Family Affairs: Is Again Headed Six Feet Under?

By Matt Roush

Some shows can't catch a break. Others, meanwhile, seem to have all the luck.

Such is the case as two fascinating family sagas return with new episodes. On Mondays (10 pm/ET), ABC's severely underappreciated Once and Again emerges from a dismal Friday timeslot with a reduced episode order — often a warning sign of cancellation — after a hiatus was imposed just as the series hit a shatteringly emotional peak. On Sundays (9 pm/ET), HBO's overrated though undeniably original Six Feet Under launches a second season on a wave of adoring buzz, showered with awards and nominations.

Both feature superior acting ensembles who burrow with unusual depth into their characters' complicated inner lives. But the similarity ends there. To me, these series illustrate the wide gulf between the profoundly artful (Again) and the pretentiously arty (Six Feet).

The intimate Once and Again has rarely been more powerful than in its current story involving Karen (Susanna Thompson), the stubbornly soulful ex-wife of newly remarried Rick (Billy Campbell). Hit by a car while battling depression, she faces grueling rehabilitation and a cathartic reconciliation with her estranged family.

How unfortunate if the industry were to yet again overlook Thompson, who's giving a brilliantly nuanced performance as the broken but defiantly undefeated Karen. Her tragedy has galvanized and refocused the show, which surely deserves better than what the struggling ABC has been able to provide.

Maybe the series would get more attention if it indulged in the sort of willful quirkiness that makes Six Feet Under a trendy must-see.

With its talking corpses and fantasy sequences as counterpoint to the surreal tale of a fractured family living in a funeral home, Six Feet is ambitious and enjoyable but heavy-handed in its mix of domestic melodrama, satire and metaphysical head trips.

I'm especially fed up with ludicrous matriarch Ruth (Frances Conroy), whose adventures in self-actualization are tiresome and obvious.

Some may think it inspired when Nate (Peter Krause), obsessed with his mortality, dreams of an encounter between Life and Death as a Chinese checkers game followed by a sexual coupling.

But I can't help preferring the less precious company of Once and Again — although I fear we may need to enlist the services of Six Feet's Fisher & Sons to conduct a wake for the show this spring. __ www.tvguide.com (February 25, 2002)

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