LIFE CAN BE HARD WHEN YOU'RE "SIX FEET UNDER"

Ok, it has been a while since I’ve shared my opinion on series as opposed to films. And, even though films are truly splendid things, nothing really beats a good series to take your brain out to of an evening. I have born this in mind and have decided to share one of my more recent discoveries, Six Feet Under. Now, you may point out that the series is, give or take, ten years old and many people have already discovered it. You may even ask yourselves how the heck I managed to miss it the first time round. Well, these things happen. Life happens. And I am pretty sure I am not the only one who loses track of all the series coming out these days. So much so, it can be a bit of a challenge to tell the good from the bad. So here is one, for those who want to get stuck in, that is definitely one of the best around. As the name itself implies, Six Feet Under is very much about death. And the life that inevitably surrounds death. The only thing is that in this particular case, it surrounds it from a little more closely than usual – our story is set in a Funeral Home. A funeral home that has been run by the same family for generations and who “live above the shop” as it were. Now, living almost if not completely in a funeral home is both depressing and has its own challenges but the whole family is thrown into utter disarray when Nathaniel Fisher, the father of the family and the person who runs the funeral home, dies unexpectedly in a traffic accident. Now, the family has to both get over their own grief and get the business of its knees. The business is on its knees mainly because of big cooperate competitors – as are a lot of small businesses today. But each and every family member has their own demons to fight alongside the big cooperation. All this, and the need to keep the business going means that every single family member pretty much has their hands very, very full. So, what can I say about Six Feet Under? Created by Allan Ball (the guy who created True Blood among other things) and starring Michael C. Hall (this is the guy who played Dexter. Before he played Dexter that is) the series already had a lot going for it, but supremely good quality writing has really made Six Feet Under something special. Of course, the film is depressing on certain levels. Death abounds, it is everywhere, as is a really dark brand of humour. The thing is, I love dark humour so I got into it straight away. The other wonderful thing about this series is that every single one of the characters is so real. Not only is the acting good (and it is amazing to be fair) but the storylines, their actual characters are very real. Flawed, yet basically good. No “baddies” and “goodies” here; the characters seem to incorporate flaws, fears and goofs we all have in real life but very rarely actually see on the big screen, much less something as mainstream as an HBO series. This, in turn, makes it so easy to sympathise with the characters that you will find yourself glued to the screen from beginning to end. And I don’t mean the episodes, I mean the seasons. Definitely give it a whirl. You’ll love it.