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Writers:
Michael Curtis, Gregory S. Malins, Ira Ungerleider, Suzie Villandry, Brian
Boyle, Alicia Sky Varlinaitis, Wil Calhoun, Alexa Junge, Scott Silveri, Shana
Goldberg-Meehan, Marta Kaufman, David Crane, Seth Kurland, Adam Chase, Doty
Abrams, Michael Borkow, Chris Brown, Andrew Reich, and Ted Cohen
Directors:
Gail Mancuso, Kevin S. Bright, Steve Zuckerman, Peter Bonerz, Gary Haivoson,
Dana de Vally Piazza, Joe Regalbuto, Andrew Tsao, Todd Holland, Michael Lembeck,
and Shelley Jensen
Executive
Producers: Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kaufman, and David Crane
Feature
length: 563 minutes
Extras:
Producers Commentary On 3 Episodes, The One That Goes Behind The Scenes Discover
Channel Special, Friends On Location In London, Gunter Spills The Beans About
Friends
Languages:
English Dolby Surround Sound 5.0
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions and French and Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging:
Four-Disc Digipack Gatefold Within A Cardboard Slipcase
Sound:
Dolby Surround Sound 5.0
Year
of Television Broadcast: 1998-1999/DVD Release: 2003
Home
Video Distributor: Warner Home Video
MPAA
Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Remember
when Chandler (Matthew Perry) declared his love to Monica (Courtney Cox Arquette)?
Do you remember when Ross (David Schwimmer) married Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) in
Las Vegas? Do you recall when Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) gave birth to triplets and
while Joey (Matt LeBlanc) passed kidney stones? (Not fun!)
These
events and more are a part of the fifth season of “Friends,” which is now
available on DVD from Warner Home Video. By now the format for the release of
the series on DVD-Video is pretty much standard, but this latest edition offers
an extra value feature that I think gives the viewers an even deeper
understanding of what it takes to bring a single episode of a hit TV sitcom like
“Friends” to the small screen. The Discovery Channel documentary “The One
That Goes Behind The Scenes” (42:26) reminded me a lot of my own experience
when I was in college and worked one summer as an intern on “The Cosby Show”
at Kaufman Astoria Studios here in New York City. Much of what is detailed in
this documentary I remember witnessing in one form or another since being an
intern for Mr. Cosby’s signature sitcom was not being an unpaid gopher, but
was really an educational experience. The man has a Doctorate in Education and
believe me as intense of an experience it was to be an intern on a series that
was still one of the highest rated sitcoms on NBC and is still a part of TV
history, just as “Friends” is now, I and those who were with me to share the
experience at that time were lucky to be able to just sit and watch so many
different facets of how a hit TV show is produced instead of just running to get
people coffee and so on. Yet there are a few things that are quite different
with how a series like “Friends” is produced as compared to my memories of
“The Cosby Show” in part because of the time in which this series was made
and the nature of the series and television in general. “Friends” is shot on
film and edited on video and the documentary shows the producers sitting beside
editors at stations no bigger than where I am writing from now and are able to
do the same manipulations in sound and picture that it took a suite in Manhattan
at least as big as my apartment to do the same thing for “The Cosby Show”
just a few years earlier. Besides manipulating live audience reaction, sound of
actors, adding music cues, and sound effects, the documentary gives a viewer an
up close look at the props department, the stage assistants, and of course the
writers, who are often rewriting jokes on stage just as the episode is being
filmed in front of a live studio audience and that is just the tip of the
iceberg. In a very real way, the final draft of a script for “Friends” is
literally the episode that actually broadcasts on air by the time everything is
ready and for those who remember the six season premiere episode or who buy the
sixth season DVD set next year, remember this documentary because it will give
you a deeper appreciation of the hard behind-the-scenes work that goes on to
bring a show like “Friends” to fruition for the past ten years.
Unfortunately
the other extra value video features do not approach the level of edutainment
the documentary offers. “Friends: On Location In London” (2:15) is little
more than an EPK with interview clips with various British personalities that
make brief appearances in the episodes that include Helen Baxendale, Tom Conti,
Jennifer Saunders, Sarah Ferguson, June Whitfield, and Hugh Laurie. “Gunther
Spills The Beans” (1:35) is a teaser for “Friends: The Complete Sixth Season
On DVD,” which will debut at retailers on and offline tentatively in January
of 2004.
All
23 season four episodes are presented in their original (1.33:1) television
broadcast aspect ratio with an English Dolby Surround Sound 5.0 mix. The image
quality is pretty good though a bit uneven at times. Some episodes show some
video artifacts, but all still have a good visual detail about them with nice
color contrast and definitely a clearer picture overall than standard analogue
cable broadcasts. The English Dolby Surround 5.0 Soundtrack is not discrete, but
has a nice vitality to it and is definitely better than a standard stereo
surround broadcast. English Captions and Closed Captions for the hearing
impaired and French and Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded onto all four
discs as options.
Another
great set of commentary tracks with “Friends” Executive Producers Kevin S.
Bright, Marta Kaufman, and David Crane are included within the DVD set and they
still never cease to amaze me in their ability to give engaging and entertaining
commentary tracks that are also educational for “The One Hundredth”, “The
One With All The Thanksgivings”, and “The One Where Everybody Finds Out.”
The
menus are standard interactive still frames that are easy to navigate.
“Friends: The Complete Fifth Season On DVD” box set is available now at
retailers on and offline from Warner Home Video.
©
Copyright 2003 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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