It's no secret that Friends has become one of the most well-known TV shows in history.
Not only have all of the characters remained icons, but one of the best parts was the NYC settings the gang regularly inhabited.
Well, in the new book Generation Friends by Saul Austerlitz, it was revealed that Friends almost traded NYC for Minnesota during Season 5.
As the series became more and more popular, the writers were constantly looking for ways to surprise fans — like when Monica and Rachel had to switch apartments with Chandler and Joey.
One of the biggest surprises they came up with was when Chandler and Monica got together during the Season 4 finale.
So, when Season 5 started, the writers wanted to use Monica and Chandler's relationship to give audiences another plot twist.
One of the proposed storylines was actually to have Chandler "unexpectedly transferred to Minnesota for work."
Then, since there was no urgent reason why Monica, Rachel, Joey, Phoebe, and Ross had to stay in NYC, they were going to "ultimately choose to join [Chandler]" and Friends would've been set in Minnesota for the later part of Season 5.
The idea was that the gang would "discover a magical Midwestern respite from New York, with cheap apartments, friendly neighbors, and subzero temperatures."
There was even an idea for an episode where the gang searched for a coffee place to replace Central Perk.
The writers also thought it would be fun to reshoot the iconic Friends opening sequence in front of a frozen fountain to mimic the icy Minnesota landscape.
In the end, the writers argued about why it wasn't a good idea for the show to lose the iconic NYC backdrop fans loved and the Minnesota idea was scrapped.
Ironically, Chandler would later be relocated to Oklahoma during Season 9.
Basically, I'm relieved we never got this Minnesota adventure because we probably would've missed out on Phoebe spotting Monica and Chandler together for the first time and that would've changed everything.
