Six Feet Under (2001)

Six feet under is the Grammy award winning series from Alan Ball, the director of Smash hit film American Beauty. The dark comedy drama follows the lives of the Fisher family who run a funeral home in Pasadema, LA.

Following the death of their father, the Fishers have to deal with the family business as well as adjusting to their new roles in life. Eldest son Nate was always terrified of the family's calling but when his father died on Christmas eve, he found strangely compelled to stay and join his younger brother David in running their funeral home.

David is tackeling the awkward issue of being secretly gay. He is a private person and feels perhaps his straight laced mother would not accept this fact about him and his family and work is his life so he feels he has everything to lose by coming out and only his own frustration by staying in.

Younger sister Claire is a bit of a misfit at school. Her strange upbringing has made her disillusioned and sceptical of life, leading to bad choices in friends and men.

Mother Ruth is a non-entity, she is so frightened of being rejected by the family she adores, she has withdrawn into herself so much they feel they don't know her. The family is shocked when she reveals she was cheating on her husband when he died and surprised when she enroles herself into self-help seminars.

Other characters include Brenda, Nates complicated girlfriend; Billy, Brenda's manic depressive brother; Frederico, the family restoration expert; and Keith, Davids on-off boyfriend and best friend.

Six feet under is laced with subtle humour and black jokes and is already a television classic. Full of Oscar and Grammy nominated and winning actors including Peter Krause, Racheal Griffiths (Oscar winner), Francis Conroy plus many more.