Six Feet Under (Season 1) - 6

I've never had really good cable, so if I want to watch good TV shows I have to rent the DVD's. This show premiered on HBO in 2001 and ran up until last year - ending at season 5. After watching the first season this weekend, I am intrigued and will probably continue with the rest of the series. This is a creation of Alan Ball, who wrote American Beauty. The show is about a family that runs a funeral home in LA. In the first episode the father dies, which leaves the mother, two sons, and a daughter. While there are comic moments the shows major theme is grief and death. Which also means that it is about joy and life. The depth of sorrow that the family has to deal with on a regular basis allows them to have good insight toward life and meaning. All the good things about this show reside in the themes and the acting that reveals them. Because it is on HBO, this also allows for more explicit dealing with issues like homosexuality and religion, this is done in a more intelligent way than most shows. The down-side is that because it is a show with episodes, some are weaker, and some of the minor plot lines are not as good as they could be (the daughter Claire for example). The depths of the psychological problems seems like pretty realistic to me, and are probably too much for most viewers. As TV show go, this one is pretty good.