The insane reason a storyline about Monica from Friends was almost cut by NBC

Remember Monica’s big date with Paul, a.k.a. “the wine guy” in the Friends pilot? Allow me to refresh your memory.

Monica goes on a date with a guy named Paul and she’s instantly smitten. During the date, Paul tells Monica he’s been unable to sexually perform ever since his divorce two years back. This, sadly, turns out to be an unfortunate trick. After sleeping together on the first date, Monica learns that sneaky, sneaky Paul was actually lying in a number of ungentlemanly ways.

For starters, he had successfully been using the exact same line on other women, including a co-worker of Monica’s who he had recently slept with.

Apparently, Monica’s now-famous storyline almost played out differently. Or rather, some people at NBC didn’t want it to air at all. According to Entertainment Weekly, the series co-creator previously revealed why the network tried to cut out (and forever alter) “the Monica story” in season 1, episode 1. It’s believed it was Don Meyer, Head of NBC at the time, who “took real issue” with Courteney Cox‘s character sleeping with someone on the first date, wrongly telling the writers, “We’re not going to like her!”

But luckily, those behind the scenes trusted their gut and ran with this plot point anyway. And how very wrong Don Meyer turned out to be.

As the publication notes, director James Burrows made sure to have a live audience for the scheduled network run-through, primarily as a means to garner feedback about what worked for the show and what didn’t. According to David Crane, NBC gave audience members a questionnaire that “basically” asked pointed questions like, “When she does this, is she a trollop? Is she a s**t?,” which of course, is totally unfair.

Siding with series creators, the audience unanimously answered, “No, we still like her,” proving that those behind the scenes definitely knew what they were doing back then.

While sex on the first date might not seem a risqué topic compared to sitcoms today (and even some others to come in the ’90s,) it was still kind of groundbreaking for Friends, especially for a first episode. But the risk definitely paid off.

In direct contrast to what NBC thought was a “bad idea” for Cox’s character and the show’s future, her date with the wine guy that went bad made Monica more relatable from the very start. And it remains a fan-favorite moment all these many years later.