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Six Feet Under – the superb TV series – came to a definitive end on 2005–08–21, nearly one year ago. That was for HBO subscribers…

The same fifth (and final) season arrived to the Portuguese public television, during 2006, but – very unfortunately –, ALL episodes were deformed, victims of a terrible Pan-and-Scan treatment. There were plenty of scenes as destroyed as, for example, (1) having two people talking, but fitting only one in the screen; and (2) having the actors faces filling the TV so much, that a casual viewer would think to be watching a Discovery Channel’s documentary on mouths and eyes.

What exactly is the purpose of buying (with public money) a superb tv series, and then compromise it, by cutting every frame’s area? That is a question anyone can ask RTP – but odds are there will be no reply.

Because of this, I decided to buy the fifth season, on DVD, via amazon.co.uk.
I am glad I did it. Each episode on DVD totally surpasses the TV experience, thanks to much better audio and video, not only in technical terms, but also – as mentioned – regarding respect to the original content.

It all ends on Season 5, episode 12, titled “Everyone’s Waiting”.

This 72 minutes episode is one of the most intense Cinema/TV experiences, ever. And I mean it. I really, really mean it. Basically, “Everyone’s Waiting” for his/her death, and everyone will die.

The final minutes of episode 12, show the viewer the death of all the relevant characters, from Ruth Fisher to Federico Diaz… It is painful, because those are/were such solid characters that, to the regular viewer, it was very much like being watching the death of someone close.

Six Feet Under is/was a landmark on TV series. Its quality is stellar, by all criteria.

The closing episode made me feel emotions like nothing else, on TV, ever did.

My rating: 10/10

List of all characters.

Buy, via Amazon.com:
Six Feet Under - The Complete Series (Seasons 1-5)
Six Feet Under - The Complete First Season
Six Feet Under - The Complete Second Season
Six Feet Under - The Complete Third Season
Six Feet Under - The Complete Fourth Season
Six Feet Under - The Complete Fifth Season

Buy, via Amazon.co.uk:
Six Feet Under 1-5 : The Complete DVD Collector’s Edition
Six Feet Under: The Complete First Series
Six Feet Under: Complete Series 2
Six Feet Under: Complete Series 3
Six Feet Under - The Complete Fourth Season
Six Feet Under - The Complete Fifth Season

David’s adopted children will continue the family business.

Brenda will meet a new companion, to help her raise Maya (left) and her premature born child (right).

 

Rico and Vanessa seem to be living in happiness.

Ruth and George are another couple that will endure until the end.

David and Keith get married.

Everyone is at D+K wedding party. Claire takes the pictures.

Ruth is about to die. Claire, David and George are with her.

Nathaniel Fisher, the first one to die on the series, watches his wife departure.

Ruth dies.

George cries on Ruth’s death.

Ruth…

Keith runs his own security firm, but he gets killed on a robbery.

Keith is gone.

Keith…

Claire gets married. The 2nd generation is there. David is on the middle of his adopted children and their companions.

Ted and Claire.

During a family party, David will die, after having a vision of Keith.

David having a vision of Keith - his last vision.

Keith appears to David - very emotive moment.

David…

Rico dies, with what appears Vanessa by his side, on a cruise. His death remembers Nate’s.

Rico…

Billy Chenowith will assist his sister’s death.

Brenda dies.

Brenda…

Claire on her dying bed… The viewer can’t recognise the nurse - that is because she dies very old and alone.

Claire is about to die, remembering all her photos.

Claire…

Claire, the young Claire, closes the TV Series.

The final scene. (Young) Claire’s Toyota Prius fades…

I watched it on 2006–04–27, Thursday night.

http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/episode/season6/episode72.shtml

My rating: 7/10

After the previous terrible “gay episode” (“Live free or die”), The Sopranos is back to the regular quality.

In this episode, Arthur Bucco stars, with business problems at his Vesuvio restaurant: as if it wasn’t enough to be down 40% on served meals, his Albanian employee is helping to steal some customers’ American Express credit cards numbers.

Ben Kingsley appears as himself, pursuited by Little Carmine and Chris, who would like to sign him for their movie There are some comedy moments on the related scenes .

Buy “The Sopranos”:

(for Europe) amazon.co.uk: season 1 ; season 2 ; season 3 ; season 4 ; season 5

(for the Americas) amazon.com: season 1 ; season 2 ; season 3 ; season 4 ; season 5

Above, the bunch, at Artie’s (image from HBO’s official website).

Above, Little Carmine and Chris (image from HBO’s official website).

This weekend, HBO is broadcasting “The Sopranos”, sixth season, episode #2.

Tony Soprano spends half of the episode on a coma, and the other half, being Kevin Finnerty, a solar heating systems salesman, after an accidental briefcase switch, during a conference.

“Join the club” is a detoxicating 50 minutes session, that shows how versatile and professional everyone on this series is. Gandolfini dresses the skin of a regular salesman; Edie Falco wears no makeup; Anthony Junior – Robert Iler with a long hair – quits school; and the production team delivers a solid Kevin @ conference environment, literally out of nothing.

This episode is directed by David Nutter, yet another TV specialist.

While the new season 6 doesn’t arrive on DVD, you can buy the prior complete seasons:

(for Europe) amazon.co.uk: season 1 ; season 2 ; season 3 ; season 4 ; season 5

(for the Americas) amazon.com: season 1 ; season 2 ; season 3 ; season 4 ; season 5

Carmela + AJ (image from HBO’s official website)

Carmela + Chris (image from HBO’s official website)

The superb TV series “The Sopranos” is back, for its sixth and final season. There will be no season #7, so these new episodes are intrinsically dramatic.

As the series’ followers remember, season #5 ended with Johnny Sack going to jail and Tony Soprano running for the (snowy) hills, only to find out that he had been lucky enough NOT to be indicted.

One year later, Tony is higher than ever on the income pyramid. In this episode, he buys Carmela a Porsche Cayeene, he is fatter, and his voice is clearly more nasal, as if he is having trouble breathing.

Throughout “members only”, the viewer is pushed to think that Tony should eat less, spend less, and take care of his heavy weight. Because of plot leaks, I was expecting T to suffer a heart attack, be his problems will come from an entirely unsuspected source, other than eating or spending…

Your attention for the Eugene Pontecorvo character.

This episode was directed by Timothy Van Patten, a very experienced TV director.

While the new season 6 doesn’t arrive on DVD, you can buy the prior complete seasons:

(for Europe) amazon.co.uk: season 1 ; season 2 ; season 3 ; season 4 ; season 5

(for the Americas) amazon.com: season 1 ; season 2 ; season 3 ; season 4 ; season 5

Johnny Sack is in jail – Phil is running Sack’s business. (image from HBO’s official website)

Carmela, on the right, seems more materialistic. Archie is going back to his wife. (image from HBO’s official website)

Portugal’s public television channel 2: is (re)broadcasting The Sopranos, season 5.

Last night’s (2006–02–09) episode, “irregular arround the margins”, is one of the finest: mirroring the previous episode, the focus is on family tension. This time, the problem is not the “children” (A.J. and Meadow), but the “adults”: Tony nearly does “symbolic incest” with Adriana, and that sparks such a strong reaction from Christopher that, at a point, the viewer believes that his character will be… terminated…

But I am not trying to review this episode. This is more for me to take note of interesting american english expressions. Being portuguese, english is far from being my first language, so I try to learn it, in many ways, including writing for this website and watching programmes with no subtitles, whenever possible.

Last night I was amused with the following expressions, here roughly translated to portuguese:

“I swove” [in the context of driving a car] – “eu guinei”