Friendsis decidedly one of thebest sitcoms ever made, as well as one of thebest TV shows of all time, and one of the six main cast members revealed that there was an episode where he started to get a sense of this, one of his favorites. Led by the iconic ensemble of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer,Friendstook the world by storm for 10 seasons with nothing more than the stories about the ups and downs of these friends' 20s and 30s.
What made such a simple premise work so well, allowing it to solidify the place of the friend-group sitcom in the cultural zeitgeist, was the strong writing being elevated by the unrivaled comedic talents of a cast with great chemistry with each other. Matthew Perry, who tragically passed away in 2023, was a standout in this regard, deliveringChandler’s best sarcastic linesin ways that would instantly become beloved moments.Around the time thatFriendswas ending, Perry commented on when he realized the show was workingand why.
“The One With The Blackout” Is When Matthew Perry Got To Watch His Castmates For The First Time
Because Chandler Is Trapped Elsewhere With A Model, Perry Saw What Everyone Else Was Doing
Perry toldEntertainment Weeklyin 2004 (viaPeople) that season 1, episode 7, “The One with the Blackout,” was a special experience for him and signified what the show would become. As many surely remember, five out of the six leads are in the series' main apartment building when the city is struck by a mass blackout. Rachel meets her despicable boyfriend Paolo (Cosimo Fusco) during this ordeal, preventing Ross from finally making a move, whileChandler, elsewhere, ends up trapped in an ATM vestibule with Victoria’s Secret model Jill Goodacre.
The nature of the episode meant that Perry was working separately from the rest of the cast — he even recorded his internal dialogue for the scenes with Goodacre ahead of time and didn’t speak that much while on set. The rest of the time, he got to watch what his co-stars were filming and realized that the cast did indeed have a great dynamic. From the outside, looking in, Perry realized thatFriendswas going to be a very strong show. He reportedly said:
What was great about that night was that I was also able to watch the other three quarters of the show, which was these five great actors doing ensemble work that was amazing. This was the first time I realized, “Gee, this is really clicking.”
“The One With The Blackout” Was One Of Matthew Perry’s Favorite Friends Episodes
It Is Certainly A Classic Episodes Of Friends
There is a good reason that"The One with the Blackout" was possibly Perry’s all-time favorite episode ofFriends.The scenario is now a classic but is hilarious outside the context of it now being an immensely famous episode of television. Ross' attempts to finally ask out Rachel go disastrously, hilariously wrong; first, because he is attacked by a cat and second, because the cat ends up being Paolo’s, with whom Rachel is smitten the moment she meets him.
Perry is also showing off how spectacular he is at Chandler’s comedy, albeit from a different angle than usual,when he is too starstruck by Goodacre to say anything as witty or sarcastic as he usually does. The actor was also very right in saying that this is one of the episodes where the remarkable chemistry of the main cast starts to become apparent, even though Chandler is largely absent from the proceedings.
“The One with the Blackout” was rated 8.8 onIMDB.
Enclosed in the space of the darkened apartment, their reactions to each other are at a high point (at that point in the series). The cast ofFriendsis funny in the early episodes, but they certainly got better as they acclimated to the series and got to know one another, and things started to come together around the time of “The One with the Blackout.”
Because Chandler is off on his own adventure, Matthew Perry had a unique perspective on one of the best episodes of Friends.
Because Chandler is off on his own adventure, Matthew Perry had a unique perspective on one of thebest episodes ofFriends. This episode changed the series' trajectory in several ways, but perhaps being pushed to work with one another in a more contained setting than usual helped finalize the group that would take this show to incredible heights.
