Friday Night Dinner ‘new season’ has Netflix viewers scratching their heads

It's always a kick in a teeth when your favourite show comes to an end. But the fake hope that it could make a return is, for some reason, even worse.

The case of Friday Night Dinner seems to be the latest to fall victim to the trend after it returned to Netflix.

Usually broadcast on Channel 4, the first five seasons of the sitcom returned to the streaming giant and immediately jumped into the Netflix top 10 watched TV shows on the platform.

Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird, Tom Rosenthal star as the Goodman family, which has a very loose premise of being based around the Jewish tradition of having your Friday evening meal together.

Mark Heap is also part of the core cast, as the rather bizarre neighbour, Jim.

There are six seasons of Friday Night Dinner, which is where the confusion has seemingly come from when it comes to their presence on Netflix.

With just five on the platform this time last week, the title card reads 'new season coming soon.'

It saw people flooding social media with comments asking how and why a new season could be made, given the tragic death of Ritter a number of years ago.

One person wrote: "Are we really getting a new season of Friday Night Dinner?"

A second added: "HUH? FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER NEW SEASON?? HOW?"

Some had put two and two together before tweeting, saying: "Why did they add Friday Night Dinner back on Netflix saying new season? They removed the new season part now but still what the f**k."

Another, referencing the death of Ritter, said: "how are they gonna make a new season?"

Reading between the lines, it seems Netflix had innocently advertised the looming arrival of season six after initially putting the first five seasons back on to the platform ahead of its arrival.

One screenshot of its return, shared by creator Robert Popper, shows five seasons available to watch with the 'new season coming soon' advert underneath.

So it's quite possible Netflix hasn't quite realised what it's done in making us think freshly filmed Friday Night Dinner is on the way - because it is not.

Last year, Popper told LADbible that he felt the final episode of the sixth season was the perfect way to end things. When asked if this had always been the plan, though, he said: "It wasn't, actually. I never really know until I start.

"I have all my ideas and I have my board up on a wall, but I never really know, until I start an episode, what it's going to be about. But I did think half-way through it would be great if they both brought girls round, and then I thought that one of them was pregnant and then 'oh, what happens if they're both pregnant?' So I thought that was good.

"And then, yeah, I was thinking this will be the end, because I didn't want to do a series where they had kids and babies, and Jim would have seven dogs, also, like, the world's weirdest dog that you couldn't find seven of."

HUH? FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER NEW SEASON?? HOW pic.twitter.com/XbVpBMbpWG

— franko (@FragzzGrenade) January 21, 2024

Fans were buzzing when it made its return to Netflix, even if the bio confused everyone including Popper.

It reads: "Set in London, this quirky sitcom follows along as the Goodmans - a Jewish family led by an eccentric patriarch - convene every Friday for dinner."

Sharing a screengrab of the return to the platform, Popper wrote: "FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER is now on Netflix.

"Just a shame the show description was written by an early model of AI but hey ho."

LADbible have reached out to Netflix for comment.