Six Feet Under

A great TV series. For the uninformed it's about the trials and tribulations of family who own a Los Angeles funeral home called Fisher & Sons. It's a mish mash of interesting people of varying types, sexuality, class, what have you. And each episode starts off with the death of someone who'll be featured in that episode.

Some quibbles though. The David and Keith raising a kid subplot I can do without. I don't like kids and this takes the series into a not so interesting direction. This is an adults show and the less kids, the better.

Claire, Brenda, and Ruth are some interesting characters. Brenda's sexual exploits are a trip. She pretty much engages in every twisted fantasy most would never have the nerve to do. But she's a pretty hot chick so getting what she wants sexually isn't a problem. I think I'm kinda sorta in love with Claire, I have a thing for redheads. I think the perfect mix would be Claire with Brenda's libido. Ruth has come a long way since the series started. She's really grown.

The late Nathaniel Sr. is seen in ghostly flashbacks throughout the series. His character is what I would classify as prototypical Cool Old Guy. It's hard to be a Cool Old Guy, but Nathaniel pulls it off in hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.

Nate is the center of the Six Feet Under universe. And a character I like a lot. Peter Krause got this gig working with series creator Alan Ball (or American Beauty fame) on the sitcom Cybill. I tried writing a spec script for Cybill (well two actually) and introduced myself to one of the on set writers while trying to get him interested in reading my script. It wasn't Alan Ball though, dangit. The writer I talked to was about as gay as they come, you could tell by the way he perked up while I talked to him. Well, the INSTANT I talked to him he was real friendly. Which is cool. Whatever floats your boat sexually, ya know? Not my thing, but to each their own, baby. Anyways, nothing ever came of the Cybill spec scripts and the show was soon cancelled.

Alan Ball is a real talent and he wisely used composer David Newman from American Beauty to do the Six Feet Under score. Newman doesn't do all the music on the show though. Newman's done some score work on some of my favorite films, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, hell, the list goes on.

Give the Fishers a little of your time. It'll be worth it. Not every episode is a gem, but I haven't seen a truly bad one yet. I don't have HBO so I'm just working my way through the entire second season on DVD at present. Ciao.