Friends: See the official teaser of Friends: The Reunion - or as the call it, 'The One Where They Get Back Together'.

by Thinus Ferreira

HBO has released an instantly-emotional, first official teaser for the TV special event, Friends: The Reunion - or as the show calls it "the one where the one where they get back together".

HBO also announced that Friends: The Reunion will become available on Thursday 27 May on its HBO Max video streaming service. 

Although WarnerMedia has not launched HBO Max in South Africa or anywhere else in the sub-Saharan Africa market, chances are that the TV special will end up on M-Net (DStv 101) that had the pay-TV rights for the comedy series throughout its run and with M-Net and MultiChoice that has an existing output deal for HBO content with Warner.

In the Friends: The Reunion official teaser, the older cast of David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox and Matt LeBlanc can be seen filmed from the back, walking, at dusk, away from the camera while the Friends theme song plays.

According to the HBO press release, they return to "the iconic comedy's original soundstage, Stage 24, on the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank for a real-life unscripted celebration of the beloved show".

The Friends: The Reunion video trailer is a clever play on one of the iconic Friends publicity images that was released while the show was in production showing the 6 friends, from the front, walking on the studio lot in formal wear.

The TV special will include several guest appearances, including BTS, Cara Delevingne, Cindy Crawford, David Beckham, Elliot Gould, James Corden, Justin Bieber, Kit Harrington, Lady Gaga, Larry Hankin, Mindy Kaling, Thomas Lennon, Christina Pickles, Tom Selleck, James Michael Tyler who played Gunther on the show, Maggie Wheeler, Reese Witherspoon and Malala Yousafzai.

The special is directed by Ben Winston and executive produced by the original Friends creators Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane.

After a quarter century CNN International looks back at iconic sitcom with an insider TV special, Friends Forever 25 Years of Laughter.

25 years after that first conversation on the Central Perk couch, CNN International (DStv 401) will take a special look back at Friends on Monday, with producers and insiders sharing new on-set secrets about the iconic TV series.

In Friends Forever: 25 Years of Laughter on Monday, 16 September at 04:00 South African time, Alisyn Camerota looks back at the NBC sitcom that was broadcast on M-Net since its debut in 1994 for a decade.

On Friday night at the Tribeca TV Festival in New York, the creators told the audience of the Friends 25th anniversary panel discussion that unlike Will & Grace, Murphy Brown, BH90210 and the flurry of other recent American TV reboots, that there won't be any reboot series or reunion show.

"We will not be doing a reunion show, we will not be doing a reboot," Marta Kauffman Friends co-creator and co-executive producer, said at the panel. She will also be appearing in the CNN International Friends Forever TV special.

"The show was about that time in life when friends are your family," she said."A reboot isn't going to beat what we did".

David Crane, co-creator and co-executive producer, said "We did the show we wanted to do. We got it right and we put a bow on it".

'How you doin'?' Friends starting on Sony Entertainment Television (SET) from Monday with double episodes on weekdays at 19:05.

Friends - or as SABC2's plagiarising soap 7de Laan calls it: the place where we get out stories and scripts from - is starting from today, Monday, 3 February on Sony Entertainment Television (SET) (DStv 127).

Friends will be broadcast on SET with double episodes every weekday, from the first episode of the first season, at 19:05.

Sony Entertainment Television says it will be "screening every single episode, right from season one" of Friends, since its exactly 20 years since Friends started in 1994.

As a result, The Arsenio Hall Show will move to a later than usual timeslot on Wednesdays to Fridays, following the 20:00 movie on SET.

Programming note: Friends to start from the first season on Sony Entertainment Television with 3 episodes per week from November.

Friends will be starting from the first season of this hit sitcom on Sony Entertainment Television (DStv 113) on Wednesday 2 November at 19:35 with 3 episodes per week.

Friends will start on 2 November with episodes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross.