9 Best TV Shows Similar to Six Feet Under
Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
So it’s fairly obvious that the first two seasons of The Bear had a whole birth/death thing going on. The show opens in the aftermath of the shocking and abrupt suicide of Mikey Berzotto (John Bernthal), and the first season charts the slow, inevitable death of his restaurant, The Beef, under the stewardship of his little brother Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and best friend Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). The second follows the birth of The Bear, the new restaurant that rises from the ashes of The Beef, as well as the blossoming of many of its employees from a sloppy blue-collar crew to a careful, refined, highly efficient team. And Carmy flirted with birthing a life outside the kitchen through his relationship with old-flame-from-back-in-the-day Claire (Molly Gordon). But while the first season ended in pretty unambiguous triumph when Carmy, Richie, and the rest of the Beef staff were suddenly flush with cash and a plan for the future, season two ends on a significantly darker note. The Bear manages to open its doors on time and have a successful opening night, but Carmy’s relationships with Richie and Claire are in tatters—casualties of Carmy’s rage and anxiety. There was a kind of dry run for the catastrophe that closed the end of season two near the end of the first. Carmy loses his shit, breaks a bunch of stuff, yells, and alienates pretty much everyone. But the final episode brought them all back together, stronger than ever. Carmy is what George Costanza would describe as a “delicate genius,” ferociously gifted but intense and unpredictable. To work with him is to warm yourself by the raging fire of his mind while trying to avoid getting burned by the constant sparks and flares that burst from it. “THE BEAR” — “Tomorrow” — Season 3, Episode 1 (Airs Thursday, June 27th) — Pictured: Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto. CR: FX. The show did an elegant job pacing Carmy’s assholeishness with revelations about his past home and professional life. He grew up in a single-parent home with an alcoholic, mentally unwell mother, prone to fits of rage and depression. He worked under a monstrously critical chef while he was coming up, who criticized and undermined everything he did. These revelations are for the audience, not necessarily the other characters in the show. So when Carmy melts down in a fit of panic and self-loathing on opening night, we know it’s informed by his hyper-tense childhood and abusive mentor. But the people who work under him don’t. Some know parts, but no one knows everything. And it’s harder for them to understand.Now we come to season three, and the completely reasonable expectation is that it will open much like season one closed. Having learned a valuable lesson, Carmy will gather the crew back together, apologize, and things will return to normal in the kitchen. Oh, it might take a little longer for some of them to come around than others, but everything will work itself out. Except it doesn’t. Because while the first two seasons were concerned with birth and death, the third is a lot more about life. And the thing about life is that it’s its own thing, separate from birth and death. They’re related, obviously, but life is also a distinct thing in ways that birth and death are not. Continue Reading →
Sunny
About fifteen years ago, an era of “complicated” protagonists ruled the television landscape. These anti-heroes—Walter White, Don Draper—were the sort of people one wouldn’t associate in their day-to-day life. Safely sealed in a flat screen, though, and viewers couldn’t get enough of them. It was a glorious time to be unlikable on TV. Still, as Erik Kain pointed out, it was an honor almost entirely reserved for men. Sunny is a late-arriving corrective, centering a fully complex and often unlikable Rashida Jones. As Suzi, Jones ditches nearly everything that makes her an on-screen appealing presence in the likes of The Office and Parks and Recreation. She also flattens the traits that make her stand out as a character worthy of empathy in projects like Silo and On the Rocks. In place of those, she offers a dead-eyed stare that only sparks to life when castigating her mother-in-law Noriko (Judy Ongg), random bureaucrats, and, of course, the titular android Sunny (voiced by Joanna Sotomura). Rashida Jones does not, and this can't be stressed enough, have time for this nonsense. (AppleTV+) It isn’t like she doesn’t have cause for anger and the thousand-mile gaze. As the opening minutes reveal, Suzi has justy lost her husband Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and son in a plane crash. However, as the series unfolds, it becomes clear Suzi can’t blame her unpleasantness entirely on grief. As revealed in flashbacks, she’s been hard-drinking and foul-mouthed for some time. Additionally, although partially owed to her dyslexia, she wields her failure to learn nearly any Japanese like a cudgel. It is yet another tool for holding the world at bay. That world includes, often, her spouse. Of course, his own drinking and pile of secrets hardly made him an ideal partner either. Continue Reading →
Fallout
Few titles in the world of video game RPGs are as stylistically significant and cherished by fans as Interplay Entertainment’s Fallout. First published in 1997, the post-apocalyptic RPG has spawned countless sequels (including the acclaimed Fallout: New Vegas) and garnered millions of devoted fans through meticulous worldbuilding and its (now signature) atomic age-inspired retrofuturist aesthetic. Thanks to shows like The Last of Us proving naysayers wrong and paving the way for high-budget, critically acclaimed video game adaptations, Prime Video has joined forces with Bethesda to bring the Fallout franchise to the small screen with an eight-episode series of the same name. Bolstered by source material with a baked-in sense of aesthetics and a pair of winning leads in Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins, Fallout is a clever, twisted apocalyptic odyssey that soars as both a video game adaptation and a standalone series. Starring Purnell, Goggins, and Aaron Clifton Moten, Fallout follows Lucy (Purnell), an idealistic, sheltered “Vault Dweller” who has spent her entire life in an idyllic vault built to keep wealthy Americans happy and healthy in the event of nuclear devastation. When surface raiders disrupt her vault’s peaceful existence and kidnap her father, Lucy is forced to leave the safety of Vault 33, encountering all manner of unlikely enemies and allies along the way. Continue Reading →
Sugar
Some shows are difficult to write about because they don’t excite one’s passions. They’re not terrible or great, so they offer little to dig into. Sugar is not that sort of show. Instead, its difficulty stems from a plot development that seems too large to go unremarked upon. And yet, it would be unfair to those who haven’t yet watched the show to spoil it. With all that in mind, I will delicately attempt to navigate a third path. This development is significant. It changes much of what you know about several of the characters. And yet, it largely doesn’t impact the show. I don’t mean it is a waste of time, only that the show’s positives and negatives remain largely unaffected by this development. Take it out, and the story’s heart will remain essentially the same. It’s the rare significant plot point that changes so much without fundamentally altering the series. So, while it would be interesting to write about and explore it, this review is still broadly comprehensive without touching it. Amy Ryan bellies up to the bar and reminds us all she's excellent in noir stories. (AppleTV+) John Sugar (Colin Farrell) is a private investigator specializing in finding missing people. Draped in bespoke suits, he insists he hates hurting people but does so with fluidity and ease. After completing a case in Japan, a message from legendary film producer Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell) draws him back to LA. Jonathan’s granddaughter Olivia (Sydney Chandler) is missing. Despite a history of substance abuse and frequent absences—as well as the lack of concern from her father Bernie (Dennis Boutsikaris), a producer of…less quality movies—Jonathan is convinced this time is different. A film obsessive, Sugar can’t resist taking the meeting despite reassuring his handler Ruby (Kirby) that he’d rest and recuperate. When Olivia reminds the PI of his missing sister, he must take the case, promise or not. Continue Reading →
Sex Education
There’s a moment in Sex Education Season 4’s first episode where a dark thought crosses one mind. “Wait…was this always JUST a sitcom?” Continue Reading →
Class of '09
Welcome to the future. America is “the safest country on Earth,” as FBI Agent Tayo Michaels (Brian Tyree Henry) assures us. And it is all thanks to a program that is one part Minority Report, one part that computer Lucius Fox gets all bent out of shape about in The Dark Knight. It started as a sort of interrogation tool, but it has blossomed into a prediction machine that lets the FBI anticipate criminal activities. Comic book fans, think Force Works. Law enforcement has gotten “proactive.” Continue Reading →
Unstable
Unstable appears to be a deeply personal show for lead actor and co-creator Rob Lowe. After all, it revolves around a father/son duo played by Lowe and his real-life son, John Owen Lowe. Rob Lowe’s headlined worse stuff than this, for sure. Nonetheless, you’d think a series that seems rooted in something this personal would be more engaging to watch. At least, it might take some bold swings. Tragically, Unstable is a mostly just average comedy that leaves little in the way of an impression for good or ill. Continue Reading →
Monarch
Whether it’s the cutthroat business world of Succession to the fantasy universe of House of the Dragon, television audiences are here to see the chaos and drama of families living and working with each other. Looking to add to the mix is Fox’s newest drama Monarch, from writer Melissa Hilfers. Continue Reading →
American Gigolo
Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo is a 1980 neo-noir starring Richard Gere as a male escort caught up in a murder investigation. The film gave the world Gere as a leading man and the iconic Blondie song “Call Me.” In Showtime’s eight-episode reimagining, Jon Bernthal takes on the role of Julian Kaye (AKA John Henderson), the titular American Gigolo. He's living the high-paced high-society dream until the murder of one of his clients leads to his wrongful incarceration. Continue Reading →