Most people are familiar with the hit television series Friends, which recently ended its ten year run in May of 2004. The series was about a group of close thirty something friends played by actors David Schwimmer, Courtney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, and Jennifer Aniston going through the ins and outs of that odd thing we call life. For more details about this series, please refer to DVD Talk's reviews of season one, season two, season three, season four, season five, season six, season seven, season eight, season nine, season ten, and the series finale

In March of 2006, the Friends Collection was introduced to DVD, which consist of three themed collections of "best of" episodes. The themes include Babies, Birthdays, and Weddings. These best of releases contain absolutely NO new material when compared to the season sets. If you happen to own the season sets on DVD, then you do not need to purchase the best of releases. The advertised "unaired footage" and episode commentaries are included in the season sets.

So unless you are a casual viewer of Friends and are interested in having several funny episodes highlighted in the themes of babies, birthdays, or weddings, then these sets are not worth the investment. Of course, if you are one of those casual viewers who is not interested in forking out two hundred bucks (give or take) for all ten seasons, the themed collection is a great way to go.

This review covers The One With All the Babies. It contains five episodes with an approximate runtime of two and a half hours. The episodes include "The One with the Birth" from season 1, "The One with the Baby on the Bus" from season 2, "The One-Hundredth" from season 5, "The One Where Rachel Has a Baby" from season 8, and "The One with the Male Nanny" from season 9.

"The One with the Birth" is a fun episode where Ross is still trying to deal with his new way of life. His ex-wife Carol has shacked up with her life partner Susan, which is something he has been struggling with all throughout season one. In this episode, Carol finally gives birth to their son Ben, and Phoebe forces Ross and Susan to put aside their indifferences and find a truce as a new life comes into the world. All the while the rest of the cast goes on a variety of adventures in the hospital. Leah Remini (The King of Queens) guest stars.

The next episode, "The One with the Baby on the Bus", Chandler and Joey babysit Ross' kid Ben. They take Ben out and stroll around New York City, only to have women mistake them for a gay couple. Too funny! The real meat of this story comes when they lose Ben on a city bus and find themselves in the midst of a sticky situation.

In "The One-Hundredth" Phoebe gives birth to triples. Earlier in the show, Phoebe agreed to carry her step-brother Frank Jr.'s (Giovanni Ribisi) baby. This episode gets pretty sticky as nothing seems to go right. Phoebe's doctor is incapacitated after an accident in the shower. The replacement doctor is a bit on the nutty side, as his obsession with Fonzie from Happy Days leaves the cast with little assurance he can delivery the baby. Joey also finds himself going through his own kind of birth, except he has kidney stones.

"The One Where Rachel Has a Baby" is a two part episode where Rachel and Ross' baby Emma is born. And as usual, this episode comes with a lot of hilarious moments. Phoebe convinces Joey to pretend to be his Days of Our Lives character Dr. Drake Ramoray to find out information about patient she is romantically interested in, Chandler's old flame Janice shows up at the hospital and Joey accidentally proposes to Rachel.

The last episode in this collection "The One with the Male Nanny" is a funny episode with the cast getting into a variety of sticky situations. First of all, Rachel hires a male nanny named Sandy to take care of Emma and Ross ridicules her. Of course, the situation turns out much differently than Ross had thought it would and he gets caught with his foot in his mouth. Phoebe's ex-boyfriend David comes back into the picture. It's only too bad her current boyfriend Mike is still around.

Overall the episodes included in this addition of the Friends Collection were nicely selected. I have always really enjoyed all of the hospital/birth episodes because the cast gets into some pretty funny situations. For the casual viewer this DVD release is a great purchase.

The DVD

Video:
The video is given in 1.33:1 ratio full frame color. The picture is clean and crisp with a few traces of edge enhancements, a minor grain, and occasional ghosting.

Audio:
The audio in this DVD release is given in English 5.0 Dolby digital surround sound. The majority of the audio in this release is dialogue driven, which sounds very good with no noticeable distortions. It comes off flat and takes very little advantage of the multiple channels. There are subtitles included in English, Spanish, and French. The release is also closed caption enabled

Extras:
For extras there are three audio commentaries for episodes "The One-Hundredth", "The One Where Rachel Has a Baby", and "The One with the Male Nanny". The commentaries include executive producers Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman, and David Crane. It is also important to note they are the same commentaries included with the season sets.

Final Thoughts:
I have always been a big fan of Friends. The show is deliriously funny. All of the characters are covered well and they interact great together and turn some somewhat normal situations into a riot. This set includes some hilarious episodes and should make a great for purchase for the casual viewer. However if you own the season sets, then this best of compilation DVD is not worth the money. The episodes and extras are the same as what you find on the season sets.