Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11418 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-06-21
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Number of discs: 5
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Dutch, Arabic, Finnish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Polish, Swedish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 5
• Running time: 780 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
In some ways, HBO's Six Feet Under plays kid brother to the Sopranos: it's spunkier, less refined, chancier and a bit of a punk. Nevertheless, the show, set in the southern California mortuary Fisher and Sons, deserves its place in the pantheon of great television series. The initial series was a showcase for the most original characters, including tight-lipped brother David (Michael C Hall) coming out of the closet, emotionally trippy mom Ruth (Frances Conroy) and the most complex girlfriend on the face of the planet, Brenda (Rachel Griffiths). Slowly, the major force in series two 2 is the unassuming lead, Peter Krause. Part of the long line of good-looking actors who never get respect because they make it look too easy, Krause finds the perfect blend of optimism and wonderful, bittersweet anguish as Nate, the prodigal son.

The opening series' happy ending is forgotten as relationships change, the business is still under fire from the evil conglomerate Kroehner, and a lively dream sequence is just around the corner. As with the first series, creator Alan Ball lets many others direct and write the show, but his stamp is all over it. The eccentricities of the characters are shaped, and not always suddenly. Take daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose), who sheds her bad boyfriend only to find more complex relationships on her road to discovering her own groove. One person in the mix is Ruth's beatnik sister (Patricia Clarkson, in an Emmy-winning role). She's a joyous embodiment of thriving--if ageing--counter-culture. Another new character is Nate's old girlfriend, the granola-loving Lisa (Lili Taylor). With Brenda heading down another destructive course, Nate is at more than one crossroads by series' end. For fans who groove with the wild, serio-comedic world of the Fishers (and let's face it, many didn't), the second series goes down like a fine meal of fusion cuisine. --Doug Thomas

DVD Description
One of the most critically acclaimed shows on television, Six Feet Under returns for a second season with the award-winning mix of cutting edge drama and deliciously dark humour that made the first season so popular. Continuing its look at the Fishers – the dysfunctional family who own and operate Fisher & Sons funeral home in Los Angeles, Six Feet Under digs where others fear to tread. The second season continues with more enthralling storylines as Nate finds out about a mysterious growth on his brain, Ruth, the family matriarch tries harder than ever to develop close relationships with her children, David has come out of the closet and moved in with the emotionally troubled Keith and Claire, the artistically gifted teenage daughter seeks some stability in her life in the form of a new man. The Fishers’ lives are intertwined with friends and loved ones, both living and deceased: Lisa, Nate’s old friend from Seattle, who is the mother of his infant daughter, Federico, the young mortician and family man who has risen from employee of Fisher & Sons to partner, Sarah, Ruth’s younger and seemingly free-spirited sister, Nate’s one-time fiancée, Brenda, whose relationships with her own family might be more dysfunctional than any of the Fishers’ and Nathaniel Snr., the deceased patriarch, who reappears in flashbacks and daydream-like visitations, serving both as a comfort and a conscience to those he left behind.

Contains all 13 episodes from Series 2:

• In The Game
  
• Out, Out Brief Candle
  
• The Plan
  
• Driving Mr Mossback
  
• The Invisible Woman
  
• In Place Of Anger
  
• Back To The Garden
  
• It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
  
• Someone Else’s Eyes
  
• The Secret
  
• The Liar And The Whore
  
• I’ll Take You
  
• The Last Time

Special Features

• Audio commentaries on five episodes with series creator Alan Ball, writers and directors
  
• Behind the scenes featurette - The Making Of A Working Stiff

Customer Reviews

Beautiful, but dark
I always think of Six Feet Under as being more like a novel than a TV serial. The depth of characterization, the stylistic flourishes, the importance of psychology: this isn't classic TV terrain, but it puts me in mind of, say, Philip Roth or John Updike. The second series of Six Feet Under is as good as the first, and enriches our knowledge of the characters in some interesting new ways, with some very strong scenes betweem Nate and Claire for instance. The quality of the writing, acting and direction is unflaggingly high, but a word of warning to those not familiar with Six Feet Under! I lent the DVD to my dad, whose response was "But it isn't funny". Well, it's not meant to be funny, or not in the way that, say, Phoenix Nights or Blackadder is funny. The humour here is black and subtle and slow to emerge. But that doesn't mean it's not there; it's just that it's part of a much richer tapestry - probably the best evocation I've ever seen in a TV show of family life and the neurotic complexities of human relationships.

Mind-blowing!
Six feet Under has to be one of the most original TV series ever made. And the second series could possibly be said to be even better than the first ( if it is possible!). I can not recommend it highly enough and if there were more stars to rate this, it would get 100!

Psychedelic Magic Realism
IMHO the finest thing ever to grace our TV screens. The first series introduced us to the wonderful world of the Fisher family. Each character was shown with a precision and plausibility that most other TV hasn't yet even begun to approach, drawing you into a their world through the simple measure of making the players both wholly believeable and gorgeously sympathetic. The acting throughout is close to flawless, especially in the case of the main players, Peter Krause (Nate), Michael Hall (David), Lauren Ambrose (Claire), Rachel Griffiths (Brenda) and Frances Conroy (Ruth).
The show's kaleidoscopic-psychedelic realism seems an unlikely way to draw you into a tangle of fundamental questions of life and death, love, loyalty and the search for identity, but the producers hit the button show after show. It's rare for me to watch an episode without coming away feeling I've both seen something breathtakingly beautiful, but also that I've been invited to think about something important to how I see myself, my life and those around me.
The second series sees the characters rounded out yet further; facing their trials, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but never loosing our interest. Here the prodigal son, Nate, slowly emerges as the focus of the story (though this is done so gently that it takes some time to register.) The end of series finale is so wonderfully executed that it left me breathless. When it was all over I couldn't help but think that I'd just watched the smartest, most honest and direct TV I'd ever seen, addressing the big questions of life without for one moment being patronised. This show is, quite simply, magic.