In spite of really superior elements, including writing and acting, by the middle of the second season, "Six Feet Under" began to feel like a soap opera, albeit with a dark side.
The handful of principal characters, all interconnected, mostly in dysfunctional ways, get buried in problems the way the brothers buried the dearly departed. There's drug addiction, armed robbery, loan sharking, mutilation, a hit-and-run accident, brain disease, homophobia, manic depression, and the inevitable out-of-wedlock pregnancy that results from one copulation.
Of course a drama needs dramatic incidents, but I began to look at the extras on street scenes and wonder if they, too, were swamped by a tsunami of devastating problems. Am I the only person in America who life isn't a day-to-day morass of social issues? It was overwhelming for the wrong reason: I couldn't bring myself to care about any single individual because they were all swimming in the same lukewarm sea of troubles.
It was also in the 2nd season when many of the characters became so predictable that I knew I could fast-forward through their scenes and miss nothing. This was especially true of secondary characters, such as Brenda's parents (Joanna Cassidy and Robert Foxworth), who are not only predictable, but implausible. Cassidy's dialog, in particular, seems to have been written to strike as many outrageous notes as possible. There was no truth there; just showmanship. Ultimately, I lost interest. There are so many great TV series now, particularly on cable, that there's no reason to keep bingeing on one that's gone flat.
The handful of principal characters, all interconnected, mostly in dysfunctional ways, get buried in problems the way the brothers buried the dearly departed. There's drug addiction, armed robbery, loan sharking, mutilation, a hit-and-run accident, brain disease, homophobia, manic depression, and the inevitable out-of-wedlock pregnancy that results from one copulation.
Of course a drama needs dramatic incidents, but I began to look at the extras on street scenes and wonder if they, too, were swamped by a tsunami of devastating problems. Am I the only person in America who life isn't a day-to-day morass of social issues? It was overwhelming for the wrong reason: I couldn't bring myself to care about any single individual because they were all swimming in the same lukewarm sea of troubles.
It was also in the 2nd season when many of the characters became so predictable that I knew I could fast-forward through their scenes and miss nothing. This was especially true of secondary characters, such as Brenda's parents (Joanna Cassidy and Robert Foxworth), who are not only predictable, but implausible. Cassidy's dialog, in particular, seems to have been written to strike as many outrageous notes as possible. There was no truth there; just showmanship. Ultimately, I lost interest. There are so many great TV series now, particularly on cable, that there's no reason to keep bingeing on one that's gone flat.