Six Feet Under - Third Season

This third year with the Fisher's is, if possible, even darker than the last half of the second season. Is there a falling off here, in terms of quality? Friends have suggested this to be the case, but while I don't think they've matched the tension created by the carefully constructed arc of the second season (which left us hanging in the dark, like one of those uncompleted off-ramps that used to be all around Seattle), I still think they're ahead of where they began with the first season. Looking forward to the fourth.