Six Feet Under: What Are We Missing?

Having completed watching all available episodes of Big Little Lies and Altered Carbon (and waiting for more Westworld season 3 before we dig into it), we recently took the recommendation of 27 readers and started watching Six Feet Under.

If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s an hour-long drama about a family who runs a funeral home. Sometimes they see and talk to dead people, but they’re not ghosts–the dead people seem to be in their minds.

We’ve watched 5 episodes at this point, and we’ve seen that it’s a perfectly solid family drama. Good writing, good acting, interesting hook with the funeral home. But beyond that, we’re finding ourselves a bit bored. Perhaps we’ve been spoiled by big reveals, tantalizing mysteries, and fascinating worldbuilding in other shows. With all due respect to it, Six Feet Under feels small and episodic, and perhaps a bit dated.

But it got such rave reviews from you that we’re wondering if we’re missing something. Is it one of those shows that really takes off after a certain episode or after the first season? If so, what is that turning point and what makes the show so good from then on?

Otherwise, is there another hour-long show you’d highly recommend? We have HBO, Netflix, cable, and Amazon Prime, and we could reactivate Hulu. Thanks for your help!

17 thoughts on “Six Feet Under: What Are We Missing?”

  1. Watch Under the Silverlake. It is a movie on Amazon Prime but it is also something you will watch and re-watch. The writer/director worked with a professional codebreaker. Together they hid doxens of secret messages in the film.

    Not a TV show but its on amazon prime and rewards several re-watches.

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  2. The show takes off for sure. And it ends on a very high note.

    I have found several episodes to deal with grief in a mature and deep way that I have not found elsewhere, I empathized with the characters deeply.

    Another highly recommended show would be The Wire.

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  3. If you don’t mind some sophomoric humor used as cover for really intelligent comedy, American Vandal (Netflix) is one of the most brilliant things of the last 5 years. Perfectly observed satire of the true crime genre that actually has interesting things to say about modern life for kids. It’s one of those things where you’re jealous of somebody seeing it the first time.

    If you haven’t watched them, Barry and Succession are great. You (Netflix) is a thriller that is far more engrossing than it has any right to be – it’s pretty much the definition of bingeable.

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  4. I found the same thing with 6ft under. I’ve tried to get through it 3 times and never made it past episode 4. My wife however swears it one of the best shows ever made. I will never forget seeing her after she watched the series finale.

    She watched the series without me and I knew she was watching the last episode. So I was in the other room doing something else. I remember hearing the tv go quite, so I waited for her to come in and say she was done and we can watch our show together(I think we were watching a lot of 24 at the time). But she never came in. So after about 10 minutes I walked in the room and she was quietly sobbing to herself on the couch. She had been like that for 10 minutes!

    Obviously very concerned(I thought maybe she got a call saying someone had died or something) I quickly went over to see what was wrong. And she told me the show as over and it was amazing.

    That’s what she was crying about!!

    Must be a powerful show. But I’ve still never made it pst episode 4.

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  5. I haven’t watched it since it came out, but I think if you haven’t gotten into it by episode 5, I’d circle back to it later in life. I’m sure it has possibly dated, as a gay lead in a drama was certainly ground breaking at the time. And I’m sure the sex has lost almost all of its shock value after Game of Thrones. If you aren’t invested in the family of characters by now, then you certainly shouldn’t grind through more episodes waiting for twists or reveals.

    The Leftovers.

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  6. A couple of our favorites are The Americans and Person of Interest (which we found much much better than its CBS procedural factory pedigree might suggest…)

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  7. Six feet under is one of my favorite drama series of all time. It is mostly sad, that’s for sure. It does take several episodes to get emotionally connected to the characters. If you are able to hang on until the very end, (see what I did there) it still to this day has the best series finale ever made. A full range of powerful emotions are felt in that last episode. There are points throughout the plot where you are happy for the characters, but overall there is a feeling of sadness. Sometimes you just need a good cry, and this show fills that need like no other.

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  8. I can’t remember when it takes off, but you definitely get emotionally invested in these characters. The ending is phenomenal like others have said. It is a bit dated and it is for sure a drama, but I got to the point where I spent time in my life while not watching the show thinking about the characters. Whenever I see this one actor in other shows, I think about what he went through on 6 Feet Under to this day. Every time! It is definitely a bit slow going but in my opinion worth it.

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  9. Six Feet Under was a very slow burn for me. To be completely honest I’m not sure I would have stuck with it today, but I watched it back when DVD sets were the main way of bingeing TV series. Since I had bought the entire series, I stuck with it.

    Sometime around the end of season 1 I became hooked. It is one of the few series where I can say every season was better than the last and the last episode remains one of my favorite final episodes of all time.

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    • This is the best comment. I’m currently rewatching it after about 15 years. It’s definitely dated but keep watching!! Season 2 is similar to season 1 but season 3 really takes off (for me)

      And yes the series finale is worth it. I say keep going.

      Reply

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