Six Feet Under

...intriguing mix the information that Six Feet Under is created, and sometime directed, by the writer behind American Beauty, Alan Ball, and I’m almost thrown into an unbridled orgasmic frenzy at the thought of how good this series could be. “When is this magnificent new series on?”, I pondered, with diary in hand ready to cancel my busy schedule of lounging in order to sit immersed in this new black comedy/dark, brooding drama/whatever you want it ...
...IS SIX FEET UNDER???

Well, it’s the latest American export, following hot in the tracks of huge critical and commercial successes The West Wing, 24, Sex and the City and The Soprano’s. Six Feet Under, as you may have inferred from the title, is based around death, the story of a hugely dysfunctional family brought crashing down to earth with the untimely death of beloved father and husband, Nathaniel Fisher. He also happens to be the ... more

My ears first pronged in anticipation, much like a rabbit caught in headlights, when I first read about this exciting new series in my Television Bible, Heat magazine. “From the makers of Sex and the City and The Soprano’s” it confidently exclaimed, knowing full well that those eleven little words would render several thousand (nay, million!) of the population into a nervous quiver at the very thought. Well, not quite, but when a new show is introduced amongst such illustrious company, this supposedly flailing era of American television doesn’t seem anywhere near as disastrous. HBO, the American Cable channel which has produced the aforementioned series, and this new one, seem to possess the proverbial Midas touch at the moment, single-handedly revitalising American drama with a new depth of imagination and magnificence.

Sex and the City called out to all superficial young women (not to mention the ENTIRE gay population) and explored new bounds of sexual liberation (and deviance!), while the dark but unnervingly witty Soprano’s took the genius of Mafia depiction from the silver screen to its smaller, lounge-based counterpart. Add to this intriguing mix the information that Six Feet Under is created, and sometime directed, by the writer behind American Beauty, Alan Ball, and I’m almost thrown into an unbridled orgasmic frenzy at the thought of how good this series could be. “When is this magnificent new series on?”, I pondered, with diary in hand ready to cancel my busy schedule of lounging in order to sit immersed in this new black comedy/dark, brooding drama/whatever you want it to be.

WHAT THE HELL IS SIX FEET UNDER???

Well, it’s the latest American export, following hot in the tracks of huge critical and commercial successes The West Wing, 24, Sex and the City and The Soprano’s. Six Feet Under, as you may have inferred from the title, is based around death, the story of a hugely dysfunctional family brought crashing down to earth with the untimely death of beloved father and husband, Nathaniel Fisher. He also happens to be the proprietor of the family’s independent Funeral Home, a strangely antiquated (in the American sense, which means it looks like it was built in the 1950s!), almost eerie building around which the entire series falls. A strange concept for a black comedy, you may think, but simultaneously a fantastically observed one. And while we’re on the subject of black comedy, we’re talking about 5 miles below the Pacific Ocean type black here; where the humour is descended from the everyday idiosyncrasies (and extremities) of its characters and the wonderful dream and fantasy sequences which make this show so refreshingly unique. I remember how the first episode drew me in with its hilariously observed pastiches of 1950’s advertising, using products likely to be found in a funeral home as its subjects. The one about “face putty” used to re-configure dismembered features was particularly amusing, in a “it’s funny but I shouldn’t be laughing” kind of way.

While the storylines are fantastically crafted and brilliantly executed, it is the strength of the ensemble cast that makes Six Feet Under rival the big-boys of US Drama, and in my view surpass them with ease. I’ll take you now over a run-through of the major characters.

NATHANIEL FISHER (Richard Jenkins)

Owner of the business who is fatally injured by an oncoming bus while, ironically, driving a dead body back to the Funeral Home. While he only features as a human being in episode one, his spirit periodically pops up now and then in various dream sequences, usually with his wayward son Nate, with whom many a philosophical conversation about the whys and wherefores of their existences is mulled over. As the series is transpiring, we learn that Nathaniel wasn’t as devoted a father as we would once believe; he had a penchant for pot-smoking and prostitute-hiring, and using “alternative” methods of payment for his funeral services!

RUTH FISHER (Frances Conroy)

A demure and typically oppressed American mother on many levels, shattered by the news of her husband’s death, but who we soon learn was having an affair with a hairdresser for eighteen months before his passing! Ruth constantly struggles with her role as mother to rebellious teen Claire Fisher and (my favourite term…) “loveable rogue” Nate Fisher as they look to spread their wings from the restrictive family nest, creating a wonderful conflict between old and new, and summing up the situation for so many families these days.

NATE FISHER (Peter Krause)

The aforementioned “loveable rogue”, who had the foresight to forgo the family business in favour of an independent life in Seattle. He is brought crashing back into family proceedings after his father dies, with an ambivalence to the whole shebang resented by his anally retentive, meticulously organised brother. Meets the enigmatic Brenda in episode one and embarks on a bittersweet relationship with what is in my eyes the most intriguing character of the show.

DAVID FISHER (Michael C. Hall)

The person who, on the surface, seems the most predictable, the most work-orientated and ultimately the most boring. How wrong can we be! He harbours his secret homosexuality from his entire family, and is involved in a topsy-turvy relationship with a black LAPD policeman. Some of his best scenes, however, are with the corpses he treats every day. You see, each week we witness a different death at the start of the show, with all the personal storylines revolving around the particular funeral in question. In this series, of course, nothing is uniform, and so the demises range from a gangland style shooting, to a porn star being electrocuted in the bath! In each episode, David seeks spiritual advice from his corpses, who spring to life in his psyche and act like his proverbial Id and Superego, solving his pressing lifestyle dilemmas. Priceless!

CLAIRE FISHER (Lauren Ambrose)

Your typical American seventeen year old, coming to terms with her adolescence while tackling the loss of her father. She is a wayward, rebellious kind of girl, and becomes involved in drugs, before producing the scene of the series when she places a severed foot in her ex-boyfriend’s locker after hearing that he spilled the beans on her penchant for toe sucking. While the character plays a more supporting role, her witty one-liners and naivety to adulthood make her extremely interesting to watch.

BRENDA CHENOWITH (Rachel Griffiths)

Easily the best character in the show, Brenda is a complex being, and comes from a family of psychiatrists who recorded her every move as a child, and produced an internationally renowned book on her strange childhood behaviours. Brenda has retained an air of mystery throughout the series, and has a knack at pulling out the wittiest one-liners. A good example would be:

Nate: Hey, thanks for buying me breakfast
Brenda: Thank YOU for finding my G Spot this morning!

Rachel Griffiths is excellent as Brenda, and before I realised she played Muriel’s best friend in “Muriel’s Wedding”, had no idea she was Australian, so convincing is her American accent. Thoroughly deserves her Emmy nomination this year for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

For fear of becoming exhaustive, I’ll call the character analysis to a close right here, and mention only in passing that the supporting cast are equally impressive as the main characters, with Mathew St. Patrick playing the troubled Keith, David’s secret boyfriend, with tremendous aplomb. However, the funniest of them all is David’s biggest fan, a quirky, intensely squeakily voiced divorcee totally intent on flirting with him at every opportunity, to his horror of course. If you’ve seen the seemingly constant advertisements for this show, you’ll be familiar with this woman, as she rabbits incessantly to David before he rebukes her with a stern “Who are you?!”.

If I haven’t convinced you of the overall quality of this show, right across the board, then its recent 23 Emmy nominations will serve as perfect testament to how good Six Feet Under really is. From the eerie plinky plonky theme music, to the acting, writing and directing pedigree, this is as sexy as Sex and the City (but nowhere near as kitsch) and as darkly comic as The Soprano’s, only better.

* The first series of Six Feet Under is currently showing on Channel 4 on Mondays at 11.05 pm. If that’s too late for you, and you have access to Channel 4’s entertainment channel E4, then it is repeated on Wednesdays at 9pm.*

*For more information, visit the website at www.hbo.com/sixfeetunder *

Thanks for reading folks :)
 

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