Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season

Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season
DVD Collection-TV SIX

Six Feet Under is a show about saying goodbye. With rare exception, each episode begins with the death of a person whose body will pass through Fisher & Sons Funeral Home. The deaths range from devastatingly sad to darkly humorous and involve everything from interactions with machinery gone awry to visions of the Rapture. You see the Fisher family talk with the deceased person’s loved ones (or, in some cases, the person who is stuck tying up the loose ends for someone they only knew in passing…or for an ex-spouse). Sometimes, you even see the Fishers talk with the deceased themselves. Such interactions are similar to when Dexter Morgan interfaces with his dead father on Dexter. The words and actions of the deceased are dictated by whatever issue is currently vexing the living, making the visions less like hallucinations and more like projections.

Among those who are laid to rest by the Fisher family is patriarch Nathanial Fisher Sr. (Richard Jenkins, The Visitor), whose death kicks off the pilot episode when he is hit by a bus on Christmas Eve. He reappears throughout the series, interacting with wife Ruth (Frances Conroy, American Horror Story), adult sons Nate Jr. (Peter Krause, Parenthood) and David (Michael C. Hall, Dexter) and teenage daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose, Can't Hardly Wait) in some of the show’s most poignant moments.

Part of what makes Six Feet Under so memorable is the complexity of its characters. You see each of the Fishers and their acquaintances in their best and worst moments. As a result, you’ll love and loathe each in turn. For better or for worse, you’ll also wonder about the interior lives of everyone you know or meet in real life.

When creator Alan Ball (American Beauty, True Blood) announced in 2005 that the show’s fifth season would be its last, I remember thinking, “surely this is a mistake.” There were still so many stories that could have been told and so many aspects of each character that could be explored. However, as anyone who has watched the show’s powerhouse finale knows, it wasn’t an error but rather the decision of someone who knew how to say goodbye with grace.