael Rapaport wants to do it".
Much fun was had with Monica and Chandler attempting to keep their buddy relationship secret. This story line climaxed with perhaps season five's finest episode, THE ONE WHERE EVERYBODY FINDS OUT.
"I love that episode", says Marta Kauffman, "I think what I appreciate about it is that we actually got to be emotional as well. That is something that David and I always enjoy doing, when we can do something more emotional than just another TV show, it was a big moment for the show".
Once again, the relationship between Chandler and Monica took on a life of it's own. "It was not meant to be a really long-term thing", Mathew Perry reveals,"It was just going to be a few episodes of them trying to have sex without everybody knowing it, but the reaction was so huge- and the chemistry was so great between the two most neurotic members of the show-that it ended up going all the way".
Going all the way- that's what Friends are for.
Courtesey of The One With All Ten Years by David Wild.
