Friends: The Complete Series - 4K Blu-ray Review

Movie
The 90s was known for having some of the most watched sitcoms of all time, with the glorious trifecta of Friends, Seinfeld and Frasier all starting with just a few years of each other. While most people consider Seinfeld the most popular sitcom of all time, Friends was easily the most ingrained in pop culture. Even to this day the younger generation will quote things like “How you doin” or “It’s a cow’s opinion, it’s totally Moo” randomly out of the blue. It was the titular show that kick started Jennifer Aniston’s career (and to a milder amount Courtney Cox’s and Matthew Perry’s) and still is one of THE most syndicate shows of all time. However, unlike Seinfeld and Frasier (Frasier being the best sitcom of the 90s in my opinion) Friends tended to get a bit over saturated to the point where you are either a Friends fanatic, or you cheerfully would dive off a bridge the second you hear the Rembrandts “I’ll be there for you!” theme song start up.

Friends follows six mid twenties something adults all trying to make ends meet in the world, while still trying to hang on to their childhood and young adult friendships. Monica (Courtney Cox) and her spoiled rich girl roommate Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) are living in their New York apartment, with friends Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) and his wannabe actor buddy Joey (Matt LeBlanc) living across the hall. Monica’s brother Ross (David Schwimmer) and friend Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) round out the bunch as they deal with life, romantic foibles, and general 1990s hijinks. Over the course of the ten seasons we watch as the group of six friends grow, regress, grow some more, and deal with their internal crushes in a relatable and generally hilarious way.

Friends is easily one of THE most popular TV shows in all of cinematic history due to two factors. For one, back in the 90s most sitcoms were laugh track rich and still coming off of the hammy acting of the 1980s. The Nuclear family was taking a slight change in pace, and this was the new hot “hip” style of living that literally blew up on TV. Sure, we didn’t all sit around in coffee shops talking about who we had a crush on, but the characters themselves were genuinely relatable. Even if you hated some of them, you could see yourself in at least one of the characters. They were neither overly successful, nor dirt poor either (and while we of course know that those apartments would have cost a fortune in real life), but wall hung on to their every life change hoping for the best, whether it was Ross pining over Rachel. Rachel learning how to be a functional adult instead of a spoiled rich girl (which wasn’t always successful. Sorry, I’m one of the Rachel haters). Joey hooking up with anything that moved on his way towards a “real” acting job, and one of the most bizarre relationships in all of Sitcom history that actually WORKED (yeah, we all know which pair we’re talking about). The second is the fact that the cast members actually worked well together. By all accounts they really were friends in real life, and that spilled over onto the screen many a time, and legendarily got every one of the six friends near identical salaries after David Schwimmer and Aniston actually bucked the studio heads and said “look, we all make the same or we all walk” (and it actually worked).

I’m going to be one of those people that sort of falls in the middle on the love/hate spectrum. As a moderate fan of the show back in the 90s and early early 2000s I never really swung that hard one way or the other. It was a show that I felt was a bit over rated, but I still had a good time watching. My wife on the other hand rabidly hates the show after she watched it from beginning to end back in the day. Sort of a “wayyyyy too over saturated and burnt out” from watching it. While on the flip side her sister was one of those people who literally tuned in every week to see what was going on with Ross and Rachel, and uses re-runs of the series to go to bed every night as a way to fall asleep. Both sides of the coins have their points, but no matter whether you love the show, or hate it, you can’t deny the effect it had on the 90s and how unbelievably popular it remains to this day.

As for the boxset? This is going to be a bit of a “2 steps forward, 1-2 steps back”. We’ve gone back to the original broadcast editions over the extended episodes, but we still have the re-framing that was so controversial 12 years ago, and the new color timing and DNR’ing of the video really has one scratching their head. On the other hand, the 1st season and the 2nd really look great in their new remasters, and the increased resolution is definitely handy. This is going to be one of those sets where fans are conflicted, and I myself am conflicted while watching (to be completely honest, with a 21 disc series I had to take episodes from each disc and watch 1-2 as I couldn’t sit down and binge 10 seasons at once like I could with a smaller series), but at the same time there are distinct upgrades to the image. Simultaneously we get most of the same extras as the Blu-ray set, but with a few minor additions. So yes, we’re getting more, but also we have to deal with some MORE revisionism than the 2012 Blu-rays were under. Not as excited as I could have been, but this set is going to sell quite well to Friends fans




Rating:

Rated TV-14 by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

Now here’s the fun part. And by fun I mean HIGHLY controversial. Friends was originally shot in 35mm film and then cropped (or framed I should say) for 4x3 TVs (widescreen was NOT that common back during the 90s for TV show) and generally looked “OK”. Back around 2012 when the infamous Blu-ray boxset came out, the powers that be went back to the source material, completely remastered it, and then decided to alter the aspect ratio to fit 1.78:1 TVs. But instead of just cropping top and bottom (ala the crummy Babylon 5 DVDs) to make faux widescreen, Warner trimmed the top and bottom EVER so slightly, and then opened up the sides, along with slightly reframing and recentering everything to make it appear as natural as possible. As you can guess, this made a lot of people VERY unhappy in the film community, and simultaneously made a small subset of people happy (those who just want their TV filled).

Personally, I’ve never been ANGRY being that Friends was never my favorite TV show, but the purist in me has always been highly frustrated with how the formatting went down, and in the case of the 4K UHD discs it’s looking like the same framing is used (although I’m with a slightly newer master). End result is the show’s new 1.78:1 widescreen looks pretty good in terms of framing, BUT opening up the sides have introduced some unintended consequences. That being that just like most open matte films back in the day, you can occasionally see things like the edge of a microphone, or a bit of unfinished set peaking into view that you couldn’t see in the 4x3 framing. Am I going to rant and rave about how this is an abortion that never should have existed? No, but I will fully admit for that an iconic 90s sitcom like this (along with Seinfeld and Frasier in terms of upper tier) I really wish they hadn’t introduced the revisionism.

Now, fast forward 12 years after the Blu-ray release, and Warner is once again releasing the series, but this time in a compact 4K UHD boxset (5 4K UHD cases, with 2 Blu-ray discs for the special features). Much like my issues with the Blu-ray releases, I see that this isn't going to be a controversy free set, just with better image clarity. The remastering of the show varies in quality from shot to shot, with the first season looking a tad rough, and the later seasons getting better with age (better colors, less burnished 90s orange, better blacks), but the last couple of seasons (like 8 and 9 especially) suffer from a waxy look that just screams of DNR. Which ironically makes seasons 1 and 2 look really good by comparison, evne though they suffer from some rougher shots due to the filming style of the day. There are scenes in each episode that looks FANTASTIC, with good grain structure, great details, and minimal artifacting, only for a quick cut to another camera angle to give us a much lower quality shot. Judging by my estimations, this is a side effect of trying to bring a show to HD that was never INTENDED to be seen that way (even though it was using 35 mm film) AND some over aggressive digital manipulation at times. Sadly the one major issues in the 4K set that sort of boxes my ears is the fact that the DNR they used on the Blu-rays seems amplfied here, with an even waxier look at times. Not horribly so, but it's noticeable. Also, the colors (while bright and shiny) seem to be OVERLY boosted as well, making it actually brighter than the Blu-ray for once (usually HDR and DV create the opposite effect). So, once again I'm conflicted.

If I had to compared the 2012 (and 2017 re-release) Blu-rays to the 4K UHDs I would definitely give the upper hand to our black cased 2160p friend some of the time, while at other times I want to give it to the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray had some poor encodes going on with lossy audio, but the revisionism in color grading, contrast, and the heavy waxy look for later seasons has me scratching my head. But on the flip side the 4K UHD transfer has more visual clarity, and fine detail levels are distinctly better than the 1080p versions. At times it genuinely looks fanatastic too. Sadly the series may never be perfect due to some source limitations and some executive decisions that have affected the output on disc Especially what looks like AI tinkering that results in a waxy look that is an actual step BACK from the Blu-ray discs. It’s not perfect, but as a fan of the show and having suffered with those compressed to snot DVDs back in the early 2000s....I'll take it.







Audio:

The Blu-ray series weirdly never had a lossless audio mix, even though it was produced in 2012, long after Warner had moved over to lossless audio mixes for their TV series. Maybe it was space on the disc, maybe it was already in the pipeline years and was just used instead of creating a new audio encode from the stems, but whatever the case may be, the 4K UHD series gets a nice healthy upgrade to 5.1 DTS-HD MA from 5.1 Dolby Digital (640 kbps) audio. End result is a track that sounds remarkably similar outside of some level matching differences, just with a minor tweaks. The show has always been a very simple sitcom style audio mix, with tons of activity in the front of the room and only very mild to moderate surround usage (this was shot in the 90s for a 2 channel audience in mind, and nothing’s going to over come that).

Being “similar” to the Blu-ray’s audio mix is a bit of a mixed bag though, as Warner didn’t go back and retune and re tweak a lot of things that probably should have been tweaked and tuned. The biggest thing that stands out to me is how the score is level boosted over the dialog sometimes, and the bass tends to lean quite heavily towards the bloated and boomy side (and overly hot as well). The opening bars of “I’ll Be There for You” kind of slams you back in your seat and the boomy bass is a tad shocking the first few seasons (they tone it down for later seasons a bit, same with the DVDs). There’s some minor air hissing here and there, some erratic distortion (which naturally improves as the seasons go on), but this is still quite a serviceable track. Compared to the Blu-ray it’s a bit richer, a bit more energetic with the hijinks and overall a bit more “full” to the audience. Sadly the series has always need a complete remix with some balancing going on, but it looks like Warner is using the same base audio master for this release as they did back in 2012 still, just with the added benefit of lossless (which is why I bumped up my previous 3.5/5 score for the Blu-ray to 4/5 for this one). The good, the bad, and the ugly all in one, but generally pretty solid.




Extras:

• FRIENDS: Through the Peephole
• How Well Do You Know Your FRIENDS
• True Friends Documentaries
• Friends Talk-Show Appearances
• The Original Script and Producers’ Cut for
• The One Where Rachel Tells Ross
• “Super-Sized” Broadcast Episodes from Season 7
• The One with the Never-Before-Seen Gags
• The Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There for You” Music Video
• Commentaries, Gag Reels and Much More













Friends was one of the most highly anticipated box sets of 2012, and the 4K UHD upgrade is a fine tuning of that original set in most ways. It’s got improvements in audio and video, but still carries over some legacy (and controversial) issues from that set as well. Warner has pretty much re-issued the set with the same number of discs (no over compression) and thankfully put the entire set in the “proper” packaging instead of those horrible clamshell pak casing that they’ve been doing with shows like Succession, Babylon 5, Veep, Young Sheldon etc (there’s nothing I hate on earth more than those cris-crossed overlapping disc holders as a collector). So, is this worth the money? In many ways I'd say yes, but in other ways I can understand why the Blu-ray has it's appeal. It's not a botched set, but it's not a massive upgrade due to the same older style audio mixes (just in lossless) and a video transfer that takes 2 steps forward, and 1 step back. Personally I think that it's better in some ways, and worse in others. If you want more accurate color timing and a less waxy look, the Blu-rays will be your bet. But if you want some of the benefits of the higher resolution and the original broadcast run eps, we go for the 4K UHD set. Sadly the same supplements are ported across with some minor new ones, but overall this is a decent set. Fans will want it for sure, and while it has some problems, it also comes with some very palpable improvements. Good show, controversial image.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer
Created by: David Crane, Marta Kauffman
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, German, French, Japanese, Spanish DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German SDH, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: TV-14
Runtime: 4800 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: September 24th, 2024

Epoxy1 said:

This just screams money grab to me by the studio. Is the show more enjoyable in 4K versus 1080p?

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I relish EVERY 4K UHD release we get, but this is definitely one of those controversial ones that is part bad, part good, and part "huh?" all in one