Customer Reviews

The Best of Friends Collection (Vols. 1-4)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you love "Friends," and most people do, you need to get this collection. If you do not plan on buying every season of the show, then this collection has twenty of the most popular (and pivotal) episodes in the series with all their original footage, some of which had been edited out for TV. Even if you do plan on buying all the season sets, it will be awhile before they all get here, so this is a good collection to tide you over until they do. The format of the DVD's is great. You can play all of the episodes at once without have to go back to the menu after each episode, or you can watch one at a time. There are also some cool special features - a behind-the-scenes special and a feature on the trip to London. Here are episodes you will get on each volume, along with my personal grade on each (scale of 1 to 5):

Volume 1:
"Pilot" (3) Not my favorite episodes, but this is where it all started.

"The One with the Two Parts" (4) Joey dates Phoebe's twin sister; Monica and Rachel go out with two doctors (George Clooney and Noah Wyle).

"The One with All the Poker" (4) The girls want to play poker with the guys.

"The One Where Ross Finds Out" (3) Rachel leaves a drunken message for Ross, telling him that she is over him, leaving Ross confused.

"The One with the Prom Video" (4) Joey buys Chandler a friendship bracelet; Ross and Rachel finally get together.

Volume 2:
"The One Where No One's Ready" (5) Ross is giving a speech at a dinner and has trouble trying to get everyone ready to go. One of my personal favorites.

"The One with the Embryo's" (4) Phoebe decides to have her brother's baby; Rachel and Monica lose a bet and have to trade apartments with Joey and Chandler.

"The One with Ross's Wedding" (4) Everyone goes to London for Ross's wedding.

"The One with All the Thanksgivings" (5) My favorite holiday episode. Everyone remembers their worst Thanksgivings.

"The One Where Everybody Finds Out" (5) Phoebe finds out about Monica and Chandler.

Volume 3:
"The One with the Blackout" (3) There's a blackout in the city; Chandler gets trapped in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre; Rachel meets Paulo when Ross is just about to make his move.

"The One with the Candy Hearts" (3) Chandler goes on a blind date that turns out to be Janice, and they get back together on Valentine's Day.

"The One Where Ross and Rachel...You Know" (3) Ross and Rachel go on their first date.

"The One with the Football" (3) Monica's and Ross's competitive natures come out when they play football on Thanksgiving.

"The One That Could Have Been" (4) The gang wonders what their lives would be like if they had done things differently. One full hour of Fat Monica and a whole new opening credit sequence.

Volume 4:
"The One with Chandler in a Box" (5) Another great Thanksgiving episode. Joey makes Chandler sit in a box to make up for stealing his girlfriend.

"The One Hundredth" (4) Phoebe gives birth to triplets.

"The One with All the Resolutions" (5) Everyone makes New Years' Resolutions.

"The One Where Ross Got High" (5) Yet another great Thanksgiving episode. One of my all-time favorite scenes was toward the end when everyone lets out all their frustrations to the Gellar parents.

"The One with the Proposal" (4) Tom Selleck shows up as Monica's ex-boyfriend just as Chandler is about to propose.

I might have chosen a few episodes differently, but overall this is a great collection. Even when I think I am sick of seeing certain episodes, I find that I can still watch them. A scene will always come along that just cracks me up. These shows never get old.

This is definataly a sampling of the best Friends has to offer! You get: Volume 1: "Pilot" "The One With Two Parts (Parts One and 2)" "The One with All the Poker" "The One Where Ross Finds Out" "The One with the Prom Video" Volume 2: "The One Where No One's Ready" "The One with the Embryos" "The One with Ross's Wedding (Parts 1 and 2)" "The One with All the Thanksgivings" "The One Where Everybody Finds Out" Volume 3: "The One with the Blackout" "The One with the Candy Hearts" "The One Where Ross and Rachel... You Know" "The One with the Football" "The One That Could Have Been (Parts 1 and 2)" Volume 4: "The One with Chandler in a Box" "The One-Hundredth" "The One with All the Resolutions" "The One Where Ross Got High" "The One with the Proposal (Parts 1 and 2)" These are all the best episodes in their uncut form plus a behind the scenes look at Friends in 3 featurettes. A definite must buy for a Friends fan!

Being English,but having recently moved to America I find a couple of problems with this type of DVD.

In England Friends was released season by season on CD and DVD, so you collect all the friends episodes and watch them with continutity. Why can't they do the same here. I want to see the whole of series 6 in order and then series 7. I don't want to have to watch the episodes in disjointed order, as you miss some significant reasons for why the characters are acting the way they do.

My other problemn with this collection of the best episodes is, the episodes somebody else may consider the best may not include episodes that I thought were briliant. Unfortunately I normally find one or two of the lessor episodes on collections (which is true with this collection).

That said I am a huge fan of Friends and as I has to leave my Friends series in the UK due to compatability issues with American equipment, this is an enjoyable collection and I recommend buying it - i just wish the US could receive the same level of service as the UK.

I bought this box set before the full season DVDs came out. It was great to hold me over until season 1 came out, but when I received that, this box set was obsolete. In my opinion, the episodes chosen are good, but they aren't all the best.
If you're a real Friends fan (and you must be if you're looking into this set) then just get the full season DVDs. They have 1, 2 and 3 now and will be coming out with them all. You'll be much more satisfied and it's a better investment to have every single episode anyway.

This disc is really not worth buying, for a little more money you should buy the full season sets! You get a lot more for your money and you can watch them in order instead of broken up like in this set. For the true Friends fans, this would be a waste of money!!

So just why would anyone buy this set when the full season sets are available? Well, maybe you don't want to buy each and every season or maybe you just want to watch the some of the best episodes without digging through each season. I agree that if you've never seen the show this would be a confusing way to get into it and I don't really recommend it for that but if you were a regular viewer of Friends when it was on the air you'll pretty much remember what led up the situations in the episode.

Sure, if I'd put the DVD together myself I may have included some other episodes as well, but I thought these episodes were definitely highlights. I'd also recommend "Friends-The Series Finale" and "Friends-The One With All The Weddings" and if you care for them, "Friends-The One With All The Birthdays," and "Friends-The One With All The Babies." Sets like these are a great option to remember the show without having to over invest in it. I really wish there were similar Seinfeld and Frasier DVD sets like this.

The friends DVD collection has 20 nice episode voted by the fans. Surely seems like a good collection to have. But recent news indicate that Friends Complete Season One will be released in April; assumable followed by the late seasons, so for true friend fans, it might be better to wait and get the whole thing than buying this set.

Hilarious, it'll keep you laughing for hours upon hours. The best episodes picked by us fans(although i never voted...)packed together in 4 volumes for you to enjoy. This is my favorite set of DVD's and i can never get tired of it. I reccomend this to any fan of Friends, or fan or great sit-com's. Friends is my favorite television show and to have it and be able to watch it at anytime, is price-less(ok ok i wouldn't pay TOO much for it!)...anyways, most of these are my favorite episodes, while watching the first volume i thought..."i wonder if the one where they find out is on this"...sure enough i popped in the send vol and viola! so it truly is the best 20 episodes of friends, i can't think of any that were better, maybe thats just cause these episode made me laugh so much i couldn't think of anything else except how great that episode is(i think i thought that about every one on these DVD's). Only downfall is that because its not the full season and continuous, you can get confused about the way the characters are acting, because you don't remember the episode before it in that season. VERY minor drawback, you'll be laughing so hard you won't care. i didn't!

I agree with the other reviewers saying that they could have put every single episode on DVD besides the ones the majority of "Friends" fans found as the best episodes. It just doesn't seem complete. You watch one episode of "Friends" on this DVD, and then it switches over to an episode that was on much later in the season, so you can get confused if you haven't seen the episodes following the one you just watched. But I am a huge fan of "Friends" and I think it is one of the most enjoyable and hilarious shows on television.

Also, some people who watch the show may not think that the episodes on here were the best ones, which is another reason why I think they should have put every single episode on the DVD. When I was watching the DVD, I noticed the producers of this DVD forgot some of the show's funniest episodes, or at least in my opinion.

The cast of "Friends" is one of the many reasons why I love the show so much. The characters are just so likeable! And, the actors (Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, and Courtney Cox) are terrific actors. The scripts are usually clever, witty, and have a clean style of humor. If you do not watch this show then you do not know what you are missing! For die-hard "Friends" fans, THE BEST OF FRIENDS COLLECTION is for you. I gave this DVD 4 stars because they missed out on a lot of great episodes--but I give the show itself more than 5 stars!

I had orginally bought Volumes 1 and 2 in VHS format, once I got a DVD player I knew I had to have these volumes on DVD, it makes it much easier if you want to view a particular episode. These are truly the funniest episodes of Friends and the best part is you get additional footage not seen on TV. I really enjoyed the behind the scenes segments on volumes 3 and 4 but was disappointed to find out that both volumes have the same behind the scenes segments. The segment itself was a tad bit drawn out too, I could have done without some of the commentary by the producers. If you are a true Friends fan you will not be disappointed in this collection.