Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die For (4 page)

Six Feet Under
debuted on HBO at 10 p.m., Sunday 3 June 2001. It was the first drama series launched by the channel since
The Sopranos
– and HBO felt under pressure to repeat its success.

The story about a dysfunctional family running a funeral home in Los Angeles first aired to much fanfare, heralded as the next break-through, high-quality, award-worthy hit series for the cable channel.

For all its high hopes, HBO knew the show would be a hard sell.

Chris Albrecht, then HBO president of original programming (now CEO and chairman of HBO), admitted that
Six Feet Under
‘represented a marketing challenge compared to those series with their high-concept scenarios’ like
The Sopranos
,
Sex and the City
and
Oz
’

(Weinraub 2001: 21).

Judging by initial reactions, Albrecht was right to be concerned.

For all the hype generated by the HBO marketing department, the show failed to gain ‘the same kind of press frenzy or wildly enthusiastic word-of-mouth that
The Sopranos
commanded in its first year’ (Carter 2001). Critics felt a certain pressure to love the show simply because it was an HBO product. Eric Mink verifies this by saying, ‘I’m supposed to like
Six Feet Under
. I know this because it’s on HBO’

(2001). Furthermore, there was an expectation among TV commentators that, because HBO had earned a reputation for making groundbreaking and original TV series like
The Sopranos, Six Feet
Under
should also look and feel special. ‘But it’s hard to imagine anyone watching Sunday night’s plodding and pretentious pilot and coming back for more’ (ibid.).

Bothering pundits most was the fact that there seemed less to the new show than its film pedigree and existentialist subject matter initially promised.
Six Feet Under
appeared somewhat derivative and decidedly pedestrian to many: ‘It isn’t as hilarious or scathing as Jessica Mitford’s 1963 book on the funeral industry…It isn’t as ironic or viciously comedic as Evelyn Waugh’s … novel [
The
]
Loved One
…

It isn’t as comedically tragic as Eric Idle’s
Nearly Departed
updated
Topper
series …’ (Kitman 2001). Wendy Lesser concurs, saying that 3

READING
SIX FEET UNDER

the show ‘openly borrows from such recent and past successes as
Ally
McBeal
(the fantasy-hallucination sequences),
The Singing Detective
(ditto, mixed with song-and-dance) and
Sex and the City
(titillation and lightweight malaise)’ (2001). Despite dealing with weighty topics such as death, dying and making life meaningful, it felt unsatisfying to some, achieving ‘distinction mainly by trying desperately to be much deeper than it actually is’ (Rosett 2001). It all seemed a little too clever: ‘I’m supposed to like
Six Feet Under
because its tone is dark and sardonic, because its characters are cleverly literate, miserable and spiteful, because it sometimes shows gay men kissing and cuddling in bed and because there are gross close-ups of corpses and wounds and stuff’ (Mink 2001).

Compared unfavourably with
The Sopranos
,
Six Feet Under
failed to measure up. Being scheduled to fill the slot recently vacated by the family saga about a crime boss and his dysfunctional family did not make it any easier, as where comparisons could not help but be made. ‘Both shows combine gore, sex and bizarre incidents with much delving into the psyche’ (Lesser 2001). But whereas
The
Sopranos
was ‘a rich and intriguing story’, according to Lesser, ‘in
Six
Feet Under
there’s so much self-conscious effort to be weird that the effect is simply waxen’ (ibid.). Graphic depictions of sex and brutal mob aggression may have looked hip on
The Sopranos
but in
Six Feet
Under
images of death, violence and sexuality came across as attention grabbers to keep the audience going while the Mafioso drama took a break. ‘This show is slathered so thick (and slick) with gimmicks that its take on death remains largely cosmetic – more burlesque than black comedy’ (Rosett 2001).

Judging by the immediate dip in ratings after the pilot, audiences were not quite sure either. But ratings did improve. ‘It got a 10.7

rating a week ago, just under 5million viewers,’ reported Bill Carter just a month later, in July (2001). And by August fans felt compelled to defend the show from critical opprobrium. Responses to Lesser’s criticism of the ‘sleazily mendacious’ (2001) show and its troubled family prove instructive here. ‘
Six Feet Under
is first-rate entertainment: great writing, great acting and plot twists and turns that make this viewer long for the next instalment,’ wrote Michael Cummings; another viewer from Manhattan said: ‘The surprisingly blunt and humourless attempt to bury
Six Feet Under
by the usually subtle Wendy Lesser reveals a critic utterly at odds with a show’s 4

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sensibility and seriocomic premise’; while Seth Fortin from Stone Mountain states: ‘It may not be great tragedy but it hardly deserves Ms. Lesser’s pasting’ (Letters 2001).

Not all critics dismissed
Six Feet Under
. Kathryn Flett called it a ‘genuinely entertaining and intelligent black comedy’ (2002), while Linda Stasi confessed to an initial reluctance to engage with the programme before finding herself watching six hours’ worth –

‘by choice’ (2001). David Bianculli observed that
Six Feet Under
may have started a ‘little too smugly and self-consciously’ but by the fourth week it had ‘kicked into high gear, and for the rest of its 13

episode run delivered some gloriously rich characters, situations and ruminations on life and death’ (2002). Season two found critics re-evaluating initial misgivings. Marvin Kitman, for example, stated that he would now like to bury his original review. ‘The show is very good, totally addictive, worthy of all the acclaim and Emmy nominations’ (2002). Moved to confess that all her doubts disappeared as she viewed the second season led Joy Press to declare that ‘
Six Feet
Under
has been transformed into TV’s most ravishing experience’

(2003). Another convert was David Blum, who claimed that ‘in its third season [
Six Feet Under
] now ranks alongside
The Sopranos
as one of the great family dramas of our time’ (2003).

HBO, Quality and Changing TV

Viewers and TV journalists have come to expect difficult subject matter and thought-provoking television from HBO. Although drama series like
Six Feet Under
may prove innovative and groundbreaking, they also represent how the institution of television is changing. HBO

has come a long way since it first transmitted a Vancouver–New York hockey game to 365 homes in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, back in 1972. In 1976 came the inclusion of live concerts, and five years later the cable channel started 24-hour broadcasting, filling its schedules with live sporting events and television premieres of uncensored and uninterrupted feature films (hence the title Home Box Office). Widespread dissemination of the VCR, whereby viewers could rent a movie and watch it at their convenience, meant that HBO had to diversify (Rogers et al. 2002: 50). Made-for-TV movies like
Stalin
and
Murrow
and original programming with adult content 5

READING
SIX FEET UNDER

like
Dream On
and
The Larry Sanders Show
became increasingly important for HBO. Michael Fuchs took over at the helm in 1984, as the new chairman and CEO; he ‘made a public pledge to produce mature and provocative original programming … and … saw an opportunity to turn HBO into a purveyor of adult-oriented content’ (Rogers et al. 2002: 50, 51). Even though Fuchs pushed the envelope with sexually provocative dramas such as
And the Band
Played On
, as well as those comedy series mentioned above, he failed to create a strong enough identity for the channel at a time when brand marketing was becoming integral to economic survival. Jeff L.

Bewkes replaced him in 1995. Under Bewkes’ leadership, according to Mark C. Rogers, Michael Epstein and Jimmie L. Reeves, ‘HBO

found itself on the front lines of yet another television revolution: the development of channel branding as a means of combating audience fragmentation … [and] … HBO [began producing] programmes that upped the ante on violence, sexuality, and the macabre’ (51).

Today HBO reaches over 28 million homes; it airs almost a hundred uncut Hollywood movies a month and increasingly depends on original programmes like
Six Feet Under
to woo its subscribers.

With the recent rise of DVD as well as the proliferation of movie channels with staggered viewing times, these new dramas have become much more important to HBO; as Albrecht is quoted as saying, ‘Nobody is going to buy the service to see
Gladiator
one more time’ (Carter 2001). Selling directly to the customer means that HBO is free from network constraints, and neither does it have to appease advertisers (Friend 2001: 82). Instead, ‘HBO is eager to produce shows that confirm its audacious marketing claim [It’s Not TV. It’s HBO] that – contrary to every rule laid down since
The
Beverley Hillbillies
went one way and PBS [Public Broadcasting Service] the other – television can be both profitable and of high quality’ (ibid.).

The question of what we mean by ‘quality’ television is key here: more importantly, how does a television institution like HBO

understand the term? While commercial television edges ever closer towards inexpensive reality TV like
Survivor
, HBO markets itself on selling a quality brand product to customers that is not regular TV.

As ‘the strongest possible counterpoint to network television’, HBO

desires
Six Feet Under
– like
The Sopranos
– to be different (Friend 6

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2001: 82). The series is proof of the subscription channel’s antipathy to the mainstream approach. ‘This show is unlike anything that has ever been on network television,’ Albrecht declares, ‘noting that HBO actually ordered a second season before the series even went on the air. “No network would ever do that,” he said’ (Carter 2001).

Not having to appease advertisers and network executives allows for creative integrity (more on this later), contentious subject matter and edgy scripts which include levels of sex and nudity, violence and profanity rarely, if at all, seen on US TV. Such criteria are intrinsic to the HBO brand identity and key to its appeal. No wonder HBO

owns Sunday night.

Quality TV on HBO is also about telling the audience that they have made a wise consumer decision. By purchasing HBO rather than settling for mediocre network fare, programmes like
Six Feet Under
are designed precisely to make ‘HBO subscribers feel good about their choices’ (Friend 2001: 84). Flattering the audience is important to the company’s marketing strategy. It is predicated on the notion that the subscription channel must attract punters for its commercial survival; yet they use the economic imperative to their promotional advantage.

‘Because HBO likes to be seen as a grassroots phenomenon,’ writes Tad Friend, ‘the network plans to sell
Six Feet Under
by word of mouth’

(2001: 89). The recent water cooler commercial (http://slate.msn.com/

id/2102442) advertising HBO’s Sunday night line-up with its group of office workers gathering to discuss the latest episode of their favourite

‘must-see’ TV show plays up this notion. Promoting the ‘what the customer wants’ idea enables HBO to trade on the fact that it is offering a unique product – something that audiences cannot get elsewhere, and will take time out to watch. Scheduling is tailored to allow for flexible viewing (
Six Feet Under
is first shown on Sunday evenings and then repeated throughout the week) as well as recognising that busy lifestyles must be accommodated. Even this works to the benefit of HBO, as it takes the cumulative rating into account when calculating viewing figures, which means the series compares favourably to a network show like NBC’s
E.R
. that is only shown once a week. The ideas of customer choice, branding and niche audiences are increasingly becoming important indicators of television quality.

Another feature of quality relates to product differentiation in a diverse market place. Despite heavily promoting original programming (and any visit to the website confirms this notion), and 7

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SIX FEET UNDER

HBO executives endlessly talking about ‘its riskier, artier ventures, emphasising just how different it is’ (Friend 2001: 90), it is surprising to find a lot of regular TV on the cable channel. After
The Sopranos
it is not
Six Feet Under
(as one might expect) but boxing and salacious documentaries like
G-String Divas
and the
Real Sex
series (dealing with sexual fantasies) that prove ratings winners and fill the schedules. It would seem that HBO might not be so different after all – especially considering HBO is a branch of the Time Warner Inc. empire, which also includes Warner Bros. Television, producers of
E.R
. and
The West Wing
. Free from competition, it gives us an insight into why HBO can be patient with its shows and explains why Albrecht can say: ‘[with] a dark ironic show like [
Six Feet
Under
] unless it’s a creative or critical disaster you’ve almost got to give it two years for it to have a chance to build an audience’ (Friend 2001: 88). These kinds of strategies allow HBO to be seen as cutting edge, yet ‘HBO is not a band of artistic guerrillas who occasionally hijack the airwaves but an elite alternative to the parent company’s mass-market brands’ (Friend 2001: 89). HBO can dare to be different and push itself into new and often controversial television territory precisely because it is part of a vast economic conglomerate diverse enough to speculate and wait for a return on its investment.

Alan Ball, TV Auteurship and
Six Feet Under