Six Feet Under - The Complete Third Season | Frances Conroy, Peter Krause

Six Feet Under - The Complete Third Season | Frances Conroy, Peter Krause | Retains its power and ability to move you: get hooked on it

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Six Feet Under - T...

	Six Feet Under - The Complete Third Season Frances Conroy, Peter Krause Hbo Home Video, 2005 average customer review:based on 83 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

I'm sorry, I'm lost...

Any fan of SFU would agree that there is no one "protagonist" in the show, while, obviously, Nate seems most important, in that SFU begins with his arrival in LA from Seattle and ends with his death almost right after his 40th birthday. Amazing on so many levels, SFU so brilliantly succeeds in showing each character with equal depth. So, it can be appreciated from any character's point of view. The depth and subtlety of character portrayal comes mainly from the script, which wastes not a word, even in introducing a character through a brief conversation of other characters (Ex. Lisa's introduction in the "Driving Mr. Mossback" episode in Season 2. In the plane to Seattle, Claire asks Nate: "Is she all crunchy-granola, backpacky and way into grunge?", to which Nate answers: "Crunchy-granola, a little. Backpacky, definitely. Into grunge? No way. Grunge died long before Kurt Cobain did.")

In Season 3, we see much more of Lisa, a character the likes of which I don't think I have seen in other shows or movies. As Claire memorably sums up ("she's f**ked up, too. Different kind of f**ked-up, though. Almost friendly and sweet"), she has her own share of traumas and issues, which are rarely explicitly stated, yet so convincingly, almost hauntingly, acted by Lili Taylor. Usually pathetic (in both of its sense, creepy and arousing pathos), Lisa in Season 3 often sent me down the memory lane to high school, where there were Lisa in every class. Well, No, come to think of it, I think any girl with a degree of complexity has Lisa in her, along with a bit (or much) of Brenda.

Not only Lisa, and not to mention Brenda, every female character in SFU achieves a one-of-a-kind status in her own right. I have never seen women like them (Claire, Ruth, Sarah, Bettina) in a TV show, in America or in South Korea, before SFU. Season 3 is the season where some of them appear for the first time and some are explored with more depth.

One of the greatest moment of the season comes in the last "I'm sorry, I'm lost" episode, where Nathaniel Fisher, Sr. leads his daughter Claire to see the glimpse of afterlife. There, she sees her long-lost ex-boyfriend Gabriel, and we get to know that he is most probably dead now. This was, to me, a good closure on the part he played in Claire's life.

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Retains its power and ability to move you: get hooked on it

Most TV Series loose appeal after a while. This is not the case of "Six Feet Under", which in its third season, still retained its power and ability to move you that made it notable from day one.

The characters continue to evolve along a continuum centered around the funeral home, with at least a death per episode that they need to deal with. Sometimes deaths are close to the characters and obviously move them in expected (and sometimes unexpected) ways. Other episodes, deaths simply happen to touch their lives and souls making them question some of their most basic assumptions about life in general and how they conduct themselves.

The acting continues to be flawless, the writing close to the best I've seen on TV and the framework surrounding them (photography, music, etc.) is impeccable. The result is what happened to us: after three years of having lost track of the series (no cable some days, no time other days), we came back to it through our Netflix subscription, and now it's got us hooked again.

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Still going strong

OMG what a season!!! This show just gets better and better with every episode. Remember to watxh the first 2 seasons first.

A GREAT AND DIFFERENT SEASON

I DIDN'T LIKE SEASON THREE WHEN I FIRST WATCHED IT A FEW YEARS BACK ON HBO - I THOUGHT IT WAS RATHER SLOW MOVING AND SUCH A DEPARTURE FROM SEASONS 1 AND 2, BUT AFTER WATCHING IT AGAIN NIGHTLY ON HBO, I FIND IT A FASINATING PORTRAIT OF PEOPLE IN CHANGE. TRUE, THE CHARMING HUMOR AND ODDNESS OF THE FIRST TWO SEASONS ARE GONE, BUT THE SUBTLE STORYLINES AND A PLUS ACTING MORE THAN MAKE UP FOR IT. THE FINAL EPISODE IS A GEM.

A Great Series Seems Really Off in the 3rd Season

Note--this comes from a perspective of someone who has not yet seen the fourth or fifth seasons.

The first two seasons of "Six Feet Under"--really drew me in. The funeral home was always threatened by a conglomerate corporation, Nate and Brenda, both who had really serious issues on their own had a rather interesting relationship to watch, David's coming to turns with his identity, Claire's problems with her relationships and friendships as an outcast in high school, the threat of Billy to many of the characters (Nate, Brenda, Claire) and Ruth's coming to terms with relationships and finding peace (i.e. "The Plan")-- all of these were rather interesting, drew us to the characters, and were unique, as well as wild and off the wall. Add to this and accidental dosages of ecstasy and dream/talk to dead sequences with the Father were rather engaging--along with David or Rico or Nate dealing with the deceased of that week for that struggle they were dealing with at that time and the conversations they had-- a lot of that was good stuff. The Fisher house would always have this atmosphere of depressing/dysfunctionality, but all of these attachments made it interesting. We wanted to come into this house, take a seat and spend time with the Fishers.

Then in the third season, a lot of the chemistry went so well, went lost. I had no problem with the season opening--Actually it added to the dimensions of the show of dealing with death and loved ones and opened up the possibility that maybe Nate made a choice, even if it's how he recalled it--but the time gap had its consequences, since I as a viewer still cannot buy that he married Lisa. Lisa's role as a regular also seemed difficult to watch--she was the substitute for Brenda, who was gone for half a season, and while I applauded her at a critical point regarding her career in the first three episodes and how she handled it, I otherwise did not care about her. Add to what happens at the end of this season and that's very critical--because in order for it to work we had to care about her, and clearly see some bond with Nate and her we could totally buy.

As for the other stories--this season seemed to throw in stories then withdrew them. I mean just as the Kathy Bates character and Ruth showed a lot of interesting things that could've happened with their frienship, the Kathy Bates character LEAVES. And it's unfortunately not an enigmatic departure say as with say Gabriel's departure in the second season.

Continual non-commitals include some exploratory of existence and death/living worlds and time does not exist of the season opening and then totally dropped (only occasionally referred a bit in the last couple of episdoes of the season) makes this season uneven.

Then the other characters--I did like the Kathy Bates character and the intern. In fact, the odd infatuation with Ruth and the intern was rather interesting, but then even that seemed to be dropped when suddenly she's with this other character.

Claire is part of a love triangle--which could be actually intriguing if the writers didn't beat us viewers over the head as to what was to come. Otherwise, this story seemed painfully long and probably didn't warrant an entire season.

David and Kieth, meanwhile, seemed to be rather a domestic partner soap opera at times--especially when David makes a choice I do not totally buy--wanting to engage in a threesome when he was so repelled by it from the first season. David's exploration of his existence and identity seemed to be terribly diminished--even if he was totally out and in a relationship there should still be issues, and they really weren't explored. Kieth's character seemed to function as much as Lisa's for Nate--except at least I buy David and Kieth's chemistry.

Finally, Brenda. Thank goodness Brenda finally came back and we spent some time with her. While an incident between her and her brother Billy, was too blunt (I think the violence from the first season regarding the tattoo stated things much more clearly. We didn't need to be reminded, again), I couldn't help but be drawn to her scenes and was especially intrigued by the conflicts set out between her and her mother.

Other bonds worth watching--Nate as a father to Maya (at least until he loses it at the end of the season), Ruth and the Kathy Bates character, Ruth and the intern, Brenda trying to find a bond with someone again and feels she can't find anyone, Rico dealing with a very depressed wife--these transcend the otherwise soap opera quality the third season seemed to turn. Otherwise, sorry the bar fight Nate engages himself in the last show of the season--over the top, been there, done that. Didn't find his angst interesting or intriguing to watch.

But as for the atmosphere established in the first two seasons--yes, scenes still fade into the white, and there's the mingling of the dead/dream world and the real--but it didn't seem to be the same show. Also, this season tries to explore elements of gay culture--I just don't know about the back to back episodes of David and Kieth attending a Leading Lady Party and then Gay Paint Ball-- seemed too cute and seemed to make gay life be a rather artificial construct--which would be fine if these artificial constructs showed some type of revelation of David's and Kieth's characters--but seemed more showy at best. Perhaps if the series better explored the two characters trying to find a social life that fits--I think that was what was intended for the blueprint for this season--but I just didn't feel I got much from the two characters finally, and I don't think the intention was too clear. I was left finding David and Kieth "being boring" finally more than anything else, and would've rather watched David dealing with a conglomerate or Kieth dealing with finding a job he felt good at to boost his morale, or be more engaging with the family (Kieth finally did deal with his family, but it was written way too late in the season, I think, for all of a sudden he to be doing something).

I really hope the quality goes back in the fourth and fifth seasons. Where are the concerns of the family or the family business being threatened (often interlocked)? What happened where the dead person had a serious effect on a character's issue that particular week? Where is growth/revelations that sometimes cropped up for the characters? What about the atmosphere of the dead/dream world/imagined with the living and the direct conversations that seemed to be part of the reality-- and if the premiere episode of third season was supposed to add dimensions to it, why was it so rapidly dropped? I know shows sometimes have to grow and change and not do the same things, but this season it seemed to be too conventional for a series that is not.

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