You will never, and I mean never, catch me shaming anyone over how many times they’ve binge-watched Friends. If anyone can recite Ross's meltdown from "The One Where No One's Ready" from heart, it's yours truly. If you handed me a pencil and sketch pad right now, I could probably draw a pretty decent rendering of Monica's apartment from memory.
Friends, for so many of us, is like the TV equivalent of your softest sweatshirt; it's just something that makes you instantly feel better, something you want to slide into at the end of a long day. Alas, even the coziest rewatch eventually runs out of episodes, leaving you staring at the screen like Joey staring at a menu devoid of meatball subs. The good news is that the things you actually love about Friends aren’t exclusive to our favorite funny New Yorkers (and that signature orange Central Perk couch).
There are lots of truly incredible shows out there that’ve also nailed the buddy-comedy magic. So whether you're on the hunt for a replacement friend group or craving another workplace crew that feels like family, here’s what you can queue up next. If You’re Looking for Another Friend Group to Adopt I don’t want to ruffle any feathers here, but Living Single actually came out a full year before Friends… and yet it doesn’t get nearly as much love as it deserves.
Watch it and try to deny the overlap: a core group of twentysomethings, a New York brownstone, romantic chaos to spare. Queen Latifah has even publicly hinted that NBC borrowed the concept; I'm just saying. Either way, Khadijah, Synclaire, Régine, and Max are an all-time friend group, and Kyle and Max’s bickering is will-they-won’t-they at its finest.
Just swap the coffee shop for a dive bar and you’ve got New Girl. Jess, Nick, Schmidt, Winston, and Cece are so funny you’ll literally be crying from laughing (the best kind of tears). Plus, we can probably all agree that Nick and Jess give Ross and Rachel a serious run for their money.
Bonus: True American is the Friends’ Thanksgiving football game for a new generation. Happy Endings only got three seasons before ABC pulled the plug, so be aware of that going in. It’s expiration dating, if you will.
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