Day to Day just reviewed the series as a whole.
Tonight, Terry Gross talks to a couple of cast members and Alan Ball about the series.
8 Comments
Day to Day just reviewed the series as a whole.
Tonight, Terry Gross talks to a couple of cast members and Alan Ball about the series.
Since I do not take HBO in my package of cabe tv, would you summerize it up for me.
It’s about a dysfunctional family whose business is running a funeral home.
You can rent the DVDs/VCRs of early seasons … it’s very good. Well acted / written.
it’s written by Alan Ball, who did the script for “American Beauty.”
It’s about death. In life. Told through a very conflicted family that runs a funeral home. The first episode started w/ the death of the father, killed in his hearse by a crosstown bus.
Got weirder from there. Nearly every episode started w/ someone dying in an unexpected and suprising way.
None of this explanation does it justice. Great show, though I still prefer Deadwood, the Wire & Sopranos over it.
Brenda, I don’t subscribe to cable and thus have only seen the first three seasons on DVD. From the first episode I was HOOKED. I tried like heck to keep ignorant of the latest goings-on so that I’d be surprised when Seasons 4 and 5 are rent-able, but broke down and read a diary here on BooTrib that let me in on a major event a few weeks ago. Oh well. I just read that the fourth season will be out on DVD Tuesday. This season, I believe is the fifth. And, as Susan says, the last. I highly recommend that you check it out! Rent the first episode — it’s a strong one.
Brenda, you’re deeper and more sensitive than the average bear, so I think you’d very much appreciate the many levels of what goes on in this series …
Yes, many levels — mostly revolving around family dynamics, sex, drugs, and death. Sex, love, and art in L.A. Living in the closet and coming out. Gay partners and child raising. Losing a parent/friend/child. Why do people get married? Why do they take other lovers? Why break up or stay together? What do they get out of crummy jobs? What are dreams?
Disfunctional? My daughter and I were talking about this last night — if the Fisher family is disfunctional then so is most of America because these people seem well within the bounds of normal to me, in their reactions to life and death around them. They muddle and try, they do really stupid things sometimes.
One thing they do a lot is have affairs. Another is to say Fuck. We had a Fuckometer going for a while; we’d count how many times a variation of the word was used in one episode. Often 20 or 30 in an hour. I gave up trying to shelter my teenager- she loves the show and she knows all the words and her parents are divorced and had at least one extramarital affair.
Thanks for the interview links, Susan!
I’m very sad it’s ending. Last year, I didn’t feel that way so much … but this season has been especially good, complex, moving.
I hope HBO will do another family-type angst-filled series. Deadwood is marvelous. I hope the Rome series is good. But it’s a real treat to have a modern-day everyday-life series that speaks to us in so many ways.
It’s hard to say goodbye even to fictional people! I’m glad I still have 2 seasons to watch but even so I’m sad too. I’ve never seen Deadwood. Around my house we miss Joan of Arcadia, another family series.