REVIEW: Friends: The Complete Series 4K Blu-ray
In spring 1994, I was reading a series of articles in The New York Times about pilots for the forthcoming TV series, and they profiled a series featuring six twnetysomethings trying to adjust to adulthood. It sounded promising so my wife and I sampled the NBC series the following September.
And Friends has been running somewhere on television ever since. It is now 30 years old and to celebrate, Warner Home Entertainment recently released Friends: The Complete Series, debuting on 4k Ultra HD for the first time. Every episode is included along with a variety of bonus features making this an ideal addition to your video library.
What’s interesting about the series today is how it has endured despite aspects no longer appearing as fresh. The creators, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, cleverly found six types that could bounce off one another with heart and humor. With director James Burrows handling the pilot, all the elements from the first episode were there and remained in place for the next decade.
Largely set in two adjacent apartments in Manhattan, and their favorite coffeeshop, the six worked to live with running gags about their jobs (or not having jobs). They never seemed to worry about paying the rent or utilities, so their struggles were more about relationships—finding them or keeping them. They loved and lost, laughed and cried, and turned to one another for support. Over the course of ten seasons, we saw two couples form, one long-simmering and filled with pathos, while the other unexpected and funny. By the time they turned the lights out in an hour-long finale, they had become part of the national dialogue.
The show endures because the character relationships feel real and their affection for one another is evident from when Monica’s friend Rachel turns up in her wedding dress, having run away from her wedding and is immediately adopted by the others.
Wisley, the showrunners, plotted out the character arcs for each season well before writing and filming began, serving the characters first, then the gags. This may be one of the reasons why it is among the series I continually find my high schoolers watching via streaming.
The series has 23 triple-layered 4K discs and two dual-layered Blu-rays for the special features. They’re tidily packaged in a nice plastic case that fits snugly on the shelf. The 2160p transfers, framed at 1.78:1, look just fine, and as you remember, the series back in the CRT days. That said, the color is oddly saturated throughout and look just a wee bit off, enough to nag at veteran fans.
The 4K discs come complete with a fine DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, serving the dialogue and music just swell.
The Special Features are mostly taken from previous Blu-ray and DVD editions of the seasons such as the audio commentaries with executive producers Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane.
On the first bonus disc, we get a new Friends: Through the Peephole (15:18), hosted by Warner Bros. archivist Matt Truex, examining some of the 2,000 props and costumes. There is also the less interesting trivia contest How Well Do You Know Your Friends? (6:37).
Each season carries over the other Blu-ray extras such as trailers, music videos, shorts spotlighting the series’ international appeal and other topics.
The second disc contains extras imported from seasons 6-10, so we have gag reels, Gunther’s chats about each subsequent season, and various Friends appearances on talk shows plus the Extended Broadcast Episodes – “The One Where Rosita Dies,” “The One Where They All Turn Thirty,” “The One with Joey’s New Brain” and “The One with the Truth About London.”
I suppose the Max reunion special should be here, but it isn’t, which is a shame. Overall, though, it’s nice to have the entire series in one place, so you can watch at your leisure and not worry about the show vanishing from your favorite streaming service or cable channel. As promised in the catchy title song, one of the last to chart on top 40 radio, they’ll be there for you.
