Product Description

There's a new pecking order at the Fisher & Diaz funeral home but Nate Ruth David and Claire still try to make every day above ground a good one. Death and dysfunction are par for the course in The Complete Fourth Season of Six Feet Under.Running Time: 780 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 026359238420 Manufacturer No: 92384

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1313 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-08-23
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 5
• Dimensions: .95 pounds
• Running time: 720 minutes

Amazon.com
This penultimate season of Six Feet Under continues further down the darkly disturbing path so evident in the third season. To be sure, the signature--and ultimately undefinable--blend of tragic mishap with tripped-out comic eccentricity that has stamped the series from its debut remains pervasive. It's the concentration of the mix that has changed. Leavening moments seem less organic, much as the bizarre death sequences that open each episode often turn out to be rather contrived preludes to the ensuing thematic obsessions. Which isn't to say season 4 lacks the delightfully memorable quirkiness fans have grown to expect. Recurring incidents of fecal revenge bring tensions to the surface between Ruth (Frances Conroy) and her new husband George (James Cromwell), in turn leading to young intern Arthur's resignation (Rainn Wilson's spot-on characterization is so enjoyable that his self-imposed exile from the Fisher nest early in the season is a real loss). Ruth meanwhile hooks up again briefly with the irrepressible Bettina (Kathy Bates) for an excursion south of the border.

But brooding glimpses into chaos beneath the surface provide the emotional momentum of this season, right from the opening scene, as Nate (Peter Krause) inevitably gravitates back toward Brenda (Rachel Griffiths) in the aftermath of his wife's death. As usual, writers and directors vary for each episode, but the dark eccentricities of creator Alan Ball's original characters have become more sharply focused and sustained. We seem to spend even more time viewing the world through individual points of view: Nate's roiling anger and grief or Claire's (Lauren Ambrose) newfound sexual and artistic experimentation as she learns about "grinding the corn" and attains respect as a photographer. The toxicity of relationships continues to be a preoccupation. We get the Ruth-George meltdown as well as the painful unraveling of Rico's (Freddy Rodriguez) marriage to Vanessa (Justina Machado). But the most harrowing episode follows David (Michael C. Hall) through an increasingly perilous carjacking. This nightmarish fugue, midway through, ripples out into the rest of the season, posing another threat to his tenuous relationship with Keith (Matthew St. Patrick). It sets a course for further apocalyptic imagery of environmental collapse and fallout shelters. There's little to gentle the downward slide and exposure of vulnerability, save taking refuge in the quirkiness that seems to be the Fishers' birthright. But that, as they say, is to die for. --Thomas May

Customer Reviews

It only gets better!
I disagree that this season wasn't as good as the others. In most shows I notice it takes several episodes to really get the season going...almost as if they're easing into it. So once that is out of the way, it's a little more exciting from there. I really enjoyed the craziness of George, and the evolvement and experimentation of Claire. Nate and Brenda, I'd been waiting for that. And the whole Lisa story I was on the edge of my seat just waiting to see what was going on. And not to forget the stand-out episode with David getting car jacked. WOW, here this cast and the story writers really shined.

Overall I just want to say that SFU is maybe my all time favorite TV show, or damn near close to it (I do love tv). So this is a show you just can't miss. A show about something that we all have to deal with, death, family, loss, love, metamorphasis.....well, you can't turn away. If you're like me, you'll be watching these episodes non stop to find out what is going to happen next.

Not As Intense, But Still Very Watchable
If there is a bad episode of Six Feet Under, I haven't seen it yet. From the first season to the last episode I've seen ("Untitled," the finale of the fourth season) each episode kept me entertained, many of them making me weep and even more of them making me laugh. The simple fact is that Alan Ball and the staff of this show simply know how to make brilliant television that explores the nature of death and what it means to be in a relationship.

That being said, I think this season was certainly the weakest of the bunch. Don't get me wrong, as I said before, each of the episodes worked well and the overall season was great. There were even some brilliant standouts that would rival the best of Ball's work, such as "That's My Dog" (an evocative, shocking hour of television that I'd compare to Joss Whedon's masterpiece The Body) and "Untitled." I also feel that fans of the first three seasons of 6FU will like this quite a lot. What the season doesn't do, however, is step it up a notch like previous seasons did.

"Six Feet Under" has always been a show that defied my expectations, always carrying through with new, crazy, and poignant plots and keeping the drama at a consistently increasing level. While there are moments here and there in the plot that wowed me, but the rest of it seemed to be static and slightly predictable. The times when the narrative did "go there," especially in the instances of the George/Ruth relationship, it seemed a bit too out there to grasp. There were a few plots that fell off or were never developed enough--the character of George's son is the clearest example. In the beginning of the season, he only existed as a plot device to rationalize the hilarious scenes of excrement being found in the Fisher's mailbox, and later in the season, when they had the chance to re-introduce him as an actual character, all he does is act as a trigger to George's growing paranoia concerning conspiracy theories.

Overall, while this doesn't take the drama to the next level the way previous "Six Feet Under" seasons have in the past, it's still some of the best television out there. While a lot of it feels like set-up for the next season, it's still twelve episodes of television well worth watching.

8/10

Great series
I never can get around to watching these when they're on and usually catch them in syndication. Loved this enough to buy the whole series.