Six Feet Under The Complete Second Season
September 2004 Reviewed by: Anthony Di Marco Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

It is tough to wrap your head around a show like Six Feet Under, and even tougher to describe it. Explaining how a show about death fills me with optimism and warmth seems like a hard sell. That is, until you experience it for yourself.

Created by Alan Ball, writer of the controversially sublime American Beauty, Six Feet Under observes the human condition in a profoundly pure and non-invasive way. The show’s team of gifted writers doesn’t depend on simple plot reversals, short-term gimmicks, or cloying musical cues. They rely on the natural evolution of some exceptionally well-defined characters to drive the narrative forward. The acting, writing, and directing are so unobtrusive, so true to life, that suspending disbelief is as certain as death itself.

The series centers on the Fisher family who, like other people, have their own set of character flaws, including, but not limited to, a repressed sense of identity, paralyzing anxiety, and an often consuming fear of death. All normal failings, when one considers their humanity, their profession, and place of residence. Brothers Nathaniel and David are morticians who live in a funeral home with their sister Claire and mother Ruth. While the majority of people have the choice of remaining blissfully ignorant of their mortality, the Fishers face it with every corpse that comes through the door.

Each episode opens with a death and closes with a send-off for those dearly and not so dearly departed. The deaths frequently offer stories of their own that logically figure into the main narrative, as well as each character’s personal journey. The way in which the filmmakers steer clear of cliché is brilliant. The means by which people pass away varies, from the intensely tragic death of a passerby in the episode "Someone Else’s Eyes" to the frighteningly ordinary death of a single woman in "The Invisible Woman." Death is always sudden and never romanticized. When Aaron Buchbinder finally succumbs to cancer in "The Last Time," there is neither light nor angels. He passes in fear through a darkened tunnel.

It seems petty to talk about the quality of presentation and the added extras in light of such superior programming. But in the interest of being thorough, I’ll offer these observations.

Almost every television series transferred to DVD suffers from truncated detail due to softness. HBO’s treatment of Six Feet Under is no exception. Cinematographer Alan Caso’s fittingly funereal color palette, however, is well preserved.

Although vocal intelligibility is excellent, a higher-than-normal noise floor and compressed dynamic range are disappointing. Soundtrack highlights include Thomas Newman’s playfully morbid main title theme and Richard Marvin’s spare yet emotionally arresting score.

Very few extras are included with this DVD. My favorite is a 20-minute featurette entitled "Anatomy of a Working Stiff." I was amazed to find out that what I thought were actors playing corpses are models made from scratch. Todd Masters of MastersFX explains in ample detail how his special-effects crew created unique cadavers for each of the second season’s 13 episodes. This level of craft illustrates how much care Alan Ball and executive producer Alan Poul take in making the Fishers' world believable.

Five commentaries by various writers and Alan Ball vary in quality. I particularly enjoyed Jill Soloway’s humorous retrospect on "I’ll Take You" and Alan Ball’s commentary on "The Last Time." What I could have done without were the misplaced politics of Hollywood back-patting sessions. This is one television classic where the obvious talents of cast and crew are splendidly represented onscreen, and need no underscoring.

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