 | Starring: Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose, Rachel Griffiths Format: PAL Released: 04 Apr 2005 RRP: Average Rating:  |
I won't go into the plot at this point (you can read about that elsewhere) except to say 'expect the unexpected' with Six Feet Under - which is why it is so interesting. The end music is very beautiful too...yes, this disc is absolutely unmissable, even if you didn't see much of the middle of this series. A real wow!
That's what makes this third season so disappointing. It's probably better than 90% of the relationship dramas out there, well - written, well - acted for the most part, & cleverly thought out. Nor is the problem that it's lost its focus. If anything, this is where the main flaw lies. This time around it focuses entirely on the relationships & in a peculiarly psychoanalytical style. The effect is that often every character appears to be talking like a therapist, or visiting them. I don't deny that this is a big part of american culture, but it makes for pretty flat drama. As a result, the series seems to coast along & it relies on gripping the audience by throwing in the biggies [someone gets an abortion, someone else dies, someone is caught cheating], which seem more like plot devices than organic to the story line. Equallly, the series has been "sexed up", but in a bizarre way, so that most of the sex that takes place in the show seems stuck in the same framework of therapy & "working out who we are to each other" that dominates the show. Certain characters, like Clare's art teacher, never reallly develop other than as sexual signposts in this regard. Even the deaths at the begining of the show, previously so seamlessly interweaved into the plots, feel more contrived, random, perverse, like the deaths in "dead like me".
Neither of the first two series would have been this lazy. I haven't seen the fourth series yet, so maybe they can turn it around. If not, then there's no shame, because the first two series will stand up in ten, twenty years time, & how many American or UK drama series can you reallly say that about?
This isn't the same show as the first two seasons. Superfiallly character roles have changed largely & the people you see are mostly new. There's no Parker here, Brenda doesn't appear until the 5th episode, Nikolai's non-existent, as is assistant Robbie.
On a deeper level the show is darker, more subdued, more brooding. It is a tribute to the show's actors that if they didn't have the gravitas that they do the show would seem slow, but in actual fact it seems breathtaking up until the eventual climax of the last four actors which is just breathtaking television in every meaning of the phrase.
Six Feet Under, fantastic television.
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