If you came of age during the golden age of network sitcoms during the mid to late 90s you’ll be horrified to know that the series finale of Friends turned ten this week.
In honour of this momentous occasion, the internet has been overrun this week with commemorative think pieces attempting to summarise its gargantuan pop culture legacy (on-trend haircuts included). But by far the most interesting piece to emerge is this, a data-driven Slate piece titled The One Where Slate Runs The Numbers On Friends which uses statistical analysis of shared screen time to determine which of the core friends – Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross – were the closest.
Quite a bit of interesting data emerges. For instance, Joey appears the most of any character in the series, appearing in 47.7% of all scenes. While Phoebe appears the least, appearing in just 41.9% of all scenes.
The show’s most common grouping of four was Joey, Phoebe, Monica, and Chandler – appearing together 41 times – while its least common was Joey, Phoebe, Monica, and Ross, which only happened once.
Elsewhere, Ross and Rachel were the most likely to share screen time, for obvious reasons. While the unlucky friend most likely to be absent in a scene where all other five were present was the show’s lamest character, Ross, left to collect tears in his palaeontology kit on no less than 58 occasions.
But which two friends were the closest? Ignoring the show’s romantic pairings (Chandler/Monica and Ross/Rachel), the friendship pairing most likely to occur was Chandler and Joey, good for 130 scenes without any other friends present. Mostly to do this.
Read the whole thing here.
