Monday, December 19, 2005

Six Feet Under: From life-affirming to lifeless

Six Feet Under is a rich meditation on death, and life.

It's life, against the eternal (and very present backdrop) of death, finding meaning and richness: Claire's creative and coming-of-age journey, David's quest for love and identity, Nate's struggle with meaning and mortality, Ruth's sense of alienation as an aging widow. It also jolts the audience and characters out of denial of death to look at the value and urgency of getting on with our finite lives.


At least, so it was for two seasons.

At the end of every episode, I knew that I would die, and so would everyone I loved.

In one episode, an absentee father shows up angry at his six-year-old son's funeral.

Nate says: Everybody's life is a ticking clock. You can hit all the people you want, but your time to make a difference in that boy's life is over. Did you use it well, or did you just piss it away?


I reflected on that, thought of how I was or wasn't using my time well, for myself and for the people I care about, and how I needed to change that.

The third season begins with a dream-sequence, and it's never quite clear when that ends... it just sort of mushes into an episode, and then a series of episodes, so bad, so flavorless, so without purchase, that I was wondering if the dream sequence had ended at all.

(If not, it's very tedious dream sequence. Speaking of which, those sequences in general, so interesting and amusing at first as they displayed characters thoughts spinning off crazily, have long-since gone stale, mostly because they're poorly thought out and badly realized.)

I wish that the reviews had been more accurate and honest. I wish that every review had been one star. That way, I would've just given up on the series at the end of season two, when it was still good, and figured that unresolved ending was just the way it was meant to be. I would've still loved it. Now, I just find the whole thing grating.

The main thing about season three is that there's just not enough substance. There is, in the entire season, enough for maybe half an episode of season one.

Many said the first season was the best television show ever. Though I watch very little TV (I watched this all on DVD) season one is certainly by far the best show I've ever seen, more like a series of movies than television, and good movies at that.

The second season, though much inferior to the first, was still very good, with exceptional moments.

But the third season... well, it bears very, very little relation to the first two. The audience's interest is retained only by the soap opera aspects. (That happens with television: Audiences are still intrigued by the characters and the producers, though they're out of ideas, milk it for a while by turning the show into a soap opera.)

It's like the funeral home was indeed taken over by a corporation - seems to be the same establishment, but what's inside is totally different, and lifeless.

The characters are played by the same actors, of course, but even Rachel Griffiths can't do much with scripts that have become boring. Though everyone is still doing their jobs well, it seems like Lauren Ambrose (Claire) is the only other actor putting her heart into it.

The way the deaths were woven into the fabric of the episodes, so crucial to this series, is absent. It's just a business, and they might as well be selling lawnmowers. The scripts could be transferred to or from any other show, and seem to have been.


David's become effeminate and swishy (and gets even more so in the next season) - closer to a stereotype and out of character from who he was in season one - and his romantic travails have become monotonous.

Ruth just seems goofy, and lost. Without that marvelous interplay of her lusty Russian, Nikoli (full of irrepressible life, including the symbolism in his vocation), her world is just comfortingly dull, even when a bit spiced up by a naughty friend (introduced with a lame addiction storyline that seemed to be just introduce the new friend).

Claire's journey, though it's the most interesting thing about the season, and its focus (sort of), has become tedious as well. (Her art-school teacher is just a well-rendered stock character.)

Nate we just can't make ourselves care about anymore. The character he was before had a certain core that this one just doesn't. Maybe it's his brain problem, but he's not him anymore. (And what's with the expensively-mainted, trendy, bad haircut?)

Frederico remains little more than a prop, continuously exploited by Fishers. They pay him less than he's worth, treat him terribly no matter how much he does for them, and then, though they left him to twist in the same situation (when they could have easily helped him), he comes through with a lifesaver when they're desperate (for which, with typical ingratitude, they take advantage of him again). It's crazy that anyone would entrust money to people who handle it so badly. Talk about a doormat. It's strange that there's no explanation or exploration of that.

Keith, once so intriguing, has become a prop as well, almost on the level of comic relief. He has a boring job that's boring for us to watch, and they've decided he has to become a boring guy.

(It's hard to imagine the Keith who sees life as "striving towards perfection", who seemed so dynamic, settling for that. The character seems more likely to have, for one, been better prepared for what might happen if he had to shoot someone. And then, if he was so shaken by it, to have eventually dealt with it more constructively - by changing departmental changing and procedure (he and his partner could have shot or Tased the guy before it became life-or-death) so others wouldn't end up in the same position, by becoming a paramedic, by getting a Ph.D. and going into social work or gun-control policy. A lot of possibilities. Hard to see the character he was ending up in security more than briefly.)

It seems like the writers just can't imagine anyone in a mundane job could have an interesting and worthwhile existence, and the show has taken on a mildly racist tinge.

Lisa, originally a one-dimensional, one-off character, should have remained such, or stayed in the background. Her story is dull - it doesn't have to be, but it is - and drags down the rest with it, if it can be dragged lower.

Brenda is only interesting at all because she's so well-acted. The character, like everything else, has gone flat (uh, so to speak). No matter how well acted, the characters have become cardboard cutouts.

The writers also introduce a mildly autistic, slightly creepy nerd. For some reason. (Also very well acted... and pointless.)

I like who the characters were on the first season. For example, I liked Brenda's self-assurance, even though there was all kinds of damage beneath it; that played nicely into Nate's air of detached, rugged cool, just beneath which he was perpetually skating over the thin ice of an empty and meaningless existence.

People change, but there's something left of who they were, instead of someone completely unrelated - David lurching into a stereotype, for example. When he asks the new assistant (in season one) what makes her think he's gay, we might wonder the same thing. In season three, it's so obvious that the only answer is, Duh.

Why?

Why does Nate lose his entire personality and replace it with a new one with no connection or even transition (brain surgery)? Was Keith's entire identity based on being a cop who hadn't shot anyone yet (and why, in that scene, didn't his partner fire as well - who'd want to have a partner that wouldn't do anything when someone swings a gun around to shoot you)?

In short, though called by the same names and played by the same actors, the characters are otherwise unrelated to those of season one.



There is no point to watching this season. Though I was soon bored, I kept on because I figured there had to be some payoff somewhere. There isn't.

The first season is stunning. The second, though uneven, is still excellent.

The third, though, looks like some goof took the characters and wrote a weak fan-fiction version.

The technique is still superb: There are marvelous touches, like when a character gets shocking news there's no ominous theme music or heavy-handed camerawork; it's just an ordinary afternoon.

It's just that the writing has fallen apart.

To the injury of wasted time and money, one writer adds insult, literally: Wondering why the second season was inferior to the first, I listened to the writer's commentary on an episode. She starts by insulting the audience for having nothing better to do than listen to her. It's not funny - it doesn't seem to be meant to be funny - and it turns out to be a well-founded, as she has nothing interesting to say.

Might explain why the following season is so crappy. Everything is just plot devices and recycled sitcom gags.

E.g., bumping into the priest at the video store. That was particularly onerous because Father Jack seemed to stand up for gay rights without himself being gay, something I'd like to see more examples of, because gay rights are civil rights, are human rights, something one imagines a priest would care about.


I was curious enough about why this was so bad, when the first season was so good, that I poked around on the Internet a bit. A lot of comments were along the lines of will X and Y get back together? Will A and B break up? Soap opera comments for a soap opera season.

There are people who liked season three; there are people who like soap operas, and this season basically is one (centered around a funeral home).


Read the episode guides. By the second episode of the first series, so much had happened it felt like I'd been watching for at least a season already. And although the second season faltered, with a lot more filler, it still had a great deal to offer.

Had the entire third season been cut down to make up one episode, or maximum two, it might have been good, but as it is, it's all just vague filler, a waste of time and talent.

Anyone who likes Six Feet Under and hasn't yet watched beyond season two would be well advised not to. Just pretend it ended at the end of season two, maybe leaving some things unresolved, but that's just the way it ended. Leave it there and appreciate it for what it was. Unless you're a big fan of fan-fiction, there's no point in watching beyond that.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home