Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is bringing Friends: The Complete First Season and Friends: The Complete Second Season to Blu-ray on April 30, 2013. Warner Bros. recently released a 20-disc Complete Series box set, which collected all ten seasons of the classic NBC sitcom, making these the first of what will eventually be ten individual season sets. Cover art has yet to be revealed.
The Complete First Season and Complete Second Season will arrive as two separate two-disc sets, neither of which boast lossless audio or any new or exclusive bonus features. (The extended DVD episodes and second season commentaries are still MIA.) The only notable addition to each season is an UltraViolet Digital Copy.
Was going to buy the boxset when it came out but had to cancel the order due to a backlog of movies combined with bills that had to be paid. I'll pick up the show piece meal. This will be better. I'm sure these will hit $20 a pop sales.
This stinks of disappointment. If this doesn't sell well, you'd better believe they don't press the rest of them and leave people out in the dust. Just like The Sopranos.
@Terrifyer
Huh? Except there is NO Soprano's complete boxed set. WB should be commended for doing it this way: releasing the complete series for all the diehard fans and then single seasons for fans of those seasons. With a complete set in exisitance I don't see how that will "leave people out in the dust". :rollseyes:
It would leave people out in the dust for those that want all 10 seasons but only want to buy them a season or two at a time because its the cheaper way to go.
Buying the individual releases is rarely cheaper then buying the complete collection. For example, right now, the complete series of Dick Van Dyke is going for $145, and the first season is going for $42. Five seasons means that buying the individual sets, one-by-one, will cost $210.
Right now, the complete series of Friends is going for $180, which means that each individual season has to be no more then $18 for it to be cheaper, assuming that the price stays at $180, because I remember it being $150 at some point.
"This stinks of disappointment. If this doesn't sell well, you'd better believe they don't press the rest of them and leave people out in the dust. Just like The Sopranos. "
The difference here is that they never mastered/authored discs for the rest of the Sopranos series for release on Blu-Ray. They only did the final and then first seasons.
With Friends, the full series is already done and ready to go. These individual season sets are just going to be the same existing discs with different labeling in separate packaging, and minus the bonus disc that will likely remain exclusive to the full series set.
While I already have the complete series set , for some people (assuming they don't mind losing the bonus features disc) it might be more appealing to pick the seasons up here and there rather than plop down a huge amount of money all at once. It may be more expensive in the long run this way, but it's not as much of a hit all at once.
I'm fairly certain that we'll see all of the seasons released for this. It's a very popular show, the discs are already made, and it's a no-brainer overall.
Maybe these releases will be single Elite cases & may save cabinet/shelf space compared to the big box. I'm happy with the current box set myself.
Only reason I can think of why WB would release these individually is the same reason they re-released Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, etc... The Friends box set is limited.
OT;
Fox's Prison Break Blu-ray release is more huh?! than Sopranos. Fox released season 1 & 3 same date, later on season 4.. Still waiting for season 2!
"Maybe these releases will be single Elite cases & may save cabinet/shelf space compared to the big box. I'm happy with the current box set myself. "
I actually imported the UK version of the set. At the time that I ordered it, it was actually cheaper than the price of the best sale price of the US version (I think the UK price went up since then), the discs are the same and region free, and it comes in a nice box set with two 10-disc Blu-Ray cases for the series and an additional 1-disc case for the bonus disc. It fits on the shelf nicely, and actually takes up less space than what 10 separate elite cases would. AND it doesn't have the (IMO) ugly UK ratings logos all over the packaging (in this case they are stickers on the shrink wrap that come off). The discs have the ratings logos, but they are the same color as the discs and don't stand out terribly, so for me it was the best option.
@iceshout
I don't think so. If they did, it'd be weird to have the extended cuts on DVD and the tv cuts on BRD, let alone printing new editions to match the cuts. Anyway, they'd have to print too many discs. This is just a cheap repackaging to boast more sales off the people who can't afford the box set.
