Friends: The Complete Series

Bought this to give an birthday gift to my wife, wasn't happy with the purchase as few CD's didn't work.

Love love love this TV show.All the characters are just so fun to watch.Great series! Great DVD!

Un must para los fans

First and most important, the video of this entire series is luxurious, gorgeous. The colors are deep, rich, and beautifully saturated. The quality is fantastic. Second, the video is not in the original full screen 4:3 ratio, but instead in the more common wide screen 16:9 that we are used to now. It is NOT letterboxed but instead reveals for the first time the full video that they captured at the time, apparently thinking forward to the time when 16:9 would be the standard. Some complain by saying that video at the edges are too revealing, but I watched both versions of the disputed scenes and found no problems with them.As for the audio, it is 5.1 throughout. It might have been nice to suppress the audience laugh track, but it did not really detract from the viewing experience. Still, the quality was high throughout the series.The packaging is not cheap even though they aggregated all of the Blu-rays into two sets of 20 discs (plus the bonus disc). Each season is packaged on two Blu-rays, and each disc typically had a couple of commentaries, with the second disc containing extras like gag reals. The bonus disc included more gag reels and some retrospective videos along with interviews on TV shows.Now my confession: I never saw a single episode of this series prior to now. Not one. I got this set so that I might fill in some of the cultural references that I missed out on at the time. I certainly got those, like "taking a break," but also grew to appreciate the show as the years advanced. I thought that the last three years became funnier over time and truly appreciate the jokes and characters, especially the Joey reactions and Phoebe proclamations. Altogether, it was a wonderful series.

I'm 40 and had never watched FRIENDS until a year ago on HBO MAX. I mean I had seen a few episodes here and there as a teenager because my best friend's parents were obsessed with it and never missed an episode but that's it. I was one of those teenagers who was against anything super popular and mainstream (why? No idea. I think that was just a 90s "cool" thing?). My husband was the same way and had actually never seen a single episode. WELL, boy were we missing out! We both were absolutely hooked pretty much from the very first episode to the very last. When I decided to watch the series for a second time I didn't want to deal with commercials so I went ahead and splurged on this box set. I'm so glad I did. I'm currently on my 4th rewatch and it's now my all time favorite sitcom. Every character is so funny and so lovable, this show makes me laugh even when I'm in the worst of moods. It's also the only sitcom I have ever seen that is perfect from the very first season. I find most sitcoms to be pretty cringe worthy during at least the first half of the first season but not with FRIENDS. If you thought you were too cool to watch it (like I did when it was originally on the air) then think again and give it a shot. You'll probably love it (I mean the fashion and nostalgia of the 90s and early 2000s alone makes me really happy) I'm so happy I gave it a chance! About time.