FRIENDS: THE COMPLETE 1ST SEASON - DVD review

Much noise has been made by the media concerning the huge numbers of TV viewers who flocked to "Friends" following the events of September 11, 2001. The media calls the show "comfort food" since the American public's familiarity with and love of the characters reflects a cultural desire to be soothed. While I don't think that 9/11 really created a strong desire to watch "Friends," I do think that the show is "comfort food." At its best, "Friends" captures the Zeitgeist of the 1990s with startling accuracy. That it is funny without resorting to cruel ironies only solidifies the cheery, optimistic outlook of the series.

Warner Bros.'s first "Friends" DVDs consisted of "Best of ‘Friends'" collections. Those releases were a hodge-podge of episodes from various seasons. However, thankfully, the studio has come to its senses and is finally releasing "Friends" season by season. Following Fox ("The X-Files") and Paramount's ("Star Trek: The Next Generation") leads, Warner Bros. is using a digipak-gatefold-design approach to the "Friends" box sets rather than packaging each disc in a separate keepcase/snapper case. "Friends": The Complete First Season Box Set includes 24 episodes on 4 DVDs.

Disc 1: "The Pilot," "The One With the Sonogram at the End," "The One With the Thumb," "The One With George Stephanopoulos," "The One With the East German Laundry Detergent," "The One With the Butt."

Disc 2: "The One With the Blackout," "The One Where Nana Dies Twice," "The One Where Underdog Gets Away," "The One With the Monkey," "The One With Mrs. Bing," "The One With the Dozen Lasagnas."

Disc 3: "The One With the Boobies," "The One With the Candy Hearts," "The One With the Stoned Guy," "The One With Two Parts," "The One With All the Poker."

Disc 4: "The One Where the Monkey Gets Away," "The One With the Evil Orthodontist," "The One With the Fake Monica," "The One With the Ick Factor," "The One With the Birth," "The One Where Rachel Finds Out."

(By the way, each episode contains footage not seen during the show's original broadcast. Mostly, these are mere seconds that were cut here and there in order to fit in a couple of extra commercials on the air.)

After watching the first season again, I realized just how good the show was right off the bat. "Friends" hit the ground running, and that's why each episode from Season 1 seems so familiar--they made strong impressions upon first viewing. The characters are so well-written that they have distinct personalities despite the limitations of having six main characters in a half-hour show.

During the first year of "Friends," Rachel Greene (Jennifer Aniston, a.k.a. Mrs. Brad Pitt) leaves her fiancé at the altar and decides to move in with Monica Geller (Courtney Cox Arquette), one of her high school buddies. Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) and Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) live across the hall. Ross Geller (David Schwimmer), Monica's older brother and Chandler's high school buddy, lives nearby. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) is the sixth member of the gang that hangs out at Central Perk, a coffee house.

Neither Rachel nor Monica has gotten a famous haircut yet, and Chandler and Joey actually have floppy tops leftover from the 1980s. Ross is about to become a dad courtesy of his ex-wife Carol, now living with her lesbian "life partner." Season 1 is also when Ross becomes Marcel the Monkey's owner.

The fact that the characters are still in the process of maturing remains the show's strongest charm. In Season 1, the members of the sextet are all in their mid-20s, but they're just starting to figure out what they want to do with their lives. Rachel is trying to hold a job for the first time in her life. Chandler faces the realization that his skills as a number-cruncher may preclude him from accomplishing something "great," while Monica is on the cusp of realizing her dreams of becoming a famed chef. Viewers get to laugh at, and laugh with, the characters as the gang of six stumbles its way to delayed adulthood.

One of the things that I like about show is that the viewer is thrown right into the middle of the action from the beginning. "The Pilot" begins with five of the friends sitting around chatting about their lives. Then, Rachel comes running into Central Perk, and the cast is complete. As the show progresses, flashbacks reveal that the characters share much history. These flashbacks and the characters' verbal musings about their collective pasts create a rich "completeness" absent from shows that begin "at the beginning."

I really enjoy the performances by the cast members, but I also really detest Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe). I like wacky stuff that dimensionalizes or humanizes a fictional creation, but Kudrow's character is wacky for the sake of being wacky. The other five characters often act with chagrin when they realize that they've done something silly, but Phoebe is so oblivious to reality that she elicits groans rather than laughs from me. I know that there's little chance of getting rid of her for the show's 9th and final season, but miracles do happen, right?

Video:
The first season of "Friends" arrives on DVD with a 1.33:1 (full-frame on 4:3 monitors) video image. I was rather disappointed with the video quality. Most of the footage sports a digital sheen, and there are too many moments of vertical striations for my liking. On the other hand, colors and lighting have been reproduced well.

Audio:
Warner Bros. has seen fit to remix the show's soundtracks into Dolby Digital 5.0 English presentations. Since "Friends" is a sitcom, there's not much that requires the use of dazzling sonic effects. Therefore, while the 5.0 mixes help to "widen" the depth of the soundstage, there's nothing on these DVDs that will compel you to pop them into your DVD player to impress your friends. Dialogue and music are well-balanced, although the "laugh tracks" can be a tad loud sometimes. Low-end frequencies are basically nonexistent, but they're not really necessary for something like "Friends."

English, French, Spanish, and Korean subtitles as well as English closed captions support the audio. (For some reason, Disc 1 has two Korean subtitle streams. Weird...)

Extras:
Despite the fact that there are 4 discs in this box set, there aren't many extras to accompany the first season of "Friends." Where are the bloopers? Where are the interviews with the cast members looking back at their costumes and their hairstyles from the first season? Sigh...

Disc 1: Executive Producers Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman, and David Crane contribute an audio commentary for the pilot episode. The start chatting as soon as the show gets underway, and they discuss many, many things during the entire 30 minutes of the episode. It's an enjoyable and surprisingly informative commentary, but there's a commentary only for the first episode. Also on Disc 1 are cast/producers biographies/filmographies in the form of text pages.

Disc 4: The other "big" extras are found on Disc 4. "A Peek at Central Perk: Interactive Map" is an interactive feature that takes you around the set of the characters' favorite hangout. The "Friends of ‘Friends'" menu page offers clips of the various guest stars on the show. This is a rather redundant feature because you get to see the guest stars in the episodes themselves anyway, so why bother? LOL. There's a "How Well Do You Know Your ‘Friends'" Trivia Quiz that'll be played once in your lifetime, and there's "The One With the trailer of Season Two," which is simply a commercial for the next box set.

Finally, on each disc, the menu screen that allows you to pick an episode to watch also has these "coffee cup" icons in front of each episode's name that allow you to view a snippet from that particular show. The cardboard gatefold packaging provides information about each episode's writers, director, original airdates, and guest stars.

Entertainment Value:
"Friends": The Complete First Season provides plenty of humor, warmth, and even humanity. The characters are all emotionally needy in one way or another, but they complement each other very well. After 8 seasons, I still can't stand Phoebe, but what do I know, right? Dealing with her is a small sacrifice for enjoying smart writing, witty dialogue, and lovably neurotic characters.