BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Music Video-I'll Be There For You-The Rembrandts
Rating
Year Released	1995
Running Time	175:31
RSDL/Flipper	Dual Sided	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Michael Lembeck  Kevin S. Bright  Gail Mancuso  Ellen Gittelsohn  Peter Bonerz  Mary Kay Place
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Jennifer Aniston  Courtney Cox  Lisa Kudrow  Matt Le Blanc  Matthew Perry  David Schwimmer
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$36.95	Music	Michael Skloff  Ian Christian Nickus

    The episodes on this DVD are the first 8 episodes of Series 2.

    The One With Ross's New Girlfriend (21:55). This episode picks up where the previous season's cliffhanger left us - Ross arriving back from China with a mystery girl just as Rachel learns that Ross loves her. The mystery girl turns out to be Julie, a fellow American anthropologist whom Ross met whilst in China and whom Ross has fallen in love with, which leads to some very awkward moments for Rachel at the airport. Also in this episode, Monica cajoles Phoebe into cutting her hair, with unintended results and Chandler finds out some home truths about Joey's tailor.

    The One With The Breast Milk (21:56). This episode sees three separate storylines; Julie (Ross's new girlfriend) invites Monica to go shopping with her, much to the chagrin of Rachel, Joey finds competition at his day job from the "Hombre man", and Ross is reluctantly forced into tasting his ex-wife's breast milk, much to his horror.

    The One Where Heckles Dies (21:58). As the title of this episode suggests, Mr Heckles dies, leaving all of his earthly possessions to Rachel and Monica. As Chandler helps to sort through all of Mr Heckles junk, he comes to realize that he and Mr Heckles were very much alike. Phoebe and Ross have a disagreement about evolution.

    The One With Phoebe's Husband (21:55). In this episode, we learn that Phoebe has a reputedly-gay husband that she married in order for him to get a green card. However, it turns out that he is not gay, much to Phoebe's discomfit. Ross discusses his desire for sex with Julie with Rachel, leading Rachel to give Ross some advice with Rachel's unique spin on it.

    The One With Five Steaks And An Eggplant (21:55). Chandler inadvertently receives a phone call from a very sexy woman, and takes advantage of the situation. Phoebe, Rachel and Joey are upset with the others because they don't take into account the relative poverty of the trio. The nett result is that they miss out on a Hootie and the Blowfish concert.

    The One With The Baby On The Bus (21:54). Chandler and Joey offer to look after Ben, Ross's son. Joey assures Chandler that babies are a babe magnet, and they set out to prove this, successfully, but their plans go astray when they forget Ben on a bus. Phoebe is replaced at Central Perk by a paid singer, and takes up busking on the sidewalk outside the cafe.

    The One Where Ross Finds Out (22:04). Monica, newly-unemployed, takes on the task of helping Chandler lose weight, much to his disgust. Ross and Julie decide to buy a cat, prompting Rachel to tell Ross of her feelings for him.

    The One With The List (21:54). Ross faces the dilemma of whether to pick Rachel or Julie. Chandler, eager to make use of his new computer, offers to compile a list of pros and cons for Rachel and Julie. Unfortunately, the list (hilariously) falls into Rachel's hands.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. Four episodes are present on each side of the DVD, which is not clearly labelled in regards to which side is which.

    The transfer as a rule is relatively soft, although the opening credits for each episode actually look very good and are better than many of the episodes in quality. Background details are limited due to both production techniques and overcompression resulting in considerable image blur. Grain is a problem for all episodes, with Episodes 1, 2 and 5 particularly affected. Shadow detail is poor during the only episode that is not brightly lit - Episode 7, in Central Perk. Low level noise is not a problem for this transfer.

    There were skips in the image at 9:51 in Episode 1 and 15:27 in Episode 4.

    The colours were quite highly saturated, but the colour problems of previous discs were not repeated on this DVD. The colours never bled and no blue tinges marred the reds. The only colour anomaly was seen in Episode 8, with the Mockolate bar's edges bleeding somewhat.

    MPEG artefacts were a major problem for some of the episodes on this DVD. In particular, Episodes 1, 2 and 5 showed considerable MPEG artefacting in the form of foreground posterization. Faces in particular were affected, with moving faces noticeably posterized. This was particularly evident if the image was paused. In these instances, you could see large blocks of uniform colour in each face rather than a smooth gradation of colour. At normal speed, these instances merely looked like motion blur, as movement both decreased the resolution of the image and increased its graininess.

    The marked grain inherent in these particular episodes contributed to them being overcompressed in this fashion, and it would have been much better to have reduced the number of episodes on this DVD. Apart from the foreground posterization, there was also background posterization which was present to a greater or lesser extent in all episodes on this DVD. Uniformly-coloured background walls were particularly affected, with discrete vertical steps frequently visible in the walls' colouration instead of a smooth blend of colours.

    Aliasing was not noted at any point in this transfer - there was insufficient detail in the image for this to be much of a problem. Film artefacts were not noticed at any point in this transfer, and makes me wonder whether this series of Friends may have been captured on video instead of on film.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/MPEG Artefacts
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times. The distortion that marred previous DVDs of this series was not present. Audio sync was satisfactory other than for Episode 5, which appeared to be subtly out of sync for the entire episode.

    The score by Michael Skloff and Ian Christian Nickus was generally restricted to the opening theme of the series, but as the series progressed, so too did the frequency of use of musical cues during the episodes. This particularly applied to Episodes 7 and 8.

    The surround channel had a small amount of usage during the Central Perk scene in Episode 7, when rain effects and music created a nicely-enveloping soundfield. Other than this brief moment, the sound was strictly mono for dialogue and stereo for music and audience laughter. The subwoofer was not used significantly.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Distortion/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Music Video-I'll Be There For You-The Rembrandts

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (read my bio)
8th November 2000