Six Feet Under - The Complete Fourth Season

Customer reviews:

It only gets better!, 2008-07-11
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, 2008-06-22
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