Friends 4K review
Nov 19, 2024- Permalink
The sitcom Friends may have had its highly-successful run between 1994 and 2004 but it’s still a pop culture juggernaut. It can be found all over syndication and streaming platforms keep the show’s memory going as well. The series, about six young adults finding their way through love and work in New York City, starred Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer. It celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, a celebration made bittersweet by the tragic death of Perry in 2023. Warner Brothers has marked the anniversary by releasing Friends: The Complete Series on 4K. The release was back in September, but I had a chance to review the set as part of Warner Brothers’ holiday gift suggestions. The WB likes disclaimers, so here goes: Though Warner Brothers provided me with a copy of this release to review, the thoughts and opinions below are mine.
The 2160p HEVC / H.265 encoded native 4K digital transfer with Dolby Vision and HDR10 is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Just like the Blu-ray and syndicated/streaming versions before it, this aspect ratio differs from the 1.33:1 aspect ratio the show was originally broadcast in and framed for. What does that mean? It means that the original shots for the show were filmed in widescreen and then cropped into the square image for broadcast. The extended visuals on the sides of the frame were never meant to be seen. Though for the most part the widescreen image is not an issue if you’re not an aspect ratio purist, there is the occasional goof like seeing a stand-in instead of a co-star or seeing production tape marks on the floor. It’s not a huge issue, but it does make for a fun “Did you see that?” game. Though the sets, textiles and faces do have more detail than before, I am a little confused why such a milestone show would have roughly 12 episodes on each disc. That’s over 4 hours a disc and doesn’t give the episodes room to breathe, leading to some compression artifacts. Shot on film, the series does have a generally pleasing grain structure, though the last season or two does seem to have some digital noise reduction applied leading to some occasionally waxy faces. The colour palette also seems to be pushed a little to the vivid end at times. Sometimes the colours can seem very bold and the skin tones tend to make everyone look like they just had Ross’ spray tan accident. I don’t usually tend to be obsessed over pixels and HDR — I’m ecstatic to see this show, let alone any TV show get a 4K release — but I guess I’m a little amazed that a show with such a mass appeal (which translates potentially to good sales numbers) wouldn’t get a little extra tender loving care. So does it generally look very good? Yes. To channel Chandler, “Could it be any better?” Also, yes.
On the audio side of things, you have the choice of an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack, as well as German, French, Japanese, and Castilian-Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks. Subtitles are available for English SDH, German SDH, French, Japanese, Castilian Spanish, Latin Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, Dutch, and Mandarin (Traditional). The lossless audio soundtrack is bright and dynamic, the music sounds great, and the surrounds get some work with ambient effects and studio reactions. Dialogue is clear and prioritized in the mix. Obviously this is a sitcom and not some bone-rattling action flick, but the new lossless audio track is an improvement over the previous Blu-ray release.
The Friends: The Complete Series 4K has the show’s 236 episodes spread over 23 discs with an additional two Blu-ray discs containing most of the special features. There is no digital code. The 4K discs contain audio commentaries for almost 30 of the episodes from producers Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane. The Blu-rays contain the legacy bonus materials plus two new pieces – one showing off the props and costumes and another with trivia questions. Legacy features include various production pieces, a look at their time in London, the “Smelly Cat” music video, The Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There For You” music video and trio of short docs. Oddly, extended versions of a few of the episodes can still only be found on the earlier DVD release and the HBO Max reunion from a few years ago is also missing.
The Friends: The Complete Series 4K does have some issues with its video presentation but does add in a new lossless audio soundtrack. If you or a loved one are Friends fans, it still makes a nice present for the holidays, but keep an eye out for sales as it is a pricey collection. For fans of the show, I’ll say it’s a recommendation, but keep those caveats in mind.