TVSquad

There are many Thanksgiving traditions we all enjoy: the turkey, the stuffing, watching football, fighting over the drumstick to see whose wish comes true, and putting up with family members you avoid 363 days of the year (you see them at Christmas too).

There's another tradition, this one TV-oriented: Friends!

We all speculated as to what role Jennifer Aniston will play when she guest stars on NBC's 30 Rock later this year, and now we know what part she'll play. It's actually one of the choices we came up with.

Aniston will play an old friend of Liz Lemon who starts to stalk Jack Donaghy. The character is described as an ex-roommate of Liz's from Chicago who is a "free-spirited, Fatal Attraction-like stalker." Well, let's hope that she isn't completely like that. We don't need any gunshots to the chest or bunny-boiling on 30 Rock. The character's name is Claire Harper.

So we've had Aniston and David Schwimmer on the show. I think all of the Friends people should appear on 30 Rock at some point.

Thanks to the success of the Sex and the City movie -- and talk of more to come -- the rumor mill has been bubbling with other TV shows making the leap to the big screen. In the case of Arrested Development, it sure sounds like the truth.

However, the Friends feature is a rumor that has no legs. Warners owns the property and on July 4th, even though all U.S. offices were closed for the holiday, denied the rumors via the London office.

Jayne Trotman, Warner's director of publicity, said of the Friends movie, "(There's) no truth in the story."

Just to be sure, Matthew Perry's press rep also denied the rumor. She told the BBC that nothing is happening and the rumor is just that, a shred of news with no value attached to it.

If there is one rumor that never dies it's the one about the possibility of a Friends reunion. Since the series finale aired in May 2004, rumors about a reunion popped up here, there and everywhere. Sometimes the rumor takes the form of "there will be another spinoff" (remember Joey?) but most of the time it's a "there are talks about a movie but one of the stars doesn't want to commit." This week's revival of the rumor is of the latter kind.

What can I say about Friends that hasn't already been said? You either like the show or you don't. I think a lot of people look at the show as "just another sitcom" about friends who hang out somewhere, one that was overhyped and one where the stars where overpaid. The hype I can't argue with and the pay, well, more power to them if they could get it. But I also happen to think that for a while there, several seasons in the middle of the show's 10 year run, it was one of the best sitcoms of all-time. It was remarkably well-written, clever, and at the same time had at its core a really big heart that all the copycats that followed couldn't recreate.

But what about this DVD set? Should you go out and buy the complete set?

I had a very interesting week last week. The high point was an interview I did with Laura Silverman for my podcast. Most of you will know Laura from her role as Sarah's sister on The Sarah Silverman Program. However, she also had major roles on HBO's The Comeback and the comedy classic Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

She had some funny things to say about working for HBO and Comedy Central but the best part of the interview was a story she told about Sarah's pooch, Duck, who plays Doug on the Comedy Central show.

Since the last episode of the hit series Friends aired in May 2004, rumors have been flying around as to if and when a reunion would happen. Over the years, there have been reports that some of the actors didn't want to be part of a reunion, at least, not for a while. None of these reports were properly confirmed. However, this week comes the confirmation that David Schwimmer, who played the character of Ross, will not take part in a Friends reunion if there ever is one.

I guess this holiday season will be the season of the complete set. First The West Wing, then Alias, now comes word that a DVD set containing all of the Friends episodes will be released on November 14.

Note to family: you probably won't be getting any gifts from me this year.

Not only will the set include all 10 season sets from the show, there will be tons of extras, including 25 commentaries, 25 documentaries, a gag reel, and trivia. In this special set will also be a 60 page collector's book with the history of the show, photos, and the original pitch the creators made to the network.

Like most sets, it will go for around $300, but Amazon and other places will have it for much less.

I don't get all the hoopla surrounding Lisa Kudrow. She played a ditzy blonde on Mad About You and then she played a higher-profile ditzy blonde on Friends. Now there's news that she has a development deal with NBC that could have her starring in a new show. Why??? It seemed to me that she totally phoned in a lot of her performances on Friends. Especially after she had her own baby in real life, but her character, Phoebe, was still pregnant on Friends. Watch those episodes and you'll see she doesn't even try to act like the belly is real. She sits down, stands up, and bounces around even though she's supposed to be pregnant with triplets.

It seems like the cast member of Friends that we've seen the least since the show ended two years ago is Lisa Kudrow. Sure, she starred in that HBO series The Comeback last year, but, for the most part, she's been keeping a low profile.

(Ok, Schwimmer's pretty much fallen off the face of the earth since the show ended. But Kudrow's certainly been lower-profile than the other four.)

Most of what Kudrow's been doing is developing shows (including The Comeback) under her production company's banner for Warner Brothers. But now her company, Is or Isn't Productions, has signed on with NBC Universal in a two-year development deal. Kudrow and her partner Dan Bucatinsky will keep working on shows in the background, though Kudrow might star in one of them if the right project comes along. Nice. Sounds like she's doing a lot better job handling her post-Friends career than, say, Jennifer Aniston, no?

[Photo: Getty Images]

Last night, Jonathan wrote about a report that claimed the six main actors from Friends were going to reunite for a series of one-hour specials.  It also mentioned that the three male leads -- Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer -- were going to star in a spin-off. Readers responded by either getting their hopes up or cursing NBC for digging up the corpse of a series that died a year and a half ago.

Well, we've got more news for you: It ain't gonna happen, at least according to NBC.

Here's the update from Jonathan:

"Consider this rumor dead as most of us wisely assumed from the get go. Access Hollywood had this to say earlier today, with a direct quote from Jeff Zucker (CEO of NBC Universal's TV Group) squashing the rumors.

Also, many thanks to TV Squad's own Ryan j Budke, who spent numerous hours on the phone this morning with NBC's Media Relations Department, who had this to say: 'There are currently no plans to have any follow-up to Friends other than Joey, which is still a major part of our comedy line-up and we whole-heartedly support. The rumors started this weekend are just that; rumors. We wish the rest of the cast of Friends continued success in their careers, and would welcome them back at any time, but there are currently no plans for them to appear in their Friends roles.' "

Well I suppose this had to happen sooner or later... I was just expecting it to be later. Much later. But I figure a failed and unfunny spin-off (sorry Joey fans... if there are any of you) will get the gears in motion faster. Okay, here goes: just a little over a year and half since the airing of the series finale, all six principle cast members of the NBC hit sitcom Friends have agreed to star in four one hour specials. Wait, that's like eight regular episodes... I rule at math.

Writers are already blasting out the scripts and we can expect them to air sometime in 2007. So we've got a bit of a wait but in the meantime we can also continue to salivate at this: the potential for another Friends spin-off. This time, Perry, Schwimmer... and yes, LeBlanc would star in a new sitcom tentatively titled It's a Guy Thing. Executives have hinted at it, but nothing is set in stone. Can't say that I blame them though. With the nose dive NBC took this season, I'd be milking the Friends teat for all it's worth too. Granted, this could all be bogus because you never know with a story like this but fingers are crossed so take it for what it's worth.

[Thanks so much to Dave for bringing this to our attention.]

UPDATE (1/23): Consider this rumor dead as most of us wisely assumed from the get go. Access Hollywood had this to say earlier today, with a direct quote from Jeff Zucker (CEO of NBC Universal's TV Group) squashing the rumors.

Also, many thanks to TV Squad's own Ryan j Budke who spent numerous hours on the phone this morning with NBC's Media Relations Department, who had this to say: "There are currently no plans to have any follow-up to Friends other than Joey, which is still a major part of our comedy line-up and we whole-heartedly support. The rumors started this weekend are just that; rumors. We wish the rest of the cast of Friends continued success in their careers, and would welcome them back at any time, but there are currently no plans for them to appear in their Friends roles."

So there ya go folks. Sorry if we got your hopes up.