DVD
Review | Six Feet Under (Season 1) Written by:Kage
Alan
Okay, I’d heard so much about this show for so
long that I really didn’t even want to check it out. When something
has been hyped too much, it often never lives up the expectations that
have been set. Well, for those of you who felt like I did, ignore the
little voice inside your head and go buy the first season on DVD right
now! Nothing I’ve heard about it has quite described it accurately
and I’m not even sure I can do it now, but I’ll try.
Brothers Nate (Peter Krause, “The Truman Show”) and
David Fisher (Michael C. Hall) grew up living in a funeral home. Their
father, Nathaniel (Richard Jenkens, “The Core”), is the funeral director
and it’s a family owned business, so it was going to be left up to Nate
to take over one day. Well, that didn’t quite happen. Nate took off,
left everything up to David and never got to know their younger sister,
Claire (Lauren Ambrose, “Psycho Beach Party”). As for their mother,
Ruth (Frances Conroy, “Maid In Manhattan”), she’s in a world of her own.
Each show begins with a death and the pilot episode
begins with the most devastating of all for the Fisher family;
Nathaniel’s. As the family comes together for Christmas, they are
forced to band together, come to an uneasy alliance and understanding
that they need each other and start to move on. The rest of the
episodes deal with how they interact within the family unit and struggle
in their own daily lives. Nate starts dating my favorite character in
the series, child genius Brenda (Rachel Griffiths, “My Best Friend’s
Wedding”), David starts to come to terms with his being gay and having a
partner, Keith (Mathew St. Patrick, “All My Children”), Ruth learns how
to show interest in other men, Claire needs to find some direction in
life and accept they have a dysfunctional family and Federico (Freddy
Rodriguez, “Payback”), the gifted mortician dealing with his own
insecurities and looking out for what’s best for his family. The whole
family must also deal with a hostile takeover attempt by a larger
funeral company. Yuck!
“Six Feet Under” is an extremely dramatic show one
moment and then a morbidly funny one the next. The writing is top
notch, each character is fleshed out and is allowed to avoid a ton of
television clichés, the actors are wonderful and there are elements of
quirkiness and surprise at every turn. The first season has its hands
full dealing with the two sons discovering Nathaniel’s life outside of
the home, Brenda’s nutty brother, Billy (Jeremy Sisto, “Clueless”), and
a whole array of mourners ranging from casket jumpers to the victim of a
gay hate crime, a young man who developed cancer after serving in Desert
Storm and a man unable to live any longer once his wife has passed on.
Much of it is extremely touching.
HBO has released “Six Feed Under” in an excellent
looking Full Screen transfer. Picture and audio quality are fantastic,
so no complaints there at all. As for extras, we’re given an extremely
informative audio commentary on the pilot and final episode of the
season by creator Alan Ball, a 21 ½ -minute behind-the-scenes featurette
featuring interviews with the cast and crew, bios on the cast and
filmmakers, information on awards and nominations the show has received,
a couple of music tracks, a deleted scene from the pilot and a 15-minute
featurette on the music titled “Under The Main Titles”.
This is an outstanding show and if there’s one
complaint that I have, it’s the $99.98 MSRP. For 13 shows, the price
tag is simply way too high. Considering that full 20+ episode seasons
of “Star Trek” and “X-Files” go for that same amount, “Six Feet Under”
should have a price about half of that and it’s the only complaint I’ve
heard mirrored by other fans of the show too. If I hadn’t had a certain
amount of credit saved up in trade, I never would have picked the box
set up. I’m glad I did, though, and I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of
Season 2!
