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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Friends-Series 4-Volume 1-Episodes 1-8 (1997)

Friends-Series 4-Volume 1-Episodes 1-8 (1997)

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Released 6-Nov-2000

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Comedy Featurette-Friends Goes To London
Featurette-Friends On Location In London
Music Video-I'll Be There For You-The Rembrandts
DVD-ROM Extras-Web Links, Events
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 1997
Running Time 172:03 (Case: 176)
RSDL / Flipper Dual Sided Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Shelley Jensen
Peter Bonerz
Gail Mancuso
Kevin S. Bright
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Jennifer Aniston
Courtney Cox
Lisa Kudrow
Matt LeBlanc
Matthew Perry
David Schwimmer
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI $29.95 Music Michael Skloff


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
French
Finnish
Danish
Swedish
Norwegian
Dutch
English for the Hearing Impaired
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits Yes, Usually a funny one-liner or two

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Friends is an American sitcom revolving around the lives of 6 close friends. It centres around the quirky habits of each character and is primarily filmed within the confines of their two apartments.

    Please see Michael's review of Friends Series 1 - Volume 1 if you would like to read some background information on the main characters of the show.

    Friends is probably not the funniest series they have ever made, but it still makes for some good, light-hearted entertainment. Personally, I prefer watching Friends on DVD rather than on TV. Although the show is identical, you seem to lose some of the humour and natural flow of the show when it is sliced into segments and mixed with commercials.

    This disc contains the first 8 Episodes of Series 4. The episodes are;

The One With The Jellyfish (21:49) - This episode is rare in that the characters actually leave their unit for a holiday at the beach. Monica is stung by a jellyfish while splashing in the water and Joey remembers once hearing a cure on The Discovery Channel. In order to relieve Monica of her pain, she needs to pee on her foot. Does she do it or does Joey or Chandler have to?

The One With The Cat (21:23) - Phoebe gets the impression that her mother has come back as a stray cat. She decides to keep the cat, while the rest of the group try to convince her otherwise.

The One With The Cuffs (21:20) - Chandler gets himself "tied up" with Rachel's boss and is caught with his pants down, so to speak.

The One With The Ballroom Dancing (21:22) - In this episode, Joey comes to the rescue of Rachel and Monica who have been threatened with eviction by their Building Super. Joey needs to help the rather large Super with his dancing lessons, which makes for some good laughs.

The One With Joey's New Girlfriend (21:22) - Joey finds himself a new girlfriend, but Chandler starts to like her more than a best friend and flatmate should.

The One With The Dirty Girl (21:36) - Ross dates a gorgeous new girl but her apartment is disgusting. Can he ignore the mess and settle for the charming looks or not?

The One Where Chandler Crosses The Line (21:22) - The physical attraction between Joey's new girlfriend and Chandler becomes too much. They end up going behind Joey's back and cross the line . . .

The One With Chandler In A Box (21:49) - In this episode you see what punishment Joey hands out to Chandler for his actions in the previous episode.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

    The video transfers across all 8 episodes were all of similar quality and appearance.

    On Side A, all episodes returned to the Main Menu after they had finished playing. Conversely, on Side B, each episode led directly into the next which not only made things easier, but the flow of the show was maintained.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is not of reference quality and has a slight grainy appearance about it. Nonetheless, it is still very watchable. It is clear, but is not a crisp, sharp image. It has a rather soft and grainy appearance. Shadow detail is acceptable and there is no low level noise.

    The colours were bright and clear at all times throughout all episodes. There were no irregularities with the colour rendition.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. The only aliasing that I noticed was during The One With the Jellyfish at 6:42 as the camera moves past a picket fence.

    There is a good collection of subtitles to choose from, and the English subtitles that I checked appeared generally close to the spoken word, but in quite a few cases was not the exact wording. At all times it was in sync with the on-screen images.

    This DVD is presented as a double-sided single-layered disc and therefore there is no layer change. Instead, you have to flip the disc over manually to see the second group of four episodes. I would have liked to see the Side A/B information printed more clearly on the disc. As it stands, there are merely the numbers 17600.1.A and 17600.1.B in a miniscule font to distinguish between sides. A larger, clearer label would have been appreciated.

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

Audio

    Although there are plenty of subtitles to choose from, there is only an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track to listen to.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times and I detected no hiss during any of the episodes. There were no areas that suffered from audio sync problems. The canned laughter track was mixed in a bit louder than it should be, though, although this appears to be something that Friends is notorious for.

    The theme and background score was provided by Michael Skloff. I personally think it is getting a bit dated and needs a facelift.

The surrounds and subwoofer were not used by the soundtrack at all.

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

Extras

    There are more extras on this DVD than have been found on previous DVDs of Friends. In addition to the Rembrandts performing the theme song, there are 2 On-Location Features. The menu is static and silent. It was easy to use but lacks any flair.

Music Video

    If you have watched any of the other Friends DVDs, then you have seen this music video before. It shows the cast interacting with the band while the Rembrandts' theme song is being played.

Featurette - Friends Goes To London

    This featurette focuses on the Producer and Director explaining why they decided to do a shoot in London. There is also footage of Phoebe, who stayed in the USA because in the storyline she was pregnant and could not join the group in London. The real reason she stayed in the US is that she hates flying, so they found a nice way keep her at home and in the script.

Featurette - Friends On Location In London

    This featurette offers some background information and location shots of the London episode. This is the episode where the gang heads to London to see Ross get married (again). The man selling balloons has all images of his face blotted out on purpose and his identity is only revealed by watching the full episode.

    The volume level of this featurette is lower than that of the rest of this disc, so you will need to increase the volume a notch or two.

DVD-ROM

    When the disc is loaded into a PC DVD-ROM, DVD Friendly is loaded. Two extra menus are available that link to the "Friends Website" and the "Friends Events" site which is really the main Warner Brothers Events site for all of their products.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    I could not find any reference to an equivalent Region 1 version of this DVD. The only ones that I saw reference to were "Best Of" collection discs.

Summary

    The episodes of Friends-Series 4-Volume 1 were funny, but the previous series in my opinion had you in stitches more. I do like watching Friends on DVD where it is not interrupted by commercials - I think you get more laughs that way.

    The video is the equivalent of a high quality VHS tape, but is still adequate.

    The audio is fine - maybe one day they might mix the laugh track slightly into the surrounds.

    The extras are the same on both sides of the disc, and The Rembrandts song needs to be replaced...PLEASE.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Peter Mellor (read my bio)
Wednesday, September 19, 2001
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer XV-DV55, using S-Video output
DisplayLoewe 72cm. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationPioneer XV-DV55
SpeakersPioneer S-DV55ST-K Satellite wall mouted 5-Speaker System; Pioneer S-DV55SW-K Powered Subwoofer

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