The streaming world is a Wild Wild West, with shows and movies — sorry: content — coming and going, sauntering into town one day only to be cruelly felled the next. Yes, the world just officially lost FilmStruck, the cinephilic wonder that was too good to last more than two years. But take some cold comfort in this: Friends, the eternally ’90s sitcom, is not, as earlier reported, leaving Netflix. In fact, as per a leftfield tweet from Netflix, it will be around…eh, like another year, at least.
The Holiday Armadillo has granted your wish: “Friends” will still be there for you in the US throughout 2019 pic.twitter.com/Yd0VqRzk3r
— Netflix (@netflix) December 3, 2018
This is an about-face from the news that arrived earlier Monday, which said, no, Friends will not be there for you after December 31, thanks to one of those copyright issues that make rich people richer and disturb and disappoint everyone else. What a difference about 10 or 12 hours makes, at least if you’re Friends.
No word on what caused the flip-flop, but perhaps it was simply good holiday-time charity. Perhaps the Ebenezer Scrooges at NBC or Netflix, or both, looked down from their miles-high Manhattan skyscraper penthouses they keep empty most times of the year, saw the working man despairing at their lack of Phoebe and her brother played by Giovanni Ribisi, and decided to toss them a nickel — or in this case, a renewal that will last at least 12 months.
