Rating: 
Summary: Best series on TV
Review: This series is absolutely amazing. Every episode gives us a little more insight to the amazingly deep characters involved. Every episode makes you want to see next week's, and now with a box set DVD collection you can easily enjoy the series one after another. Truly an amazing show, and if you missed any of the episodes on HBO, or even if you didn't, this box set is worth owning.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good, but not my taste
Review: I purchased this set based upon the recommendations on this page. I watched it once and immediately disposed of it. While the show was written and produced in a professional manner, the content was such that I found it repellent. I absolutely hated the characters. They ranged from arrogant --but hip-- to foolish-- but hip. Always foul-mouthed, ... . The head of the funeral home, David, I believe is name was, is a homosexual. Fine, but this aspect of his character is paraded throughout the series accompanied by explicit scenes in gay bars and in the bedroom. Something I really do not wish to see. I suppose this is viewed as hip. It is possibly even a taboo to dare mention this. But it may save some other unsuspecting soul, who in the confines of his private chamber, is perhaps not so hip. There is no character who is admirable. No one is honest. No one posseses a shred of dignity. The schtik of using a funeral home as a setting is novel and even interesting at times. I learned quite a bit about embalming and post-mortem facial reconstruction. But the characters, in being so hip, are somewhat odious. If you are hip, or pretend to be so, then this may be for you. It surely is not for me.
Rating:
Summary: HBO does it again; A+++
Review: This is a fabulous series that we watched every single night, two episodes at a crack, until we were through it. We were really sad to see it come to an end too. The #1 standout feature is the first rate writing throughout. The series follows the lives of a family after the father, the family undertaker, is killed in an auto crash just a few minutes into the first episode. One of his sons had joined him in the funeral business but the other had been living in Seattle. Now both sons take over the business with the widowed mother and underage sister living in the house-funeral home along with them. Each character is fresh and different with Michael Hall playing the most complex character, David, the uptight "type A" brother who also is gay. There are some very leading edge moments in filmmaking in this series too, some very imaginative and surreal moments not commonly seen on the small screen. There was no film that could tempt me away the whole time we were watching this series even though netflix delivered three of them.
Rating:
Summary: The best television series created in the 21st century
Review: Yesterday we finished watching "Six Feet Under - The Complete First Season" on DVD and tonight we watched the premier episode of the Third Season. Wow, there sure must have been a lot that went down during the Second Season. But having gone through those first thirteen episodes we could not stand the idea of waiting until that Second Season came out on DVD to see a new episode so we took the plunge tonight and will just have to fill in the gaps as we go along. We did this for a fairly simple reason. "Six Feet Under" is the best television "new" television show we have seen in a long time. When everybody got all bent out of shape over "The Sopranos" we checked out the first season on DVD and while I thought it was good, I did not think it was the greatest thing on television (I watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"; I know all about good television). But if "The Sopranos" failed to live up to its reputation "Six Feet Under" exceeded expectations. Yes, this constitutes evidence that I have a sick sense of humor that leans towards black comedy and a sense of the abusrd, but that is not news to me or anybody who knows me. The series is about the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home, which is to say that in each episode we essentially open with the death of a person, who will then be entrusted into their care, and whose death will somehow resonate with the Fisher family and their significant others. The initial credit goes to series creator Alan Ball, who shows that the characters and ironic world he created in "American Beauty" were only scratching the surface of his vivid imagination. Ball does commentary on the first and final episode of the DVD, so make a point of watching those a second time while he chats about what is going on. But what will make the biggest impression on you is going to be the characters and their performances. Every episode is it always interesting to see what brilliant bit of acting Frances Conroy is going to turn in as Ruth Fisher. Beyond that we have the innate capacity of Nate Fisher (Peter Krause) to provide compassion, the enormous pathos we feel for the daily trauma of the life of his brother David (Michael C. Hall), the effervescent being of their sister Claire (Lauren Ambrose), the artistic temperament of master restorative artist Federico Diaz (Freddy Rodriguez), the impish of Brenda Chenowith (Rachel Griffiths), the rock that is Keith Charles (Mathew St. Patrick), and the unhinged lunacy of her brother Billy (Jeremy Sisto). Oh, and we should not forget kindred spirits such as the recurring one played by Richard Jenkins. "Six Feet Under" causes all sorts of wonderful ripples in your choice of viewing opportunities as well. Having suddenly discovered that Thomas Newman wrote not only the theme music for this series but also "Boston Public," I paid attention to the superb Oscar nominated score he did for "Road to Perdition" and am now looking for some more of his soundtracks to check out. Before this series Peter Krause was on "Sportsnight," so that is the next television show I want to check out on DVD. Of course, anything Lauren Ambrose does is going to catch my attention as well. However, I have never, believe it or not, ever been to a funeral and nothing in this series has convinced me I am ever going to be able to. If you are interested in quality television then check out "Six Feet Under." Do so before it is too late. After all, you never know what could happen to you when you were out for a drive or while reading a book sitting in your back yard overlooking a golf course...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent,quirky show
Review: I was intrigued by the promos for the upcoming third season...and so I got the DVD's and watched them from start to finish in one weekend marathon.I had never seen any of the episodes,and actually just ordered HBO again,so I can catch the third season,which starts tomorrow!This is such a good show.I really got into their lives..not in the soap-opera way,but in the straight-to-the-heart feelings the show inspires.This is a wonderful ensemble production,and you will not be disappointed.Just keep your mind and heart open,and you will be rewarded with a tremendous watching experience.
Rating:
Summary: Stinging social commentary disguised as a soap opera..
Review: There is much to admire about "Six Feet Under" -- wonderful acting, atmospheric settings, deft revelations into the death care industry, sly insights about small business in the age of corporate behemoths. At its heart, though, it examines the blood and guts of something far more mysterious than death: the American family. Ruth Fisher's family is the classic nuclear family in a state of disarray: Ruth walks around in a repressed state that is at once crystal clear and enigmatic. Does she love the life she chose, resent it, or both? Nate Jr., the Peter Pan prodigal son, only returns when he inherits half the family business, blackmailed from the grave by his late father. David, as repressed and half-happy as his mother, has run Fisher and Sons since Nate took off after high school. Daughter Claire lives in a state of ironic detachment, keeping her family at an arm's length, but creates a life around her so dramatic that it requires their close attention. What the show understands is that the heart of every dysfunctional family is a bedlam of emotions: tender love, bitter resentment, affection, pathos, friendship, estrangement. The Fisher clan spar and reunite with equal measure; they'd be as lost without one another as they are with each other. Unlike so many TV shows, which show unrecognizable human behavior and claim it is real, this show shows it the way it really is. Each of the Fisher family is lovable, so why is it so hard from them to feel loved? There is a lot of dramatic potential in this story, because it is a real question, not something manufactured. Lurking behind the Fisher family business is the threat of corporate takeover, in the form of Kroener International. Running alongside scenes of the Fisher family are the Chenowith family, the very definition of the post-nuclear family. Brenda, who eventually becomes engaged to Nate, is the daughter of two aging hippie psychologists who put her through a childhood of BF Skinner type experiments, and seem to have aggravated son Billy's bipolar condition. The contrast between these two family models is a fascinating juxtaposition of what two generations got wrong: just as Ruth's repressed old school mothering has damaged her kids, so too has the New Age style of Margaret and Bernard. The generation after Ruth's seems to have even more to answer for than hers. The show is amazing, really. It works on so many levels that even a review this length hasn't even begun to touch on all that's in it. HBO seems to have discovered that viewers will go out of their way for dense, multi-layered fiction that rivals the best contemporary novels. Although the show lost some of its brilliance in season two, it is still one of the best shows I've ever seen -- a model of what TV could be.
Rating: 
Summary: TV for adults
Review: HBO does it again with this smart, fun and interesting series. Combining the best of feature film and TV series allows Alan Ball to develop characters over time that are much more complex, and in many ways real, than is possible on broadcast TV or in theatres.
Rating:
Summary: Addictive!
Review: Six Feet Under is incredible. Addictive and compelling from the opening shot. The set is VERY pricy, but well worth it. We watched the first 6 episodes in one weekend, now we're saving them, doling them out sparingly because we don't want it to end! I love it so much I'm considering subscribing to HBO to catch the entire new season that begins on March 2. My husband and I are flying to CA in a few days and we're saving at least a couple of shows to watch on our laptop on the plane. For those of you that don't want to spend the money, have you checked your local library (watched all 3 seasons of the Sopranos and Sex in the City for FREE that way!), I've also seen Sopranos and Sex in the City at our local video store (not free, but easily 1/4 of the price depending on how many days you rent them for!)The point is...get your hands on Six Feet Under anyway you can. It's worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Pleasantly surprised
Review: I was wandering around the video store and half heartedly picked this up. I vaguely remembered something about this series. What I thought would be another dull movie night, turned into a very enjoyable one. I have spent the last week and a half watching all of the discs and decided that I should order this. I have tried to explain the series to friends and just get blank stares. I would describe it as a cross between Fargo, American Beauty, and Tales of the City. One minute I'm trying to deal with the tragedy of the moment and the next I'm questioning if it is appropriate for me to laugh out loud. In my eagerness to view the first season, I now have withdrawal symptoms waiting for season two.
Rating:
Summary: i'm addicted!
Review: this show rocks my world. can someone please tell me when i can expect the release of the second season on dvd???!!
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