Ball Digs 'Under' Mordant Mortality
By JOSÉ A. MARTÍNEZ -- Multichannel News, 6/3/2001 8:00:00 PM
Benjamin Franklin once said, "In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes."
As it's unlikely that many people would choose to watch a series about tax collectors, Home Box Office is tackling the other option with Six Feet Under , a series focused on a Los Angeles-based family that runs a local mortuary. The premiere episode of this macabre series aired June 3, and if you're like me, you're hooked.
The "death-care industry" is not something that has been extensively quarried for dramatic series television. Obviously, it's really an uncomfortable subject — you know it's inevitable, but who wants to think about that ? Yet , in the words of one character, as baby boomers mature, "it's guaranteed to be a growth industry."
Writer Alan Ball has an affinity for dysfunctional families. He created the classic archetype in his Oscar-winning film, 1999's American Beauty. For HBO he does it again with the Fisher brood in his second attempt at series television — the first, Oh Grow Up, went down in flames on ABC a couple of years ago.
With Six Feet Under, he takes an intriguing look at death and the price of living with it, through the eyes of his latest familia.
Peter Krause, who is drawn to offbeat, smartly written television — as all those who lament the passing of the wickedly smart Sports Night know — stars as Nate Fisher, the wandering, prodigal son who comes home for the Christmas holidays. Unfortunately, his arrival comes just in time for the demise of family patriarch, Nathaniel, played by veteran actor Richard Jenkins (Me, Myself & Irene), who's killed when his brand new hearse is struck by a speeding bus.
The Fishers' tale could easily become cliched storytelling: there's the lonely wife, Ruth (Frances Conroy), who had an affair with her hairdresser; closet-homosexual and younger brother David (Michael C. Hall), who gave up his law school dreams to help run Fisher & Sons Funeral Home; and the angry, alienated, "crystal meth"-smoking baby sister Claire (Lauren Ambrose).
Fortunately, executive producer Ball uses these basic characterizations merely as a launching point for a much deeper and more interesting exploration of this morbidly motley crew.
However, the strength of this series is its unpredictability. Even though each episode begins with a death, it's just a plot device that introduces the show's guest cast. These featured players are integral to each episode's plot line, and their scenes explore who they are (or were) and tend to impart a life lesson or two for Nate and his family.
Six Feet Under airs Sundays at 10 on HBO.
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