Friends-Season 9 Box Set (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	560:52 (Case: 545)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Sided Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Robby Benson Peter Bonerz Kevin Bright James Burrows
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Jennifer Aniston Courteney Cox Lisa Kudrow Matt LeBlanc Matthew Perry David Schwimmer
Case	Gatefold
RPI	$69.95	Music	Peter Kellert Geoff Levin Chris Lowe

    As the second-to-last season of Friends scrolled past my screen I found myself feeling surprisingly nostalgic. I was somewhat sceptical about this series when it first aired, and found that watching it on TV was an exercise in self-defeat as the momentum was persistently being chopped up by advertising. But my friends (the real ones, not the TV ones) turned out to be right, and the ultra-caffeinated humour of the series gets to be quite enjoyable, and even missed if not around. Thankfully, the DVD format enables one to indulge those nostalgic impulses and return to the world of four twenty-somethings (now thirty-somethings) standing on their own two feet in New York, but this time without the commercial breaks.

    We left off in Season 8 with Rachel having Ross’s baby and Ross not ready for marriage, but being convinced into it by Phoebe. But when Joey shows up with the engagement ring to be used by Ross, Rachel thinks Joey is proposing and accepts. Season 9 breaks down like this:

Disc 1

SIDE A

    1. The One Where No One Proposes (22:15) – The confusion as to who has proposed to whom and how reaches a boiling point with Monica and Chandler escaping the mayhem to go have sex in the closet again, only to be busted by Monica’s dad.

    2. The One Where Emma Cries (22:14) – P***** that Rachel was going to accept Joey’s non-proposal proposal, Ross takes his anger out on his friend and winds up getting hurt in the process. At the same time, Rachel wakes Emma and sets of a crying fit that will not stop. And Chandler finds himself posted to the office in Tulsa.

    3. The One With The Paediatrician (22:14) – After incessant nagging, Rachel’s paediatrician quits, leaving her without anyone to consult. When Ross tells Rachel that his childhood paediatrician is dead, Rachel thinks something is up, and it turns out that Ross is still visiting his paediatrician even though he is a grown man. During all this, Phoebe sets up Joey on a double date, but Joey forgets so he picks up a stranger from the coffee house to come with him.

    4. The One With The Sharks (22:23) – Monica travels to Tulsa to surprise Chandler on the weekend, but is surprised herself when she thinks that she catches him masturbating to shark attack footage. At the same time, Ross manages to screw up things between Phoebe and Mike by telling Mike that Phoebe has never had a serious relationship and then lying about an ex-boyfriend who does not exist.

SIDE B

    5. The One With Phoebe’s Birthday Dinner (22:13) – It is Phoebe’s birthday but only she and Joey show up on time because Rachel will not leave Emma and Chandler and Monica are fighting over cigarette smoking and sex to get pregnant.

    6. The One With The Male Nanny (30:35) – Ross cannot cope when Rachel hires a male nanny, even though he is great with Emma and everybody else loves him, despite the fact that being a nanny is not a ‘manly’ job.

    7. The One With Ross’s Inappropriate Song (22:14) – Ross manages to get Emma to laugh, but he can only do so by singing “Baby Got Back”, much to Rachel’s disgust. At the same time, Joey is looking for somewhere to park his money, and Monica suggests buying Richard’s apartment. But when Joey and Chandler scope the place out, Chandler finds a tape with Monica’s name on it and steals it.

    8. The One With Rachel’s Other Sister (24:10) – Rachel’s freaky younger sister (Christina Applegate), who is utterly devoid of social skills, shows up for Thanksgiving and sets off a chain of discussion about who would have to die before she inherited Emma, and whether Chandler is an adequate father.

Disc 2

SIDE A

    9. The One With Rachel’s Phone Number (22:14) – Rachel and Phoebe go out partying and Ross and Mike stay home. However, while the boys have nothing in common and have an insufferable night, Rachel manages to pick up, but Phoebe has to get Mark to stay at Ross’s apartment so he can intercept the phone call.

    10. The One With Christmas In Tulsa (22:13) – Largely a ‘flashback’ episode, Chandler is stuck in Tulsa during Christmas where he is hit on by a female employee who is similarly married while the guys are stuck together back in New York.

    11. The One Where Rachel Goes Back To Work (22:14) – Rachel goes back to the office only to find that she has been replaced by a good-looking and very capable guy named Gavin whom she takes an instant disliking to. And Joey helps Phoebe get a job as an extra on Days Of Our Lives.

    12. The One With Phoebe’s Rats (22:14) – Mike is horrified to discover rats in Phoebe’s apartment, and worse yet, that they are her pets. Rachel has her birthday party at Monica and Chandler’s place while Joey tries to pick up Ross and Rachel’s hot new nanny Molly. And Gavin makes a move on Rachel.

SIDE B

    13. The One Where Monica Sings (29:31) – Mike is doing a show where his guests get to sing whatever they like, and Monica turns out to be a real hit, although not necessarily for her musical talent. At the same time, Ross, feeling as if Rachel has moved on, begins desperately trying to pick up all the wrong girls. And Joey gets his eyebrow (single) waxed.

    14. The One With The Mugging (21:45) – Chandler gets an intern job with an advertising agency, and Ross finds out that it was Phoebe who mugged him as a child all those years ago, leaving him with psychological scarring.

    15. The One With The Blind Date (22:14) – Ross is afraid that he hasn’t moved on where Rachel seems to be and so Joey and Phoebe plot to get the two of them back together by setting them up on horrific blind dates on the same night.

    16. The One With The Boob Job (22:13) – Phoebe and Mike move in together, but Mike finds himself fearing that this could all lead to marriage which he is terrified of after his last marriage. At the same time, Rachel tries to baby proof Joey’s apartment.

Disc 3

SIDE A

    17. The One With The Memorial Service (22:53) – Chandler and Ross begin making stuff up about each other on their Alumni website page as a practical joke that ends with Chandler faking Ross’s death. At the same time, Joey and Emma fight over Joey’s favourite soft toy, Hugsy. And Phoebe seeks Monica’s help to keep her away from Mike.

    18. The One With The Lottery (21:46) – The gang each throw in to get tickets in the lottery but become fractious between themselves as to whether they should pool their resources when it becomes apparent that Monica has been buying other tickets on the side with her money.

    19. The One With Rachel’s Dream (23:13) – Rachel keeps dreaming that she is in love with Joey after she sees him perform live on Days Of Our Lives. At the same time, Chandler books himself into a romantic inn in Vermont with Monica only to discover she cannot go and he does not have insurance so cannot shift the dates. As a result, he and Ross go together and decide to steal everything they can from the hotel in order to make up for the exorbitant prices.

    20. The One With The Soap Opera Party (22:57) – Joey gets tickets to an off-Broadway play for the guys but it turns out this is all a ruse for a soap opera party that he hosts every year on the roof of the building. Furthermore, a very attractive professor of palaeontology is in town who has so much in common with Ross it is almost scary, and Rachel finds her romantic feelings for Joey growing.

SIDE B

    21. The One With The Fertility Test (25:54) – Chandler and Monica have a fertility test to discover why it is so difficult for them to have children. At the same time, Rachel and Ross struggle to come to terms with the fact that Joey and Charlie hooked up. However, Joey enlists Ross’s help to show Charlie the intellectual sights of Manhattan in order to give her a proper date.

    22. The One With The Donor (23:35) – Chandler brings home a guy from work for dinner with Monica so they can size him up as a potential sperm donor. At the same time, Rachel and Phoebe take Charlie shopping where Rachel confesses to Phoebe that she is in love with Joey, however Charlie hears them through the thin walls in the change rooms. Ross gets to go to Barbados to be the guest speaker at a palaeontologist conference. And Phoebe hooks up with David.

    23. & 24. The One In Barbados (Parts 1 & 2) (48:00) – The crew fly to Barbados and wind up stranded in the hotel while it pours outside. David plans to propose to Phoebe, while feelings between Charlie and Ross grow when Chandler accidentally erases Ross’s keynote speech with a computer virus and Charlie has to help him rewrite it. Will Mike show up to say he really loves Phoebe? Will Charlie and Ross get together? And if they do, will Joey and Rachel get together? And will the weather ever clear so Chandler and Monica can play tennis?

    Season 9 is good quality Friends, although one really has to conclude that the show peaked several years earlier. There are still flashes of brilliance that manage to get a really good laugh out of you, particularly episodes like The One With The Sharks and The One With The Donor, but for the most part this is a season of steady chuckles about the interesting life choices that people have to make when they settle into their thirties.

    This is also the interlude leading into the final season, the last of the series where the end was not in sight, and all was not leading to a climactic double episode to say farewell to this series forever. But, of course, through the magic of DVD, it’s time to return to Season 1 and relive those classics all over again.

Video

    Presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, this is the original broadcast ratio of the show, although it was actually produced on Super 35, indicating that it could have been widened out to a 1.78:1 matted picture had the DVD producers actually wanted to. Indeed, Season 10 is actually being broadcast in widescreen and I feel that we have kind of missed out here on DVD without a 1.78:1 anamorphic image.

    That complaint aside, the image quality here is excellent. Unlike the NTSC Collector’s Edition sets that I have been reviewing up to this point, this set has been reproduced from a PAL master with fantastic results. Colours are well balanced and richly saturated. Thankfully, the cross-colouration problem that so plagued the NTSC releases and earlier seasons of this show on PAL DVD is also vanquished.

    Moreover, we have a crisp, intensely sharp and richly detailed image that glows off the screen. I am really quite impressed with the clarity here and it is one of the better examples I have viewed lately of a transfer of a TV show to DVD.

    Shadow detail is also outstanding, though there are very few shadowy shots – most sets are brightly lit with artificial lighting.

    There are no MPEG artefacts, and thankfully film-to-video transfer artefacts are very few and far between with only the faintest of aliasing on panning outdoor shots.

    Film artefacts were kept to a minimum.

    Subtitles are available in English and English for the Hearing Impaired. They are white with a black border, follow the dialogue pretty closely, and are easy enough to read.

    As far as I can tell, these are dual-sided, single-layered discs with four approx. 22-minute episodes per side. As to why this method of release was chosen, I can only surmise.

    One final criticism, which I have made of all the Friends releases on DVD – there are no chapter stops. This can be quite frustrating for when you want to skip to your favourite part in an episode or just to skip the opening credits.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio is available in 2.0 Dolby Surround only.

    The dialogue is clear and comes through very nicely, and there are no apparent audio sync faults.

    The surrounds came to life a little with the laughter track and with the odd burst of music used throughout.

    There was no subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, static and silent.

    Oddly enough, it does not appear as if this season has yet made it to DVD in R1. I guess Region 4 gets this one by default for now.

    Friends – Season 9 is not the same as the vintage crop of the show, but it does still have its charms, and a couple of real laugh out loud moments. As a whole, it works quite well.

    Video is excellent, but it would have been nice to have had a widescreen transfer.

    The sound is a sturdy 2.0 Dolby Surround that carries the dialogue very well and suits the scope of the show.

    Sadly, there are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall