If Six Feet Under were still going on today, I would be writing about it on this blog like a maniac. As far as scripted shows go (that is, shows that I enjoy because they're actually good), I'd probably go so far as to say it is my favorite of all time.



The mother, the sister, the younger brother, his boyfriend, the older brother, his girlfriend, the mortician, the stepdad.

Now, before I go into all the ways this show was amazing, including the writing (which was brilliant) and the acting (which was excellent), I really think I should express the reason why I kept tuning in. More than anything, this show was just engrossing. For every wacky left turn that it took, every time a character made a bad decision (which was pretty much the only kind of decision they made), I was always left wanting more. You want to see how these people were going to mess up their lives, even though you were constantly rooting for them to get it together.

For those of you who don't know the premise, here it is in a nutshell. The Fisher and Sons funeral home was operated by the late Nathaniel Fisher, Sr. until a mack truck ended his life in the series' pilot. The action of SFU centers around the remaining four members of the Fisher family and their lovers, friends and miscellaneous cohorts. They are:

*Ruth Fisher - the family matriarch, played by the unbe-fucking-lievable Frances Conroy. After the death of her husband, she's constantly trying to make up for a lifetime spent making potato salad and raising the kids. I really admire Conroy's performance the most. Ruth is snippy and tightly wound, but given to flights of girlishness and adventure. Conroy just balances it all really well.

*Nate Fisher, Jr. - the eldest son, played by Peter Krause. An aging hippie, Nate lives in the shadow of his namesake and is pulled, kicking and screaming, back into the family business. While the show is basically an ensemble drama, if there had to be a protagonist it'd be Nate. He's immature and feels too much, but is a big enough softie that he's willing to move back to LA for his family.

*David Fisher - the middle child, played by the amazing Michael C. Hall. David is the poster child for repression. Just as tightly wound as his mother (more?), David begins the series in the closet (dating "big black sexy cop" Keith) and psychotically devoted to the family business. David's character arc is one of the most topsy-turvy, taking a jaw-dropping turn in the fourth season as he undergoes a traumatic experience.

*Claire Fisher - the doe-eyed little sister starts out as an angst-ridden teenager and spirals into a freewheeling artist. All of the Fishers are pretty self-obsessed, but Claire takes it to a whole new level. Still, she's also the most honest one in the whole family, even when she's being a brat.

There's a huge cast of supporting characters including Rico, the Fisher's diminutive mortician, and Brenda, Nate's on-again/off-again beau. They're all rich and well-played, entering and exiting storylines naturally over the course of the series.

So, why do I love this show?

Rather than describe the acting and the writing, I'll just list my top 5 favorite things.

1. The supporting cast: Made of unknowns (including pre-The Office Jenna Fischer as a dental hygienist and Rainn Wilson! as Ruth's weird-ass love interest) and famous people (Catherine O'Hara, Kathy Bates), the show's rich supporting cast appear and reappear, providing abundant foils for the Fishers to react on.

2. The Corpse of the Week: I love a good gimmick. And SFU had a reliable, consistently tittilating (yes, tittilating) gimmick in its opening scenes. Every week, the opening scene would depict the death of the Fisher sons' newest client. These scenes would vary widely from gruesome (a man drives over his own head with his SUV; a woman is decapitated by a cherry picker while standing through a limo's sunroof), to darkly hilarious (a woman runs into traffic after seeing helium-filled blow-up dolls float into the sky, thinking it's the rapture), to heartbreaking (a wounded Iraq veteran kills himself in the hospital with help from his sister; a gay man quietly dies of AIDS as he and a room of friends watch a movie at home).

3.The curveballs: If anyone hasn't seen this series and wants to start from scratch, I don't want to spoil it. However, it's safe to say that there are several moments throughout the series where something happens and nothing is ever the same.

4.The humor/atmosphere: The show met at a bizarre crossroads of the gothic/morose with the glitz of modern day Los Angeles. SFU was frequently hilarious, despite (because of?) all the heaviness that surrounded every scene.

5.The end: Again, it's killing me because I don't want to give anything away (even though everyone who will see it has already seen it, I'm guessing), but the final season and the series finale just floored me. A lot of people bitched that the last season wasn't up to snuff. They can all suck it. Anyone who went through 5 seasons with the effed-up Fishers and wasn't blown away by the finale just isn't human.



So, Netflix the DVDs already.