Family Plots

Reality tv that isn't anything real! You get to see this motley, family in the day to day business of a funeral home. From body pick-ups to cleaning the sanctuary, this show gives an insight into relationships, last days and personalities I find oddly fascinating and interesting. Not sure why they took this off the air!

Understandably, not everyone is going to want to watch a show about a real funeral home, but if you stick with it, a real family emerges - one with lots of quirks and challenges, to be sure - and it includes the staff who work at the family-owned business. There are some really touching moments, and they seem to be highly respectful of their clients and care about providing proper service. Of course there's plenty of infighting, stupid melodrama, sister jealousy, weird dad with cat scenes as well. Overall, though, it really did feel like a realistic portrayal of what does go on in a small mom-pop run funeral parlor.

Frankly, Family Plots isn't worth the electricity it takes to bring it to you on your TV set.

The show goes into the daily happenings in a family-owned mortuary, which initially sounds potentially interesting, but once you really delve into it, it's quite dull.

Though I'm not into reality shows, I understand that they can be interesting because the characters are given extra provocation and testing; for example, networks would take a bunch of urbanized Americans and put them in the middle of nowhere, and they'd have to adapt and compete to win. It's not my taste, but it has potential.

Family Plots is nothing like that. There is no provocation or anything really out of the normal. It's probably the closest to reality as reality shows get. This sounds like a virtue for a reality show to have, but if you think about it, it's silly. TV was invented to entertain and, at times, to teach; reality shows, particularly of this type, are as exciting as a walk around the block. You can get the same stimulation from your every day life.

This show just plain unenlightening. Regular life is more exciting.

Out of ten stars, this show deserves zero. At least cheesy, vulgar comedies can get up to two stars. But if, really, there is no plot, the show shouldn't get any stars. Instead of a thumb up or thumb down, maybe a thumb in my mouth, because when I was a baby, I sucked on my thumb when I slept.

This show is almost as dull as watching a security camera's monitor.

Network: A&E; Genre: Reality, Comedy, Documentary; Content Rating: TV-14 (for language and mature subject matter); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Season Reviewed: Series

A&E completely befuddles me. Not since AMC started showing "Frogs!" has a cable network with a supposedly classy reputation disappointed me so. While you might think that a channel standing for Arts and Entertainment would be above the reality show craze, A&E has jumped right on the bandwagon with as much zeal as any network. "Family Plots" is part "The Osbournes", part "Six Feet Under", a macabre documentary comedy in which cameras follow the staff of a family-owned California funeral home.

If "Plots" isn't quite the mess that soul-sucking enterprises "Airline" and "Growing Up Gotti" are, that is only because the "cast of characters" is slightly more appealing. But that's like asking if you want to be eaten alive by fire ants or just regular ants. Chuck is the most interesting of the bunch, if only because he is the quintessential impossible father who stomps around like a child, screaming at everyone, pathetically trying in vain to maintain a position of authority over his adult children. Shonna (embalmer) steals the show as the informal had-it-up-to-here mediator between the feuding factions and one of the daughters, Melissa, used to go out with the funeral home manager, Rick, and continues to pay for it. Each episode consists of every member of the family and staff surrogate family fighting, screaming, slamming doors, nit-picking and forming alliances amongst themselves based on who they think screwed up the biggest "this time". The family does seem like the most ready-for-sitcom treatment since Ozzy and the clan. Nonetheless, it is starkly real and, for those like myself with a conversational "Curb Your Enthusiasm" sense of humor, a couple of Chuck's arguments ultimately dissolve into an absurdity that is very funny.

I'm going to sound like a fuddy-duddy here. It's not that I must need the characters to be likable. It's not that I need my shows to be positive or uplifting. Some of the best shows on TV – ever – have unlikable, even repulsive characters. But there has to be a direction to it, a logic behind it. "Plots" has no direction, goes nowhere, is literally about nothing. It does work in parts, but for the most part it is a deflated, depressing mess. It crosses the line where the conflict stops being dramatic and real and just becomes noise. All the shouting matches that go on between the Wissmillers just start to have a numbing effect on the viewer.

The show has a gritty greased-up look to it. When the family and staff aren't yelling at each other, they are out smoking, sulking around telling the cameramen their problem with someone or dispensing the typical cliché TV dialog about how "everybody needs someone" and "nobody wants to be alone". Many TV shows make an effort to spoon-feed us a message that loneliness is a fate worse than death – but "Family Plots" gets to take the metaphor to a whole new level. Conducting funerals is the least of what we see here. If you really want to see more about the inner workings of a funeral home, the process of selling to clients, embalming, restoration, presentation, why most funeral homes are family-owned and so on - stick with "Six Feet Under".

And oh yes, those are real clients and real dead bodies on the show. I know we are all supposed to champion authenticity wherever we can find it, but I wouldn't want to be the guy trying to get a grieving family to sign a release form to allow us to show their dead loved one's body on TV. Particularly, on a show put together using "Pop-up Video" cartoon bubbles for chapter breaks. There is a tacky, gawky, morbid quality to it all.

A fascination with death is all over TV, from the comical stylings of "Dead Like Me" to the existential pontifications of "Six Feet Under" to the almost pornographic languishing over open gashes and bodily fluids of "CSI". "Plots" adds little else we haven't seen. As for the family-drama element, there is little here you can't get from a long, awkward, door-slamming, weekend with the in-laws.

* * / 4

I have to admit that I find this program entertaining and down to earth. I enjoy watching cast and the story plot.

There is not enough mention on the television about the burial ritual. How we are honored and mourned when we leave this world, which we all will have to face. Therefore, the aspect I get is very refreshing and even a novelty. This might sound ghoulish but actually the way they show it is done very tastefully and not macabre.

I do not find this program boring at all. As a matter a fact, I wish it were an hour long instead of half an hour. The cast of characters are very real and I can sometimes relate with some of the family issues and the difficulties they face when it come down to the wire when meeting deadlines at the funeral home. I have plenty of deadlines to meet and it can get very crazy to say the least.

Two thumbs up. Thank you, A & E for your excellent programming!!