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Six Feet Under - The Complete First Two Seasons (2-Pack) | 
 enlarge | Directors: Alan Ball, Alan Poul, Alan Taylor, Allen Coulter, Daniel Attias
Actors: Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose, Mathew St. Patrick
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $119.98
Buy New: $59.99
You Save: $59.99 (50%)
New (9) Used (5) from $59.96
Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 56917
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 9
Running Time: 1560
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 6.1 x 3.2
MPN: D99808D
UPC: 026359980824
EAN: 0026359980824
ASIN: B0001M3MZC
Theatrical Release Date: June 3, 2001
Release Date: July 6, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
In some ways, HBO's Six Feet Under plays kid brother to stellar BMOC The Sopranos: it's spunkier, less refined, chancier, and a bit of a punk. Nevertheless, the show set in the Southern California mortuary Fisher and Sons deserves its place in the pantheon of great television series. Ruth (Frances Conroy) is the stern matriarch who has trouble expressing emotion and snaps at the slightest problem. Daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose) is an underachiever who cultivates a moody, mysterious loner image in high school (she's indulging in illegal substances too). Brother David (Michael C. Hall) works in the family business, and is uptight beyond belief (he's indulging in a secret homosexual relationship too). Elder brother Nate (Peter Krause) is the black sheep, who, eschewing responsibility, fled to Seattle but got lured back. And Dad (Richard Jenkins) watches it all bemusedly. Did we mention Dad's dead? Oh, and that the Fisher family business is a funeral home? It might sound off-putting, but coming from the mind of Alan Ball, the man who strip-mined suburban life to find the mordant wit underneath in American Beauty, Six Feet Under is a trenchant, stylish spin on standard family dysfunction. This HBO series initially aspired to fits of Twin Peaks-like whimsy, with each episode starting with a death more outlandish than the previous, but soon settled into a comfortable groove that harkened back to the most familiar of TV family dramas (in fact, it's almost a mirror image of '70s drama Family, down to the three sibling archetypes). Of course, its HBO roots allowed it ample leeway with sex, drug usage, profanity, and violence. While the writing strove to be a little too clever, the overall look and tone of the show remained solid and sometimes profound (sometimes absurd too, but usually with good reason). Krause and Hall, as initially warring brothers who come to a wary understanding, are solid anchors, but it's the women in the cast who do the most phenomenal work. Conroy infuses her almost stereotypical mom with an obstinate but ultimately accepting heart, and Ambrose's Claire is by far the show's most appealing character. And stealing scenes left and right is Rachel Griffith's Brenda, a mystery woman with an outlandish backstory who meets Nate on a plane, has sex with him at the airport, and infiltrates his life. Like Brenda herself, Six Feet Under is fascinating--and highly addictive. Slowly, the major force in season 2 is the unassuming lead, Peter Krause. Part of the long line of good-looking actors who never get respect because they make it look too easy, Krause (Sports Night) finds the perfect blend of optimism with a wonderful, bittersweet anguish as Nate, the prodigal son. The initial season's happy ending is forgotten as relationships change, the business is still under fire from the evil conglomerate Kroehner, and a lively dream sequence is just around the corner. The eccentricities of the characters are shaped, and not always suddenly. Take daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose), who sheds her bad boyfriend only to find more complex relationships on her road to discovering her own groove. One person in the mix is Ruth's beatnik sister (Patricia Clarkson, in an Emmy-winning role), a joyous embodiment of thriving--if aging--counter culture. Another new character is Nate's old girlfriend, the granola-loving Lisa (Lili Taylor). For fans who groove with the wild, serio-comedic world of the Fishers (and let's face it, many didn't), the second season goes down like a fine meal of fusion cuisine. The show shares an unfortunate family trait with its HBO big brother: although both were lavished with multiple Emmy nominations the first two seasons, both took home only token awards. But then there's always next year.
Description
The opening two seasons of Alan Ball's series concerning the surviving members of Fisher & Sons Funeral Home in Los Angeles, and the personal matters that arise when your life is Six Feet Under.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 A plot synopsis is NOT a review! August 15, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
A plot synopsis is not a review. When you publish a review in a magazine you must analyze what is being reviewed. Maybe even add something new. To merely summarize the plot and say you love it is not a review. To post synopses of shows on Amazon is doubly ridiculous given that almost everyone who reads reviews on Amazon has already seen what they're reading about!
Now, Six Feet Under. Let me first say that it has always amazed me how much more hype The Sopranos gets when Six Feet Under is far superior. I can rarely stomach television. Six Feet Under is so well done however that it plays more like an extremely well-made film than a TV show (yeah, a 63-hour movie)! (It was, by the way, predominately filmed by movie directors, not TV directors.)
As many reviewers here have stated, it also has a LOT to say about life. Here are the show's main lessons, as I see them: Your life is the present. If you dwell on the past you might as well be dead, like Ruth sitting at the Formica kitchen table like a zombie before she realized she needs to let go.
People behave in patterns, and they cycle through the same patterns throughout their life. If you look at this cycle with a narrow view it may create the illusion that this person is changing. If you take a wider view you see they are really just cycling through the same pattern. People therefore seldom ever change. It is very difficult to break a pattern.
Nate for instance never changed. The minute he was with someone he lost all interest in them, as Ruth said would be the case in the first season. Nate was looking for someone to change him. He never found someone that could. Brenda made this clear when she basically said that Nate is a bad person and he is searching for someone who can make him feel like a better person than he really is.
Recognize people for who they are. If a person's limitations outstretch their intentions, failure will result. Take for instance George's promise to care for Ruth. He may have wanted to, but he was incapable of actually doing it.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. If you're waiting for things to be perfect, like Nate, then you'll never be happy because no moment is ever perfect.
Also, happiness is not a destination; it's not something you "arrive" at. If you're not happy now, having a kid or getting married is not going to make you happy.
It's not so much the way things are in the world that's your problem, but how you react to the world. There wasn't really some hooded killer terrorizing David. David was terrorizing himself. He had a naive view of reality and needed to realize that that is not the way the world really is.
At first I thought Nate would move home and bring his family together, proving to be a strong and intelligent, even philosophical person, ready to help strangers through their grieving. It slowly became apparent that Nate was a self-obsessed, shallow narcissist who really didn't care about anyone else but himself and his own internal, petty drama.
The Fishers were all hung up on the past. (And notice that their Father only said to them what they were imagining.) Redecorating the 50s style house was symbolic of finally moving on, of letting go of the past and embracing the present.
Many people see families where the grown children are always around the parents, where they talk all the time, every day even, and think, "Gee, that's such a nice family; they're all so close to each other." Actually this is typically a sign that the family is dysfunctional. In healthy families parents encourage their children to become adults and leave the nest, emotionally as well as physically. Ruth realizes this when she forbids Claire to make the same mistakes she did.
(By the way, was it just me or did the timeline of this show simply not gel? Watching the events in the show and listening to characters state how much time passed between events it seems that six or more years passed from season one to season five. However, looking at the dates at the beginning of each show, only four years passed!)
For those who want to know (MEGA SPOILER AHEAD), here's how long each character lived as revealed in the series finale (one of the greatest hours of television programming in the history of the medium): Nate: 40yrs, Ruth: 79yrs, Keith: 61yrs, David: 75yrs, Rico: 75yrs, Brenda: 82yrs and Claire: 102yrs!
By the way, in Claire's death scene if you look quick there's an amusing mistake (or joke?) hanging among her photo montage on her wall. It's a picture of David and Keith with their arms around each other, but Keith is young and David is in his 70s!
And yes, it ends with Claire driving off toward the horizon. Show creator Alan Ball wanted to make it clear that Claire is the only one who escapes the Fisher family and their dysfunction. That's why, when she leaves, the Fishers are out of focus; they are already fading from her memory.
That is also why Nate, who is shown in the mirror trying to catch up to her, is left behind. The influence of the family is left behind and Claire goes on to experience a full and rich life.
Notice that for others, things never change. At 82 Brenda is STILL taking care of Billy, and if you pay close attention (or listen to Ball's commentary) you'll hear that then, in his 80s, Billy is STILL bitching about Ted, and he literally (according to writer Ball) bores poor Brenda to death.
And yes of course, the MAIN point of the show: Western civilization is a death-denying culture. We watch endless movies that show people getting killed, trivializing death, and yet most of us in real life fail to face death realistically.
We fail to realize that death is as natural a part of life as birth, that everybody dies, that you don't know when it will happen and that accepting all of this is part of living a full life. We are not prepared to die and we treat death so seriously that we're afraid to laugh at it, hence all the darkly comic death scenes at the beginning of each episode.
Alan Ball wanted the show to demonstrate that we are all connected in that we are all mortal; it does not behoove anyone to pretend they are immortal. As Nate says in the show, our mortality makes life important. Everything ends. If we lasted forever nothing would matter.
Six Feet Under seriously raised the bar for all television to come, almost demanding that TV airs more serious, reflective and intelligent shows with a heightened sense of realism.
 Not widescreen? August 2, 2007
So these are not available in widescreen? I'm wondering if the box set of all 5 seasons has Seasons 1 & 2 in widescreen?
Love it March 13, 2006
The characters are so real you can't help stepping in their shoes. Real, but unpredictable - there is always something new and exciting and morbid and entertaining. When the last season comes out, I will review all previous seasons to get me up to snuff on all the plots. That's what I love about purchasing the DVD's. I can watch them whenever I want.
 quality February 25, 2006
If you enjoy Six Ft. Under, no disappointments here. Just as good as the original run. However, the DVDs do come in a pop-up sort of display packaging and my Season 2 set was ripped so that there was no pop-up effect. No matter, the DVDs themselves were intact.
***OUTSTANDING*** December 11, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I look forward to my weekly dose of Six Feet Under with relish! A superb cast! Amazing, haunting, provocative, disturbing, full of humour, life and death! Brilliantly written and very addictive! If you've never seen it, or like me, kept missing episodes, -buy the series and enjoy at your leisure! You're sure to keep coming back for more!
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