Six Feet Under S1-5

Two brothers (played by Peter Krause from 911 and Michael C Hall from Dexter) take over their dad’s funeral home when he dies – struck by a truck while lighting his cigarette – and life is anything but ordinary in the halls of Fisher & Sons Funeral Home. And that smiling and laughing is what makes this dramedy so appealing.

The scripting is amazing – there are jokes in the most inopportune moments, yet they work perfectly. The disjointed family dynamic makes perfect sense as the newly reunited Fisher family try to make sense not only of their loss but also their immediate futures. And there’s also the whole element of the characters having meaningful (to them) conversations with the dead people they’re taking care of – because they can say what they want to the corpses without fear of being judged.

TV critic Simon Cocks sums up the show brilliantly: “It’s most successful as a family drama. Television is full of dysfunctional families but this understands and explores the Fishers and how they work as a unit and as individuals so convincingly that it is immediately fascinating.”