There's no polite time to do this, but what if I were to tell you that there's a new, never-before-seen episode of Friends out there? Oh shoot, you just broke all of your fine china by screaming at an incredibly high pitch that only dogs and fellow Friends-obsessees can hear. RIP, teacups. But let me explain a little more, before your excitement leads you to destroy any more priceless heirlooms. This new episode wasn't written by the show's original creators Marta Kaufmann and David Crane, or any of its writers. Instead, it was pieced together by a computer, specifically a neural network, into which webcomic artist Andy Pandy fed the script of every Friends episode ever written. And once the machine was as much an expert on the sixsome and their antics as the rest of us fans, it could copy the patterns it had noticed in the existing episodes in order to cough up an entirely new one.
And oh my god, you guys, it is so good. Not as an actual episode of television, don't get me wrong. Never should this thing go anywhere near the air waves, or be accepted as Friends canon (can't believe I just typed that), unless you're comfortable with siblings Ross and Monica Geller swapping spit. Yeesh. But as a bizarro world parody of the show, this thing is the best. The computer can mimic, but doesn't quite understand normal speech patterns, so basically everyone is just shouting nonsense into each other's faces, and I love it the most. Everything from Phoebe's non sequiturs, to all the crying, to whoever Gary is, to the stage directions is just so funny. It has the vibe of a Friends episode through and through, but as seen through a fun house mirror. Seriously, I'm obsessed.
For the full text, you'll have to head over to Pandy's Twitter, but here's a juicy little snippet for you:
[Scene: Monica and Rachel’s, they’re running outside.]
Monica: I’m ran off.
Rachel: I know.
Rachel: (To Monica) Wow, you still have to get married. I -duck to work.
Monica: Hey Ross, come here!
(They kiss)
Phoebe: No! I would like to propose to my kid?
(They all stand in bed, them is upset.]
[Time lapse.]
Joey: Seriously give me a clown on the table that’s all.
Monica: (whispering) She’s in London.
Not that much makes me laugh out loud, but this does. I love it so much. If I start asking now, do you think Pop Culture Santa would get me a staged reading of this brilliance with the original cast for Christmas? I can't imagine they'd want to miss out on this.
Images: Warner Bros. Television; Giphy
