Six Feet Under (2001 – 2005)

Thirteen years ago tomorrow, I met my ex-wife for the first time, and it was on her recommendation that I started watching Six Feet Under. She was already a couple of seasons deep at that time, but it took me almost a full decade to get around to watching it… and I’m glad I did, because Six Feet Under is one of the best ongoing dramas produced this side of the Y2K bug.

A synopsis doesn’t really do Six Feet Under justice. It’s essentially an adult-themed drama about the lives of a family-run funeral parlour… with the dead bodies as background. Of course, death is not just literal here, but also used as a metaphorical device throughout the episodes. The series is not nearly as dark as you may think, given the grim subject matter, and it always maintains it’s very bleak sense of humour. The performances all round are great – especially Peter Krause and Michael C Hall – and the show is loaded with sex to counterbalance the death.

Six Feet Under can also lay claim to perhaps one of the greatest epilogues of any dramatic show of all time. Just watch it and try to tell me otherwise.