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From:Frances Conroy , Peter Krause , Michael C. Hall , Lauren Ambrose , Mathew St. Patrick , Warner Brothers , Hbo Home Video ,
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The Most Original Series Out There, 2008-07-11
If you're looking for something original and unique, you've found out. Six Feet Under is unlike any other TV show I've ever seen. It's fascenating and I'm hooked!!
Season 1 was a little slow for me, but I am so glad that I stuck it out. In this season we come to know the characters better, the stories get a bit more interesting and it becomes apparent that death happens in many ways and there's always an interesting story behind it and behind the person.
Run, don't walk to the video store or where ever you have to go to get this series. It's amazing!
Six Feet Under Second season, 2008-04-05
Six Feet Under is not for teens or young children. It's full of adult content. It might not be for anyone who wouldn't want to watch show with gay couple in it or hear all the cussing. But I find this series to be very well done and story lines so true to life. I have enjoyed the whole series from start to finish. I'll watch it again too.
Best TV series I've seen (from HBO, of course), 2008-02-23
HBO seems to make the only shows worth watching. Six Feet Under is my favorite by far. This was highly recommended by friends, but it took me a long time to finally get around to watching it.
I'm watching it for the second time currently, and it's as good as I remember. The characters are well-developed and all the story lines are enjoyable. Some of the music is pretty good too.
I liked it better than the Sopranos, and you won't find anything in the same league on NBC, ABC, etc. Try it. You won't be disappointed.
1 of 1 customers found the following review helpful:
Continued Brilliance, 2008-01-27
In its second season, Six Feet Under continues to brilliantly build on what was established in the first season. There were many stand-out episodes, particularly in the earlier portion of the season, and the directions each of the characters were taken is very interesting. Federico, a character I found myself disliking during Season One, was developed quite a bit more. Keith, on the other hand, showed an uglier side of himself that added some great drama into his relationship with David, which is one of the main plot lines of this season.
Come to think of it, each of the character arcs were risky in this season, and most of them paid off. I'm not left with that "I need to know what happens next" as I was with the last season, but what I am is excited to see how these stories will continue. The use of music and the direction continues to be phenomenal and I'm willing to bet that at least nine of these episodes will make you cry, and that all of them will make you laugh. The plots jump around from Nathan/Brenda's relationship, to David/Keith's drama, to Ruth's situation with herself and Nikolai, to Claire's budding interest in the arts, and many more, but you'll never find yourself swamped by 'too many things going on at once.' Each episode is planned well, leaving you feeling sad when the show ends with a white-out and the credits begin to roll.
I usually don't talk much about Special Features when reviewing a DVD unless the extras are really horrible or are outstanding, but I have to comment on Alan Ball's commentary track for "The Last Time." While Ball is, in my opinion, one of the best writer/directors out there, this commentary track is a joke. It consists of him saying "this is a good scene because ___ did a good job" and then just letting the scene play without further comment. The only thing other than the occasional talk of camera work (all of that is in the first five minutes) is him laughing at one of the jokes every now and then. Why even bother putting a commentary track if you aren't going to comment on the work?
But--special features aside--the second season of this brilliant show is absolutely a must-have. I'm not quite sure whether or not it's better or as good than the first season, but fans of the first won't be disappointed.
9/10
1 of 4 customers found the following review helpful:
A plot synopsis is NOT a review!, 2007-08-15
A plot synopsis is not a review. When you publish a review in a magazine you must analyze what is being reviewed. Maybe even add something new. To merely summarize the plot and say you love it is not a review. To post synopses of shows on Amazon is doubly ridiculous given that almost everyone who reads reviews on Amazon has already seen what they're reading about!
Now, Six Feet Under. Let me first say that it has always amazed me how much more hype The Sopranos gets when Six Feet Under is far superior. I can rarely stomach television. Six Feet Under is so well done however that it plays more like an extremely well-made film than a TV show (yeah, a 63-hour movie)! (It was, by the way, predominately filmed by movie directors, not TV directors.)
As many reviewers here have stated, it also has a LOT to say about life. Here are the show's main lessons, as I see them: Your life is the present. If you dwell on the past you might as well be dead, like Ruth sitting at the Formica kitchen table like a zombie before she realized she needs to let go.
People behave in patterns, and they cycle through the same patterns throughout their life. If you look at this cycle with a narrow view it may create the illusion that this person is changing. If you take a wider view you see they are really just cycling through the same pattern. People therefore seldom ever change. It is very difficult to break a pattern.
Nate for instance never changed. The minute he was with someone he lost all interest in them, as Ruth said would be the case in the first season. Nate was looking for someone to change him. He never found someone that could. Brenda made this clear when she basically said that Nate is a bad person and he is searching for someone who can make him feel like a better person than he really is.
Recognize people for who they are. If a person's limitations outstretch their intentions, failure will result. Take for instance George's promise to care for Ruth. He may have wanted to, but he was incapable of actually doing it.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. If you're waiting for things to be perfect, like Nate, then you'll never be happy because no moment is ever perfect.
Also, happiness is not a destination; it's not something you "arrive" at. If you're not happy now, having a kid or getting married is not going to make you happy.
It's not so much the way things are in the world that's your problem, but how you react to the world. There wasn't really some hooded killer terrorizing David. David was terrorizing himself. He had a naïve view of reality and needed to realize that that is not the way the world really is.
At first I thought Nate would move home and bring his family together, proving to be a strong and intelligent, even philosophical person, ready to help strangers through their grieving. It slowly became apparent that Nate was a self-obsessed, shallow narcissist who really didn't care about anyone else but himself and his own internal, petty drama.
The Fishers were all hung up on the past. (And notice that their Father only said to them what they were imagining.) Redecorating the 50s style house was symbolic of finally moving on, of letting go of the past and embracing the present.
Many people see families where the grown children are always around the parents, where they talk all the time, every day even, and think, "Gee, that's such a nice family; they're all so close to each other." Actually this is typically a sign that the family is dysfunctional. In healthy families parents encourage their children to become adults and leave the nest, emotionally as well as physically. Ruth realizes this when she forbids Claire to make the same mistakes she did.
(By the way, was it just me or did the timeline of this show simply not gel? Watching the events in the show and listening to characters state how much time passed between events it seems that six or more years passed from season one to season five. However, looking at the dates at the beginning of each show, only four years passed!)
For those who want to know (MEGA SPOILER AHEAD), here's how long each character lived as revealed in the series finale (one of the greatest hours of television programming in the history of the medium): Nate: 40yrs, Ruth: 79yrs, Keith: 61yrs, David: 75yrs, Rico: 75yrs, Brenda: 82yrs and Claire: 102yrs!
By the way, in Claire's death scene if you look quick there's an amusing mistake (or joke?) hanging among her photo montage on her wall. It's a picture of David and Keith with their arms around each other, but Keith is young and David is in his 70s!
And yes, it ends with Claire driving off toward the horizon. Show creator Alan Ball wanted to make it clear that Claire is the only one who escapes the Fisher family and their dysfunction. That's why, when she leaves, the Fishers are out of focus; they are already fading from her memory.
That is also why Nate, who is shown in the mirror trying to catch up to her, is left behind. The influence of the family is left behind and Claire goes on to experience a full and rich life.
Notice that for others, things never change. At 82 Brenda is STILL taking care of Billy, and if you pay close attention (or listen to Ball's commentary) you'll hear that then, in his 80s, Billy is STILL bitching about Ted, and he literally (according to writer Ball) bores poor Brenda to death.
And yes of course, the MAIN point of the show: Western civilization is a death-denying culture. We watch endless movies that show people getting killed, trivializing death, and yet most of us in real life fail to face death realistically.
We fail to realize that death is as natural a part of life as birth, that everybody dies, that you don't know when it will happen and that accepting all of this is part of living a full life. We are not prepared to die and we treat death so seriously that we're afraid to laugh at it, hence all the darkly comic death scenes at the beginning of each episode.
Alan Ball wanted the show to demonstrate that we are all connected in that we are all mortal; it does not behoove anyone to pretend they are immortal. As Nate says in the show, our mortality makes life important. Everything ends. If we lasted forever nothing would matter.
Six Feet Under seriously raised the bar for all television to come, almost demanding that TV airs more serious, reflective and intelligent shows with a heightened sense of realism.
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