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Christmas is coming early for Friends fans this year as the eight unaired episodes of the show's spin-off Joey are now available to watch online. The 2004 series, which focused on Matt LeBlanc's fan-favorite character Joey Tribbiani, was canceled by NBC before it could release all its episodes, and now we can finally see how the story continued.
Following the release of the first episodes of the show earlier this year, the Friends YouTube channel has now released the unaired episodes along with the 38 others that comprise the complete series, so you can start clearing up you schedule this weekend for a Joey marathon.
Released after the end of Friends, the spin-off series followed Joey as he leaves New York for Hollywood to take his acting career to the next level, reuniting with his sister Gina and his 20-year-old genius nephew Michael. LeBlanc was joined in the cast by Drea de Matteo as his sister and Paulo Costanzo as his nephew, along with Andrea Anders and The White Lotus star Jennifer Coolidge.
Although the show's first episode managed to attract attention (it debuted to 18.6 million viewers), fans stopped tuning in every week, and the network decided to axe it due to low ratings.
Producer and director Kevin S. Bright explained that the story was moving "in the wrong direction", and that might explain the early cancelation. "On Friends Joey was a womaniser but we enjoyed his exploits. He was a solid friend, a guy you knew you could count on. Joey was deconstructed to be a guy who couldn't get a job, couldn't ask a girl out. He became a pathetic, mopey character. I felt he was moving in the wrong direction, but I was not heard," he told The Age in 2006 (via Variety).
Reflecting on the enduring popularity of the hit sit-com, Friends star David Schwimmer told GamesRadar+: "What's really meaningful to me is when I'll bump into someone on the street and they'll say, 'I just want you to know, I was going through a really tough time, I was in the hospital,' whatever. 'And the thing that kept me going was watching Friends.' For someone I've never met to come up to me and say that something I did 30 years ago helped them through this really rough patch, is just… it's really moving, and I just feel really grateful."
For more, check out our ranking of the best Friends episodes, and discover what's coming next on TV with our list of the best new shows coming in 2025 and beyond.
