Product Details

• Actors: Frances Conroy, Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Lauren Ambrose, Mathew St. Patrick
• Format: AC-3, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0), English (Dolby Digital 2.0), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 5
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• DVD Release Date: May 17, 2005
• Run Time: 780 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (84 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0007R4SWM
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,781 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  Movies & TV > Drama > Television > Six Feet Under

• For more information about "Six Feet Under - The Complete Third Season" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

• This is item 3 in The Six Feet Under Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

No other show captures the ebb and flow of day-to-day human relationships like Six Feet Under, which chronicles the dysfunctional lives of the Fisher family, who run a funeral home in Los Angeles. Though the overt theme of the series is mortality--every episode opens with the death of someone whose body will end up on the Fishers' slab--but the third season, even moreso than the first two, explores the intertwining struggles for connection and for personal freedom. The season starts slowly but compellingly, laying out the changes in the Fishers' lives. Nate (Peter Krause, We Don't Live Here Anymore) has married and has a baby. David (Michael C. Hall) is settling into tense domesticity with his angry boyfriend. Claire (Lauren Ambrose) has launched into art school. Ruth (Frances Conroy), their mother, is reaching out for companionship from an emotionally stilted young intern, and Brenda (Rachel Griffiths, Hilary and Jackie), Nate's ex-fiancee, has apparently vanished from their lives.

But as storylines unfold across the 13 episodes, the emotional heft of the season comes from the expanded roles of the family's intimates. Federico (Freddy Rodriguez), who has leveraged his way into a partnership with the Fisher brothers, finds himself fighting to be treated as an equal at work and struggling with his wife's depression at home. Trying to sort out their relationship, David and Keith (Mathew St. Patrick) negotiate everything from therapy to threesomes. Meanwhile Lisa (Lili Taylor, I Shot Andy Warhol), Nate's unhappy wife, increasingly becomes the center of the season as her jealousy and need become unbearable. Though big events happen, the most jolting drama on Six Feet Under comes from small conflicts--miscommunications, crossed desires, habits that don't mesh. The cast, writers, and directors can, with breathtaking skill and subtlety, spin a brief conversation into a microcosm of the character's lives. By this third season, the show has taken on the richness and complexity of a great novel; it's an impressive and deeply enjoyable achievement. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

(HBO Dramatic Series) Life. Death. Guilt. Afterlife. For the Fishers, the more things stay the same, the more they change. Get ready to break new emotional ground with Six Feet Under: The Complete Third Season.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:5 Audio commentaries w/ Alan Ball, writers and directors on episodes 3, 4, 5, 11 and 13
Interviews:"A Birdseye View of the Third Season" : An in-depth interview with show creator Alan Ball including the original HBO trailer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Climactic Season of an Amazing Series, June 28, 2005

By	CreepyT "CreepyTendencies" (Colorado, United States) - See all my reviews

After hearing about and reading a lot of the hype surrounding this show, I thought it noteworthy to check out. Unfortunately for me, I have no cable television with which to view HBO. Therefore, I was stuck waiting until this show came out on DVD. When season one finally did come out on DVD, I rushed out and rented disc one. After only watching the first couple episodes, I was completely hooked, and decided to buy the DVD set. Since then, Six Feet Under has become my favorite shows.

Season three is definitely a pivotal season. Alan Ball does less of the writing, and this is easily noted within many episodes. Much of the quirkiness of the Fischer family seems lost, or at least altered. There seems to be far more drama with less of the fun comic relief that was always present in the first two seasons. The ebbing ups and downs seem to pique much more drastically, making season three quite a roller coaster ride of emotions, reaching it's crescendo with a dramatic cliffhanger finale that leaves you anxious to see what happens in season four.

Each and every character undergoes growth and maturity throughout the season, as in previous seasons. Claire is busy adjusting to art school, while David is trying desperately to patch up his relationship with Keith. Nate approaches life with a newfound appreciation after his brain surgery, and Brenda doesn't seem to be a part of his new plans. Ruth longingly seeks companionship after breaking things off with Nicolai, and finds it in some rather odd places. Federico is trying to find his place in the business as a new partner, while also trying to deal with troubles of his own at home. Brenda, after a brief excursion, attempts to find her way in the world without Nate. Each and every character and sub-plot is a completely unique and enticing character study of it's own, and the incredible acting from everyone involved makes each and every character totally believable.

Regardless of a few minor quibbles with this season, I still maintain that this is on of the best television shows I've ever seen. Never before have I viewed a television series that so accurately portrays the sheer rawness of human sentiment, spanning the gamut of emotional intensity with such fervor and wit. Even though this isn't my favorite season of the series, it still makes for far better viewing than the vast majority of shows that plague our television sets these days.

This single show is almost enough to make me want to fork out the money to get cable, but thanks to the DVD releases, that isn't necessary. I'm only sad this show is going to end after a mere five seasons. Overall, a very highly recommended series.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A TEN star series, July 17, 2005

By	Carolyn Rampone "Carolyn D'Amico Rampone" (Plantation, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The only disappointment I felt with HBO'S Six Feet Under season 3 was when it was over. Season 4 won't be released until late August and I don't know if I'll make it. The addiction is still strong and when I realized it could be a year before I ever got to see season 5, I went out and ordered HBO. I have lived this long without the premium channels but SFU has changed that. I know this isn't a good thing but I hear admitting the problem is half the battle.
I absolutely, positively love this series. In my book, they don't come any better!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Great Series Seems Really Off in the 3rd Season, March 4, 2006

By	Norman I. Buchwald "waldnorm" (Castro Valley, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Note--this comes from a perspective of someone who has not yet seen the fourth or fifth seasons.

The first two seasons of "Six Feet Under"--really drew me in. The funeral home was always threatened by a conglomerate corporation, Nate and Brenda, both who had really serious issues on their own had a rather interesting relationship to watch, David's coming to turns with his identity, Claire's problems with her relationships and friendships as an outcast in high school, the threat of Billy to many of the characters (Nate, Brenda, Claire) and Ruth's coming to terms with relationships and finding peace (i.e. "The Plan")-- all of these were rather interesting, drew us to the characters, and were unique, as well as wild and off the wall. Add to this and accidental dosages of ecstasy and dream/talk to dead sequences with the Father were rather engaging--along with David or Rico or Nate dealing with the deceased of that week for that struggle they were dealing with at that time and the conversations they had-- a lot of that was good stuff. The Fisher house would always have this atmosphere of depressing/dysfunctionality, but all of these attachments made it interesting. We wanted to come into this house, take a seat and spend time with the Fishers.

Then in the third season, a lot of the chemistry went so well, went lost. I had no problem with the season opening--Actually it added to the dimensions of the show of dealing with death and loved ones and opened up the possibility that maybe Nate made a choice, even if it's how he recalled it--but the time gap had its consequences, since I as a viewer still cannot buy that he married Lisa. Lisa's role as a regular also seemed difficult to watch--she was the substitute for Brenda, who was gone for half a season, and while I applauded her at a critical point regarding her career in the first three episodes and how she handled it, I otherwise did not care about her. Add to what happens at the end of this season and that's very critical--because in order for it to work we had to care about her, and clearly see some bond with Nate and her we could totally buy.

As for the other stories--this season seemed to throw in stories then withdrew them. I mean just as the Kathy Bates character and Ruth showed a lot of interesting things that could've happened with their frienship, the Kathy Bates character LEAVES. And it's unfortunately not an enigmatic departure say as with say Gabriel's departure in the second season.

Continual non-commitals include some exploratory of existence and death/living worlds and time does not exist of the season opening and then totally dropped (only occasionally referred a bit in the last couple of episdoes of the season) makes this season uneven.

Then the other characters--I did like the Kathy Bates character and the intern. In fact, the odd infatuation with Ruth and the intern was rather interesting, but then even that seemed to be dropped when suddenly she's with this other character.

Claire is part of a love triangle--which could be actually intriguing if the writers didn't beat us viewers over the head as to what was to come. Otherwise, this story seemed painfully long and probably didn't warrant an entire season.

David and Kieth, meanwhile, seemed to be rather a domestic partner soap opera at times--especially when David makes a choice I do not totally buy--wanting to engage in a threesome when he was so repelled by it from the first season. David's exploration of his existence and identity seemed to be terribly diminished--even if he was totally out and in a relationship there should still be issues, and they really weren't explored. Kieth's character seemed to function as much as Lisa's for Nate--except at least I buy David and Kieth's chemistry.

Finally, Brenda. Thank goodness Brenda finally came back and we spent some time with her. While an incident between her and her brother Billy, was too blunt (I think the violence from the first season regarding the tattoo stated things much more clearly. We didn't need to be reminded, again), I couldn't help but be drawn to her scenes and was especially intrigued by the conflicts set out between her and her mother.

Other bonds worth watching--Nate as a father to Maya (at least until he loses it at the end of the season), Ruth and the Kathy Bates character, Ruth and the intern, Brenda trying to find a bond with someone again and feels she can't find anyone, Rico dealing with a very depressed wife--these transcend the otherwise soap opera quality the third season seemed to turn. Otherwise, sorry the bar fight Nate engages himself in the last show of the season--over the top, been there, done that. Didn't find his angst interesting or intriguing to watch.

But as for the atmosphere established in the first two seasons--yes, scenes still fade into the white, and there's the mingling of the dead/dream world and the real--but it didn't seem to be the same show. Also, this season tries to explore elements of gay culture--I just don't know about the back to back episodes of David and Kieth attending a Leading Lady Party and then Gay Paint Ball-- seemed too cute and seemed to make gay life be a rather artificial construct--which would be fine if these artificial constructs showed some type of revelation of David's and Kieth's characters--but seemed more showy at best. Perhaps if the series better explored the two characters trying to find a social life that fits--I think that was what was intended for the blueprint for this season--but I just didn't feel I got much from the two characters finally, and I don't think the intention was too clear. I was left finding David and Kieth "being boring" finally more than anything else, and would've rather watched David dealing with a conglomerate or Kieth dealing with finding a job he felt good at to boost his morale, or be more engaging with the family (Kieth finally did deal with his family, but it was written way too late in the season, I think, for all of a sudden he to be doing something).

I really hope the quality goes back in the fourth and fifth seasons. Where are the concerns of the family or the family business being threatened (often interlocked)? What happened where the dead person had a serious effect on a character's issue that particular week? Where is growth/revelations that sometimes cropped up for the characters? What about the atmosphere of the dead/dream world/imagined with the living and the direct conversations that seemed to be part of the reality-- and if the premiere episode of third season was supposed to add dimensions to it, why was it so rapidly dropped? I know shows sometimes have to grow and change and not do the same things, but this season it seemed to be too conventional for a series that is not.