Against my better judgment, I queued up the final season of Six Feet Under in Netflix. The Wife and I were faithful viewers through four seasons, missing the final one only because we were unwilling to keep shelling out $20 a month while waiting two years for the next installments of The Sopranos and The Wire.
I liked SFU at first, but the enjoyable black comedy of its early episodes quickly gave way to the angst-ridden laughless middle seasons. By the end of Season 4, I'd had enough, and I documented as much here at the time.
Enough alleged friends of ours sang the praises of the final season to make us give it another shot. And for a while (we've watched three discs out of five) it looked like they might be right. David and Keith's attempts at raising kids has been pretty amusing, as has Billy's descent into madness (but maybe that's just me). Plus, the elder Fisher makes an appearance (in one episode), which conveniently took place just after I'd subjected The Wife to a five minute diatribe about his absence.
And then there was tonight's episode, "The Rainbow of Her Reasons." Honestly, I don't know whether to blame creator Alan Ball or writer Jill Soloway...whatever. All I know is that the depiction of Claire's entry into the working world is one of the reasons people in that wide swath of America people on the coasts so amusingly refer to as "flyover country" hate Hollywood's guts. Certainly, some blue collar professions (roughnecks and firefighters chiefly) garner a modicum of respect (or not, depending on your view of Armageddon), but it never fails to amuse me how writers with no knowledge of an office environment view cubicle jockeys. Judging from what I saw tonight, they see them chiefly as sub-literate chuckleheads with no purpose in life save getting drunk and/or laid at every opportunity and quoting Mike Myers movies.
If the chance arises, however remote, that I rub elbows one day with these so-called gliterati, I hope I'm tranquilized enough by free libations to avoid urinating on everyone present. And I hope Mr. Ball and company realize the success of their show didn't rely solely on failed art school students and self-loathing gays. Plenty of 8-to-5ers watch quality programming, and few - if any - talk like Austin Powers.
Have you gotten to the "Ecotones" episode yet?
I'm sure you know what happens.
I am a cubicle jockey. Um... we are,, for the most part, sub-literate chuckleheads.
Or maybe that's just me.