The One Where The Lines Get Kinda Blurry

The One Where Time Is Precious

Time is either on your side or not, at least that's how it seemed to Jen and David who after twelve long months of trying had still not managed to find themselves in the same place, at the same time, with the same opening in their busy diaries.  Jen had spent almost ten of those months either filming or producing The Morning Show Season One.  David had been in LA a handful of times during that time frame, but neither he or she could find a window where they could make it work without it being squashed in between business meetings or night shoots and that was absolutely not what they wanted to do.  Then Jen had excitedly announced that she would be filming in New York for a few weeks, only for them to quickly realise that her arrival in town coincided almost exactly with David's departure to London, where he would spend the next six months filming Intelligence, only flying back across the Atlantic for a few much-needed long weekends with his daughter. They had been in touch regularly by phone and by message, but another year had passed without a face to face encounter and they were both kind of sad about that.

In August, whilst David was in London, Jen had received a message via her team regarding a meeting with a young, English producer called Ben Winston.  He was apparently pitching a Friends Reunion show and he wanted to meet with her in person to discuss it.  She picked up her cell and dialled Court straight away, who had had a very similar message as had Lisa.  They had talked quite a lot about a possibility of some sort of reunion when they had all been together last year, and the feeling amongst them all was that it was far better to leave that past untouched. The show had been wrapped up so perfectly that to even think about going back to those characters again felt like the worst thing they could possibly do for them. And it was with this mindset that Jen walked into the meeting with Ben, sceptical and not really all that interested in what he might have to say.  She left the room a couple of hours later however feeling giddy with excitement and buzzing with possibilities. This guy got it. He understood that the show was special and untouchable. But what he wanted to do, taking them back to the set as themselves and not in character, now that was interesting, it was exciting, and it was absolutely something she wanted to make happen if she possibly could.

David had just finished up filming for the day and was making his way through the busy London traffic towards his hotel, when his cell started to ring.  "Jen! How are you? Funnily enough I was going to call you later. What's up?"

"Hey honey, I'm great thanks.  How's the filming going?"

"Yeah, it's all going to plan so far. Nick and I are basically getting paid to laugh a lot with each other for hours on end. It really is such a great privilege to be working with my buddy."

"That sounds like a familiar story, getting paid to laugh and work with your best friends. Listen, that's kind of why I was calling. Has Ben been in touch with you yet?"

"Ben? Who's Ben?"

"Ah ok, that's a no then. So, his name is Ben Winston, he's British, a young producer. He works a lot with James Corden. Anyway, he is pitching a Friends Reunion show idea to each of us individually and I met with him today and all I can say is wow! It sounds incredible!"

"Mmmmm, really Jen? I thought we all agreed that we wouldn't ever want to do any kind of reunion thing? What's this guy selling that's made you change your mind so easily? Have you spoken to the others about it yet either?"

"I've talked to the girls and we are all up for it. I think he came to us three first. And honestly David, I think you will love this guy. I won't do his pitching for him, but when he calls, and I'm pretty sure it will be very soon, please, listen to what he has to say and don't go in like I did, pre-judging and not really interested. I think his idea is a great one and it's not something any of us has really considered. So please, promise me, hear him out with an open mind, ok?"

"Ok, you've convinced me. I will listen to what he has to say. But you know my thoughts on this kind of thing Jen so I'm not making any promises."

"Honey, I wouldn't ask you to. But I think, well I hope, that you might be very pleasantly surprised and hopefully as excited as I am about this.  Plus, if he manages to pull it off, we might finally get that date since we would both be in the same place at the same time for once."

"Well, that's one very good reason for me to hear him out then at least. Listen sweetie, I'm about to pull up outside the hotel so I need to go, but I'll let you know when he contacts me and what I think okay."

David was sat in his hotel room reeling from the three and a half hour long meeting he had just had with Ben.  Jen had been right, this guy was something else.  He'd liked him instantly on the phone, but face to face he came across even better. He had come up with a genius idea, something that they would probably never have thought of but which made total and utter sense and would be a fabulous way to honour their brilliant show.  Ben had told him that the other five had agreed in principle, however they'd all said David was the one he would have to work hardest to get onboard and that was why he had left him until last to approach. Ben needn't have worried. He had already told the guy he was in.  He hadn't followed protocol and gone via his agent, he had shaken his hand and had he had a contract there to sign, he probably would have done that too. He felt excited at the prospect of putting together a show with such a dynamic young producer, and at getting to spend a few days back on the iconic Friends set with his long time buddies again. He picked up his phone and tapped out a message. 'Okay yes, now I get it. Count me in. I already can't wait. And we will finally get that date too. I'm not leaving town until we do.'

By the time David headed back across the pond home in early December, all six of the cast alongside Marta, David and Kevin, had signed on to do the reunion show. There was a real buzz between the nine of them and Ben, and there were multiple meetings and phone calls between various groups of them all. Since the Friends were all going to serve as executive producers of the show as well as starring in it, one of their first tasks was to agree the deal with HBO Max, which they did in January 2020. It was arranged that shooting would take place in late March for the show which would then be aired in May as part of their big online streaming launch.  It didn't give them very long to turn it around but they were sure they could pull it off since they were all so enthusiastic about the show. They were all ready, set and raring to go..... and then the whole world changed almost overnight and suddenly their actual lives were under threat, not just the project they were working on.

Jen had walked her three dogs around her substantial garden three times today already. She had cleaned out four kitchen cupboards and rearranged the furniture in one of the guest suites. She checked her watch. Ten minutes before she was due on the first Zoom meeting with Ben and the gang to discuss just what they were going to do next now that life as they knew it had been placed on hold. She had never even heard of Zoom a couple of weeks ago, but already now she could navigate her way around it with minimal fuss or stress. She sat down with her laptop, having grabbed herself a bottle of ice-cold water from the fridge, and fired up the screen, hitting join after entering the various codes and passwords required.

Within minutes there were seven familiar faces on her screen, if you counted her own that is. They discussed at length what effect this worldwide pandemic was going to have on their show and to what good effect they could use this extra time that had suddenly been enforced on them. Ben had announced he planned to sit and watch every single episode of all ten series looking for the perfect table read scenes. He also tasked the six of them with trying to remember behind the scenes stuff that wasn't widely known about to give the show deeper insight and to add an extra layer of connection between audience and cast. Jen's iPhone buzzed with an incoming message during this discussion and she was slightly confused when it was from David. She read the message then looked at his face on the screen. She could tell he was watching for her reaction so she smiled widely and gave a subtle head nod. She quickly tapped a reply as Ben was speaking. 'Of course you can. FaceTime me after this. I suspect I know what you want to talk about x'