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:For the band, see Six Feet Under (band) Six Feet Under was a popular and critically acclaimed American television drama produced by HBO. It first aired on June 3, 2001 and concluded its fifth and final season on August 21, 2005. On October 2, 2006, Bravo began rerunning the series from its start, broadcasting two episodes back-to-back on Monday evenings starting at 9:00pm, repeating the pair on the same night starting at 11:30pm, and again at various times later in the week. There are conflicting reports on how the series was born. In one instance, creator Alan Ball says he conceived the premise to create the show after the deaths of his sister and father. However in this interview, *, he intimates HBO entertainment president, Carolyn Strauss proposed the idea to him. Plot overview The show, created by Alan Ball, stars Peter Krause as Nathaniel Samuel ("Nate") Fisher, Jr., the son of a funeral director who reluctantly becomes a partner in the family funeral business with his brother David, played by Michael C. Hall. The Fisher clan also includes mother Ruth (Frances Conroy) and sister Claire (Lauren Ambrose). Other regulars include mortician and family friend Federico Diaz (Freddy Rodriguez), Nate's longtime girlfriend and eventual wife Brenda Chenowith (Rachel Griffiths), and David's boyfriend and eventual husband Keith Charles (Mathew St. Patrick). The show revolves around the world of Fisher & Sons Funeral Home, a fictitious mortuary set in present day Los Angeles, California (2000–2005). On one level, the show is a conventional family drama, dealing with such issues as relationships, infidelity, and religion. At the same time, it is a show that is distinguished by its unblinking focus on the topic of death, which it explores on multiple levels (personal, religious, and philosophical), rather than treating it as a convenient impetus for the solution of a murder. Each episode begins with a death — anything from drowning or heart attack to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome — and that death usually sets the tone for each episode, allowing the characters to reflect on their current fortunes and misfortunes in a way that is illuminated by the death and its aftermath. In the fifth season, the episode All Alone was the first ever to open without a death, focusing instead on a death revealed at the end of the previous episode. The only other episode that did not feature an opening death scene was the series finale, Everyone's Waiting, which instead began with a birth, and ended with the future death scenes of all of the main characters. A recurring plot device consists in a character having an imaginary conversation with the person who died at the beginning of the episode. Sometimes, the conversation is with other recurring dead characters, notably Nathaniel Fisher Sr., Nate Jr.'s late wife Lisa, and eventually Nate himself. They represent the living character's internal dialogue by exposing it as an external conversation. Casual conversations with the dead also reflect the genre of magical realism. A similar device is occasionally used in which a real conversation between two living characters slips into the imaginary and becomes unrealistic. The shift cannot be clearly distinguished from the normal flow of the scene until an abrupt cut brings the audience back to a mundane conversation, which reveals through contrast the imaginary nature of the preceding moment. In November 2004, series creator and executive producer Alan Ball announced that the fifth season would be the show's last. The producers and writers felt that after 63 episodes they had told their "story". The series concluded after five seasons, with the finale airing on August 21, 2005. On March 9, 2006 the basic cable network Bravo acquired the rights to the series which began airing edited episodes in fall 2006. * Setting
Cast and characters Main article at List of Six Feet Under characters. Recurring cast Significant guest stars Family tree List of episodes Timeframe The following is a timeframe which features the year the particular episode is set in. Not to be confused with the actual year the episode originally aired. Season promotionals As Six Feet Under gradually became a topic in pop culture after the first season, HBO came up with very stylish promotional advertisements to promote the anticipation of upcoming seasons. The promos often depicted the mood that may have occurred in previous episodes or foretold future scenarios. Music, according to creator Alan Ball, plays an integral role in the life of Six Feet Under, as it depicts the mood of the Fishers. The following songs were played during the teaser trailers for the seasons following the first season: Episode recaps The song played during each episode recap is a 1995 single called Nothing Lies Still Long by Pell Mell. Episode previews Previews for upcoming episodes feature the Six Feet Under theme. The first and fifth seasons feature the original version of the song while the second, third and fourth seasons feature the Rae & Christian remix. DVD Soundtracks Two soundtrack albums, featuring music that had appeared in the series, were released: Book Scheduling changes In March 2005, HBO announced that the final season of Six Feet Under would be moved to Monday evenings starting June 6. The reason being to add an additional night of programming to the HBO lineup for their upcoming summer season which included Entourage and The Comeback. This was a huge adjustment for regular viewers as the series had traditionally been scheduled for Sundays. The Monday night experiment ultimately failed due to decreased ratings and complaints. HBO chairman, Chris Albrecht admitted the move was a mistake * since the network has always been committed to airing programs on the weekends. Six Feet Under returned to its old timeslot on July 10, 2005 after having been in the new timeslot for only five episodes *. Trivia
2002 2003 2006 2002 2004 2003 2004 HBO broadcast history Broadcasting Six Feet Under is broadcast on the following channels around the world: | |||||||||||
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