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Disclaimer: we've had a couple of threads about this already (my own earlier thoughts here, but I figured we needed a specifically UK one cos this is one series I want to stay spoiler-free for, and the yanks are a season and a bit ahead...
Nate: (goofily) "C'mon David, I've seen Will & Grace, I've got gaydar!"
David: (deadpan) "OK, please don't say 'gaydar'..."
Six Feet Under is currently my favourite show on telly by a mile. No new Buffy or Angel here at present (still waiting for seasons 6 & 3 although I’ve seen some of ‘em on video), so there’s not all that much competition – Oz is probably a close second; 24 is a bit patchy although excellent when it hits the mark; ER and The West Wing are okay but have a tendency to slide into sentimentality and chest-beating faux-liberal patriotism respectively (actually a rant about the West Wing and the culture of American “liberals”/”doves” – they bomb the shit out of the towelheads, but feel a little bad about it afterwards – is yet another something I need to get written for Barbelith).
I love so many things about the show… the Nate/David relationship, the spot-on ‘Rage’-esque teenage angst of Claire, Mom Fisher generally, Brenda (I would drink R. Griffiths’ bathwater through a straw, a straw I tells you), all the supporting characters – Keith (I cheered when David pointed out how fucked his politics were, being all righteous about being out whilst seeing no problem in being, hello, a black LAPD cop… still hope they get back together though); Frederico (who starts off as a neglected ‘ethnic’ sidekick and then boom, the show goes all meta on you again and he’s complaining about this, as his wife says, the Fishers have treated him like a “migrant worker”, and up til that point so has the show); the utterly terrifying incestuous brother/psycho boy Billy (in the episode tonight, there’s an amazing scene where Nate’s sitting down and Billy’s head just looms into the frame, sideways on, cuasing you to jump out of your seat and go “arrgghh! BILLY!” . I also think I relate to Nate Fisher to a disturbing extent, which started out as a joke cos he seemed such a stud, but has taken a disturbing turn for the accurate...
Oh, and I'm so glad that my instincts were confirmed about the way the show keeps flipping the stereotypes that Nate and David appear to be on the surface around. Check the most recent episode especially - which one of them is the repressed guy, and which one is the stud, again? Very clever. Actually, the show is very good at pulling the rug from under you where characters are concerned - witness the way that Brenda starts out as one of the most sympathetic and 'normal' characters in the series and then slower becomes more and more weird and scary - and then we flip perspective again and start to see Nate being a bit, or a lot, of an asshole. And there's a whole essay to be written about Nate-Brenda-Billy, the id, and male hetero anxiety ("naked men! in my girlfriend's house!")...
So, anyone else hooked? Talk to me about the show I thought I'd hate but ended up loving so much I find myself humming the theme tune for pretty much all of Tuesdays and some of the rest of the week.
Talk to me about BILLY! |
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