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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Six Feet Under

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

01:44 / 29.08.01

So....has anyone got around to watching this yet?

11:40 / 29.08.01

absolutely loved this show! i was hooked from the beginning but it took about three episodes for the hubby to get drawn in. the other designers here at work and i spent at least 45 minutes discussing the show every monday morning. we're all sad that its over...does anyone know if there will be another season?

incidentally...watched a movie on ifc or sundance last week, psycho beach party. the little sister from 6ft was in it and she was great! definately worth it for the sheer gidget-silliness.

23:57 / 01.09.01

This is the one show that I enjoy watching with my mom and dad. They say I'm a cross between Claire and Brenda. Heh.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

03:49 / 02.09.01

I had a thread about this show, not even short lived it was, and all I can say is: Damn, it was good. I cannot wait for next season. Okay, who's your favorite character?

I am torn between Claire, Nate, or David. Though Keith, the big black sex cop, has his moments.

Billy is just Creepy Jesus.

SecretlyClarkKent

03:13 / 03.09.01

I was almost disappointed when I saw the season premiere of Six Feet Under way back when. A friend and I watched it together, and we both thought that it would have made a good movie, but didn't set up much of a series. It was really a very closed story, with a beginning, and an ending.

Nonetheless, I continued watching, trying to figure out where they were going to go from there, because I didn't think they could do it... and they did. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of television's greatest achievements, and one of only two t.v. shows I watched with any regularity.

Nate is easily my favorite character, although Brenda follows a close second. [So, it kind of works out, you know, that they're a couple.] But, truthfully, I loved them all. I have never seen so much character depth, and I have never been so interested in each character in a story... whether it was Claire, David, or the mother.

As far as I know, HBO asked for a second season before the season premiere even aired. They had that much trust in Alan Ball's ability and, well, fame. [Although, as far as I'm concerned, and I do hate to say it, the few episodes that he directed were the weakest...]. The season finale opened up several storylines that can be followed through [and would not have been brought up had it been a series finale, rather than a season finale.] So, I'm pretty sure we can look forward to another season.

[As for the afforementioned Psycho Beach Party... that is, hands down, one of my favorite movies of all time. Every time I've rented it, I've watched it two or more times. Now if only I could find the DVD to buy... if there is one.]

Later,
Jared

17:42 / 03.09.01

Six Feet Under is one of the greatest series I've ever seen. Its extremely innovative and dynamic. I wish I could see all the episodes.
I like Nate the most but the mom was pretty intresting(espescially on ecstacy).

01:15 / 18.04.02

hmmm...was thinking about the series and if anyone had gotten to it yet. Have to say it's become the only show I regularly try to catch when I'm around cable on the weekends. Just enjoy the whole approach. Beginning titling is decent too.

Seems that when tv's gonna get dry, a good one emerges. Like the seriousness and lack thereof going on. Also like seeing ideas of death, relationships, etc. being cast into the spotlight...

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

02:55 / 24.04.02

I like this show because it's rather unconventional and for some reason, it never fails to interest me.

I'm a little out of the loop for the current season as my HBO has gone bye-bye, but that's what Television Without Pity is for.

Matthew Fluxington

14:33 / 09.06.02

I'm going to have to go against everyone here, and apparently everywhere else: I don't like this show. I find myself wishing that it had bad acting, bad scripts, bad direction - it doesn't, and it would make it easier for me to dismiss the show if it did. My problems with the show stem mostly from that I hate how the show just revels in depression and misery, and the characters never really progress, they just get worse and more hopeless. I hate how pointless and nihilistic the show is, I hate that it just wallows in self-pity. I just think it's a bad thing for people to get caught up in.

I hate how quiet the show is, I hate how entire episodes go from one quietly intense conversation to another with very little time given to people actually doing things. To its credit, I think that the show very realistically depicts a certain type of hopelessly fucked up and depressed middle class white American, but I think the show serves more to glamorize this and make people feel better for being that way.

The show, like virtually everything else that's ever been on HBO except for the brilliant Mr. Show, takes itself too seriously; as if the writers have convinced themselves that no matter what, they are making QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT and are just pushing all the snob-appeal buttons for their favored demographic of yuppies.

12:12 / 11.06.02

Saw the first episode of this on British TV last night (can't normally be arsed with 'TV drama' but the writer-of-American-Beauty thing drew me in).

I am really impressed. The acting & script are superb. It's great to see something on TV that's actually up to the standard of a good film. I really got quite drawn into the story too .. the character's are a little stereotype-y, but they're such well created stereotypes it doesn't really manner..

The only real problem I had was with the visual style .. all the obvious post-FightClub post-American Beauty smart-arse advert nu-middleclass aesthetic hooks .. people are gonna look at it in a few decades and go "ouch! soo turn of the century!"

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

12:20 / 11.06.02

I quite liked it what I saw of it. It's worth watching, at least.

The Natural Way

13:15 / 11.06.02

An ongoing series about death!

How can you go wrong?!

Flux: I think there's room for tyhe odd depressing thing on TV. Most stuff's just there to remind people how reassuring and predictable the world is.....and that needs to fuck off a bit.

Matthew Fluxington

15:55 / 11.06.02

I'm all up for depressed characters, or depressing shows - I dislike how Six Feet Under just wallows its own misery, and never takes the characters any further than being horribly fucked up and depressed. There is no character growth, everything either gets worse or stagnates. It's awful.

20:56 / 12.06.02

Just started over here in UK but by God it's good. The Lynchian weirdness is subsumed in a dystopic imitation of Pleasantville. Need to go and read Jessica Mitford's screaming "The American Way of Death" again. Best bits are the synthetic advertisements for embalming fluid and post mortem cosmetics.

& Nate is such a shag. & Clare is acting out the emotional vulnerability, rage and discordance of my late teens with uncanny accuracy.

23:22 / 12.06.02

Sod Mitford.

Read Thomas Lynch's "The Undertaking"; it's a book by a funeral director-cum-poet in his spare time. And Ball acknowledges the strong influence. It's probably the greatest book on death I've ever read; magically written, fascinating, and very, very right. Hard to find, but oh so wonderful. Trust me. Amazon for it or something.

00:46 / 13.06.02

I've only seen the first ep so far, but I've got to say that I already disagree, Flux. By the end of it we've got the mother reunited with the long-lost son, the two of them sharing a cathartic moment at the father's funeral which is uplifting in a very real way. There's also the bittersweet moments; the daughter with her father's ghost sticks out in my mind. Like I say, just the initial episode so it may well yet turn out to be the most depressing show on Earth. Until the second gets shown over here, that accolade remains in the hands of every sitcom the BBC is currently running.

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:54 / 13.06.02

I was really pleasantly surprised by the first episode - as someone who grew to hate American Beauty (patronising, derivative, self-important, thought itself much smarter than it was, misogynistic, homophobic, sentimental beyond belief, worst ending in cinema history), I had serious reservations about Six Feet Under...

But there were some really nice touches - like the way that Nate and David are set up in a kind of cliched "repressed uptight closeted gay man" and "free-spirited sexually-confident cool straight man" opposition, only for that to be completely undercut over the course of the episode. By the end, Nate (even his bloody name is almost parodic) is the one frozen out of any kind of meaningful emotional exchange (he's literally standing there frozen still when the episode ends), whereas David is able to break down and admit he needs his boyfriend's help in grieving... Very relieved that Nate's showboating at the funeral was pretty much shown to be just that. (Also love his speech about how many root canals he's had by the age of 35...)

The supporting cast/characters are also a bit plus - really like Frederico, and thank God for the brilliant Rachel Griffiths, who almost - almost - redeems the one really bad bit of dialogue in there, the Channel-5-porny "I could give you a ride" pun...

Will be tuning in next week.

23:14 / 13.06.02

Randy: I'm gonna have to wait to see more episodes, but I can see the throwing-Nate-back-into-the-family, reading-of-the-will stuff of the first few could still give way to Flux's view of it having no character development- America's had, what, three years of this (?), and we've had about an hour and a half- it's completely foreseeable that, once the situation is completely set up, development will drop back in favour of the sort of bleached out, vacuous-yet-deep conversations the show appears, at this point, to be a vehicle for.

And I agree that the pilot seemed to be quite closed, but this gave it more space, and allowed it to end on the funeral and the start of the greiving process for the two brothers, rather then having to work the reading of the will into it too, which would have just been too much, I feel.

And what of the opening credit sequence? I couldn't shake, first of all, a feeling of Neverwhere from it (not a bad thing, I loved McKean's work on the titles for that), a also one that, while the individual pictures were quite beautiful, and espeically te actual title one, they just didn't... work.

Oh, and how fucking annoying do those faux-adverts have the potential to become?! Do they get dropepd soon? I really couldn't them hlding up the jokes (they were getting a bit shit by the end of the first episode), tho it was nice to see the products being used in the show.

07:24 / 14.06.02

[rot]
Yes, McKean's credits to Neverwhere were beautiful. Just that half-animation stuff... I didn't know who he was when I saw it, but damn, they're beautiful. Is 6ft McKean or McKeanesque? It's on tape, haven't seen it yet.
[/rot]

Foust is SO authentic

16:13 / 22.09.03

Out of all the threads dedicated to this show, I have chosen this one to resurrect.

"I prefer fuck puppet."

Says it all, really. I don't think I've ever seen such well developed characters outside of a novel. It's wonderful.

19:56 / 22.09.03

I want the funeral from the last show. Sent into the flames from the set of Turandot, with Ganesh warbling Nessun' Dorma.

Looks like Brenda will be back next week. Thank you God! Kathy Bates is all very well but we have so-o-o missed you, Rachel Griffiths.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:58 / 23.09.03

"I'm circling problem purchases."

Run, Nate! Run to the hills!