Six Feet Under (Season 1) - Series Rating - A
By Kage Alan

Brothers Nate and David Fisher grew up living in a funeral home. Their father, Nathaniel, is the funeral director and it’s a family owned business, so it was going to be left up to Nate to take over one day. Well, that didn’t quite happen. Nate took off, left everything up to David and never got to know their younger sister, Claire. As for their mother, Ruth, she’s in a world of her own.

Each show begins with a death and the pilot episode begins with the most devastating of all for the Fisher family; Nathaniel’s. As the family comes together for Christmas, they are forced to band together, come to an uneasy alliance and understanding that they need each other and start to move on. The rest of the episodes deal with how they interact within the family unit and struggle in their own daily lives. Nate starts dating my favorite character in the series, child genius Brenda, David starts to come to terms with his being gay and having a partner, Keith, Ruth learns how to show interest in other men, Claire needs to find some direction in life and accept they have a dysfunctional family and Federico, the gifted mortician dealing with his own insecurities and looking out for what’s best for his family. The whole family must also deal with a hostile takeover attempt by a larger funeral company.

“Six Feet Under” is an extremely dramatic show one moment and then a morbidly funny one the next. The writing is top notch, each character is fleshed out and is allowed to avoid a ton of television clichés, the actors are wonderful and there are elements of quirkiness and surprise at every turn. The first season has its hands full dealing with the two sons discovering Nathaniel’s life outside of the home, Brenda’s nutty brother, Billy, and a whole array of mourners ranging from casket jumpers to the victim of a gay hate crime, a young man who developed cancer after serving in Desert Storm and a man unable to live any longer once his wife has passed on. Much of it is extremely touching.