SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains details on those of Netflix The one about Matthew Perry docuseries.
Let’s be honest, Netflix just debuted The one about Matthew Perry it’s mainly for hardcore Friends fans. That said, even Rachel, Ross, Monica, Joey, Phoebe, and Chandler devotees might be disappointed because there’s not much in this three-part documentary series directed by Mary Robertson that you haven’t heard before.
Over the course of approximately three hours, The one about is based on stories of drunken nights, grimaces and rises, claims and turns towards glory. There are interviews with old friends, family members (especially Perry’s younger half-sister and licensed therapist, Mia Perry Bowick), NBC Entertainment boss Warren Littlefield, The whole nine meters director and now former U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Yet in the rush of getting nowhere, the result is pretty much the officially permitted surface level we all used to get in the 1990s from Behind the music. Unlike the sometimes underestimated VH1 Behind the music, that of Matthew PerryThe three-act play of rise, fall and resurrection never really gains momentum. The comeback of sorts that the third act should promise leaves you feeling cheated at best.
The main fuel here is people who love longtime addict Perry, who drowned at the age of 54 at his West LA spa on October 28, 2023 after taking a ton of ketamine, clearly loved and missed him dearly. Again, The one about (Friends fans get the nod to the hit sitcom) draws primarily on Perry’s 2022 bestseller Friends, lovers and the big terrible thing memoir and his subsequent press tour for his story. A decision that, as we now know in hindsight from the book itself, reveals little about the darkness-plagued man behind the Friend, if you know what I mean?
Yet, for better or worse, here are some of the highlights of The one about Matthew Perry:
THERE ARE NO FRIENDS: if you’re waiting for news from Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow or David Schwimmer in The one about Matthew Perry, you are going to be very upset.
While the Friends the actors are visible everywhere The one about in behind-the-scenes footage, clips from the show’s 10 seasons and press conferences, none of them agreed to be interviewed by Robertson. In fact, no one Friendsneither the cast, guest stars, nor co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane appear in the docuseries. The nearest The one about who ever makes it to the mega-sitcom is one Jeff Strauss, who was a writer/producer on season 1 of Friends. Although Strauss appears to have been initially close to Perry, Friends Taken together, most of his later observations and remarks about the actor becoming “difficult and problematic” are clearly second-hand at best.
MATTHEW PERRY REALLY WANTED TO BE FAMOUS AND THEN REALLY HATED BEING FAMOUS: The son of a journeyman actor and former press secretary to a Canadian prime minister, Perry was also the stepson of a famous Canadian journalist and later Data line NBC Correspondent. From his early days as a class clown, to hanging out on sets with his father figures and trying to catch a break in early 1990s Los Angeles, Perry, as various pre-stardom friends in docuseries attest, wanted to be famous.
When he arrived with Friendsat a level that almost no one reaches these days, it was overwhelming. To be as accurate as possible on such occasions, it seems, from the docuseries and Perry’s own memoir, to have brought out crippling insecurities, as much as wealth and notoriety. Problem with The one aboutunlike Robertson’s much better recent Netflix docuseries Quiet on set: The dark side of children’s TV, is that it’s mostly examined through the prism of spiraling alcohol, drug and emotional problems with little sense of context – which feels as hollow as the canned laughter of the studio audience.
Additionally, with that quote attributed to Little Richard that “if you don’t want your picture taken, don’t become famous” in mind, the openly ambitious Perry himself is rarely held accountable for his own behavior, actions, and addiction. It seems that The one about Matthew Perry that Matthew Perry was ultimately a perpetual victim who, to quote one of his pals on the show, “didn’t have much luck” – and that’s just hard to buy.
THERE WAS MORE THAN FAIR FRIENDS: The fame and sprawling legacy of Friends, even though the film ended nearly 20 years before Perry’s death, it seems to have haunted him in both a Hollywood cliché way and a very disorienting way up until the day he died. Having spent decades outrunning Chandler Bing, Perry may never have given himself the chance to let go and succeed elsewhere, The One About suggests.
Although praised for his short stints and Emmy Award nominations on The west wing, Ally McBeal, And The good wifePerry may have floundered on the big screen, but her leading TV roles from 2006 to 2013 showed off untapped talents that were never given the time or space to flourish. Looking back from the perspective of streaming and the 2026 revival, Perry’s starring roles in Aaron Sorkin’s flawed but prophetic film Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Mr. Sun (which Perry co-created) and Continue all deserve much more attention, Robertson posits in the second episode of The one about. There’s not much to argue with from the Emmy winner’s POV on this – if only Robertson had done these later shows and roles justice.
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THIS ONE DOESN’T HAVE A LOT ABOUT PERRY’S DEATH: I attended the court hearings and sentencing hearing regarding Perry’s death until this year. Before that, I was on the story of Perry’s death about an hour after his body was discovered in late October 2023 by authorities in his Pacific Palisades home. As more details emerged, the sad truth about Perry’s relapses and drug use came to light. What also emerged was the quick play the actor played on those around him – declaring himself clean and sober when he started using again made his death inevitable.
Like the cast of Friends, you won’t find many in The one about Mathew Perry – it doesn’t fit the narrative they’ve constructed, true or not.
The truth and consequences of Perry’s life and death can be debated for centuries, I grant you as someone who saw much of it unfold up close. Still, playing mostly on the downhill side of the Netflix street, the documentary series doesn’t leave you with much more time than to catch your breath before the epilogue begins.
The one about gives Perry’s death, the investigation and convictions of the seedy doctors, the personal assistant and the infamous “Ketamine Queen” just about 15 minutes into the third and final episode. In short, bad people did bad things. While this is partly true, you never learn anything more nuanced about it — which makes the almost three hours so far feel like a psyche of the viewer and the subjects of the docuseries.
THIS IS WHY PEOPLE SPEND LESS TIME ON NETFLIX: Love it, hate it or just eat it, few these days will tell you that fast food is nutritious. In addition to some funny excerpts from old Friends episodes and some of Perry’s later work, there’s nothing good for you or really memorable The one about Matthew Perry once you have watched all the episodes.
In many ways, the entire series is an upgraded version of Netflix’s recently introduced InstaDocs series and their snapshot approach to a big event like the OpenAI Hugging Face cyberattack. In another sense, The one about Matthew Perry seems to exist largely so that the streamer’s algorithm pushes you towards programming that is easier to digest and which you will lose interest in fairly quickly.
As a passionate fan of Is it cake?don’t expect me to regale you with intellectual recommendations or death. A good escape is a treat to me, and the tastier it is, the better it is cooked. However, at the same time, if you want to know, Ted and Greg, why Netflix subscribers are spending less time on the service, it’s air-filled content like The one about Matthew Perry. Content that is really much ado about nothing.
As we hear Perry himself say in The one about: “Reality is an acquired taste.”
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