Friends: The Complete Series

I have the DVD box set and wanted to upgrade to Blu-ray so I bought this. In the very first episode, I noticed there were lines missing and as I went on, entire scenes missing. I looked it up and it turns out that the Blu-ray has the shows exactly as they are run on TV whereas the DVD has about 3 min of additional footage per episode. Doesn't seem like much, but that equates to about 12 hours of footage over the entire series. I tried to just live with that, but I'm so used to the DVDs that it's painfully obvious when they cut out a line or a scene and it just doesn't seem right without it. So, if you've only ever watched the show as it aired and/or in syndication, I would recommend this box set over the DVD because it's higher quality and fewer discs. If however, you are considering upgrading from the DVD box set, I would NOT recommend this as you will, in my opinion, miss the deleted scenes that that didn't include in this Blu-ray set.

NOT THE FULL EPISODES.

I love Friends, I grew up watching the show. So I was beyond excited to see this package come out. Unfortunately they have the versions of the episodes that aired on TV, so its missing a lot of content if you've seen other DVD versions. The package is beautiful and they upped the quality, but I couldn't get over not having that extra footage. The Friends: Complete Series Boxed DVD Set is what I ended up purchasing, DVDs, the quality isn't as good, but I get all those moments that I love. And its also nicely packaged.

I would say buy if you haven't seen other versions and there for wouldn't know what you were missing or if you don't care and just want the quality. Overall, I just love the show.

I would not recommend this series set. While it is has quite the pretty packaging, the episodes themselves are missing content. A line here or there may not seem like much, but the are key quoteable moments all throughout the series starting within the first few minutes of the pilot episode. (Phoebe's line, "Fine. Be murky." Is nowhere in sight.) It's quite disappointing when you go to say your favorite lines along with the show and they are not there. As someone who has seen every episode so many times that she can almost quote them verbatim, these lines are extremely noticeable. If it was just a spot or two it wouldn't be so bad, but it's all throughout. This is the only set that seems to have this issue. When you spend as much on something as I did for this you expect the entire content to be there. Please don't waste your time on this particular set. None of the others I've encountered have this issue.

UPDATE: Jan 2016

Cracked the code on the issue about some episodes being "2 min long clips." In the episode menu of every disk, there is a coffee mug bullet point be each episode listed. If you accidentally click on the mug ((instead of the title)) to select the episode you wish to watch, you will instead be shown a brief clip from the episode. To be clear, click coffee mug bullet point icon thingy for clips. Click title of the episode to view the episode. Problem solved!!!!!

Just received the DVD set in the mail this week! I cannot yet confirm that all disks play well. I can, however say that all 40 disks arrived intact. I've flipped through and checked each one to insure none were missing or duplicated.

Initial Impression:
The box arrived in perfect condition (it's the blue and white box edition). I had no damage to the cardboard box that holds all of the DVD cases what-so-ever. Each Season is in its own respective DVD case within the box. That's a total of 10 cases.

Features of note:

I believe each season (not episode necessarily) has an optional voice over feature with commentary from the 3 writers of the show offering insight and tid-bits about the show. Upon opening the box set, my husband and I (both big fans) noticed this feature and decided to listen to the commentary offered on disc one. It was actually very interesting!

The last disk of each season has a friend's trivia feature built into the menu. We haven't gotten to experience this but I think it's a cool idea and I like that it is built into the disk content rather than a book (which could get damaged) that is separate from the disks. I think the red box set was like that. Just more stuff to have around.

Overall, it's a very clean looking set! We're working on becoming more minimalistic and had planned to scan the disks into hard drive storage eliminating the need for the physical set BUT the set is such a nice package! It's a show piece. I want this baby out in the open! It makes me smile and gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that makes me think I'm going to hold onto it in its entirety. Ah, the joy of friends! Once this arrives at your home, you will instantly know what I mean!

If you know a superfan that doesn't own the series or maybe they could just use a new, consolidated set, this makes an terrific gift! I wish we new someone that's as big of fans as we are yet doesn't already own the full series that we could buy this for. We purchased this as a Christmas gift to each other because it's always nice to have a this bubbly, sunny show. Rainy day? Bad day? Break out Friends and bring on the laughs! This is a quality set. Nothing bootleg about it. I can't get over the qualify for the price. I bet this was around $250 when the show initially ended.

One last point I want to make....yes, you can watch Friends on Netflix now. We watched 4 or 5 seasons through Netflix. The series as offered on Netflix is not complete. It is the edited for TV version which is shortened for commercial time frames (which is how the show was originally aired.) A lot of very funny content and great lines are extracted throughout each episode in these shortened versions. THIS SET, however, offers the uncut version of the show which is also what was offered on on the original DVDs of the seasons which were available for individual purchase. As mentioned by others, the "blue-ray" isn't true blue-ray but perhaps a higher contrast "enhanced" version. The blue-ray is also the cut version of the show. It wasn't worth it to me and I chose to go with the DVD version.

I'm very happy with my purchase. I'm impressed with the presentation of the set and it exceeds my expectations. If I experience issues with the playing quality of the disks that others have described, I will update this review. So far, everything is perfect! I don't have any criticisms at all!

I just read an interview on tvguide with executive producer/director Kevin S. Bright about the blu ray sets. He did address the lack of extended episodes and he never once said that it would have been difficult or impossible to do. He merely stated that with the DVD sets, they were trying to give you more bang for the buck, but that this set is more about seeing the episodes again in a new way. That being said, I do wish they had included the extended shows, or provided an option where you could watch either the network version or the longer version. Some of the new scenes were very good and helped with the story telling.

The episodes I've watched do look great, and there doesn't seem to be any cropping issues with the transfer to a wide screen format. The packaging is very cool, with a 3D-style image on the box and a very nice episode guide booklet inside. The box unfolds and has a nifty magnetic lock. It will look awesome in your home media collection, even though it's an odd size.

I'm hoping that Seinfeld gets the same treatment someday soon.