FRIENDS: THE COMPLETE 2ND SEASON - DVD review

At its best, the situation comedy "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 show's creators. Sure, some of its sarcastic jokes hit a little close to home, but the characters seem to care genuinely for one another and about being good people (unlike the tools in "Seinfeld").

Warner Bros.'s first "Friends" DVDs consisted of "Best of 'Friends'" collections. Those releases were a hodge-podge of episodes from various seasons. Thankfully, the studio has come to its senses and is now releasing "Friends" season by season. Following in 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 Second Season Box Set includes 23 episodes on 4 DVDs. ("The One After the Super Bowl" is about twice as long as the other episodes, so you could think of Season 2 as being 24-episodes long.) Each episode contains footage not seen during its 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.

Disc 1: "The One With Ross's New Girlfriend", "The One With the Breast Milk", "The One Where Heckles Dies", "The One With Phoebe's Husband", "The One With Five Steaks and an Eggplant", "The One With the Baby on the Bus".

Disc 2: "The One Where Ross Finds Out", "The One With the List", "The One With Phoebe's Dad", "The One With Russ", "The One With the Lesbian Wedding", "The One After the Super Bowl".

Disc 3: "The One With the Prom Video", "The One Where Ross and Rachel...You Know", "The One Where Joey Moves Out", "The One Where Eddie Moves In", "The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies", "The One Where Eddie Won't Go".

Disc 4: "The One Where Old Yeller Dies", "The One With the Bullies", "The One With Two Parties", "The One With the Chicken Pox", "The One with Barry & Mindy's Wedding".

During the show's run, Jennifer Aniston (Rachel), Courteney Cox Arquette (Monica), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe), Matt LeBlanc (Joey), Matthew Perry (Chandler), and David Schwimmer (Ross) have become highly-paid stars. Their chemistry makes the show, for they simply look like people who wouldn't mind hanging out with one another 24/7. I also like how the show reaches back into the characters' pasts to provide a sense of where the six friends will be in the future. That respect for how the sextet came to be gives the characters a solid base for their growth as fully-realized personas.

Season 2 firmly establishes Monica's controlling, obsessive-compulsive behavior. Chandler's inability to have fulfilling relationships with women leads to his return into the arms of the annoying Janice. Chandler also loses Joey as a roommate for a few episodes when the latter decides to move into an upscale apartment uptown. Meanwhile, Season 2 devotes more time to Phoebe than Season 1 as her singing becomes the focus of a couple of episodes. Phoebe's search for her biological father also yields the discovery of a half-brother (played by Giovanni Ribisi of "Saving Private Ryan" fame) who will figure prominently in later seasons.

Ross and Rachel's torturous path to couplehood encounters hilarious snags. Example--Rachel dates a fellow named Russ who is basically Ross's twin in manner and looks. When Ross and Rachel make overtures towards one another, they often take a beating in the ego department rather than finding joy for their aching hearts. Ross also has to deal with a lesbian ex-wife marrying her current lover and letting him take care of his son only a few hours during the week. (Then again, Ben, Ross's son, has always been a weak point in the series--he seems to have disappeared in subsequent years.)

"Friends" is known for its attention-grabbing cameos, and Season 2 features some of the best. There's Tom Selleck as Dr. Richard Burke, a man much older than Monica but very interested in spending the rest of his life with her. There's Adam Goldberg (also of "Saving Private Ryan") as a creepy roommate who stares at Chandler while the latter sleeps at night. There's also the post-Super Bowl show that has Marcel the Monkey returning as a movie star, Julia Roberts as a production assistant who's still angry at Chandler for pulling a mean prank on her in the fourth grade, and Jean-Claude Van Damme as an actor with weird bedroom tastes.

The show's predilection for physical comedy takes flight during Season 2. In "The One Where Ross Finds Out", Rachel leaps onto Ross's back while he's checking his phone messages, and the two stumble across Monica's apartment before crashing into the kitchen's counters. In "The One With the Two Parties", the gang resorts to frantic comings-and-goings between two apartments in order to prevent Rachel's divorcing parents from seeing one another while celebrating their daughter's birthday. The escalating gags culminate in Joey pulling Mrs. Greene aside for a deep kiss that surprises the heck out of everyone.

I really enjoy the performances by the cast members, but I also detest Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe). I like wacky stuff that 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 probably final) season, but miracles do happen, right?

Video:
Like the First Season, the Second Season of "Friends" arrives on DVD with a 1.33:1 (full-frame on 4:3 monitors) video image. The Second Season looks appreciably better than the First Season, but the video is still not as great as, say, the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" DVDs. Sometimes, the footage sports a digital sheen rather than appearing film-like, possibly due to overzealous edge-enhancement. However, colors and lighting schemes have been reproduced well.

Audio:
Warner Bros. re-mixed 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. Low-end frequencies are scarce, but they're not necessarily suitable for something like "Friends" anyway.

Optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles as well as English closed captions support the audio.

Extras:
Despite the fact that there are 4 discs in this box set, there aren't many extras to accompany the Second 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 2: Executive Producers Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman, and David Crane contribute an audio commentary for "The One With the List". The three have much to say about the episode as well as the series as a whole, and the commentary is an enjoyable listen. However, there's not enough substance to be gained for my liking from a 30-minute commentary.

Disc 3: Executive Producers Bright, Kauffman, and Crane contribute an audio commentary for "The One With the Prom Video". Since this is a key episode in the "Friends" universe, the three execs enthuse brightly about one of their creation's most notable high points.

Disc 4: The other "big" extras are found on Disc 4. "Open House at Monica and Rachel's Place" is an interactive feature that takes you around the set of Monica and Rachel's apartment. 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? "What's Up With Your 'Friends'?" offers a couple of clips of the principal characters doing random things. There's a "How Well Do You Know Your 'Friends'?" Trivia Quiz that'll be played once in your lifetime, and you get to see the full-length version of the "Smelly Cat" music video after completing the quiz.

--Miscellaneous--
On each disc, the menu screen that allows you to pick an episode to watch also has "coffee cup" icons in front of each episode's name. These icons access previews of the episodes. Each disc also has a list of the show's leads as well as executive producers. There are some weblinks if you use a DVD-ROM drive to view the discs.

The cardboard gatefold packaging provides information about the episodes' writers, directors, original airdates, and guest stars.

Entertainment Value:
"Friends": The Complete Second Season, like the first season, provides plenty of humor, warmth, and humanity. The characters are all emotionally needy in one way or another, but they complement each other very well. After all these years, 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, lovably neurotic characters, and increasingly inspired physical antics.