Today in TV History: ‘Six Feet Under’ Debuted With A Crash

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone. 

IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: June 3, 2001

PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Six Feet Under, “Pilot,” Season 1, Episode 1. (Watch on HBO Go or HBO Now.)

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: As significant as The Sopranos was in establishing HBO’s dominance over the quality-TV-drama brand in the early 2000s, it was the premiere of Six Feet Under—a second buzzy, well-reviewed, cinematic series—that solidified HBO’s new brand. In retrospect, Six Feet Under didn’t end up nearly as respected as the deified Sopranos, and probably with good reason. But I loved SFU in all its ragged, frustrating, deliberately aggravating glory; in truth, I look on the imperfection of it far more fondly than I do the adequately praised Sopranos, even if I have to look past a lot of flaws to do so.

I don’t have to make any apologies for the Six Feet Under pilot, though. If there are two unimpeachable episodes of the series, they’re the pilot and the finale, and there are actually very few series that can say that. SFU introduces its world appropriately, with patriarch Nathaniel Fisher (Richard Jenkins) driving the family business’s brand new hearse and getting flattened by a bus. R.I.P.

The introduction to the rest of the Fisher family is similarly iconic, from David screaming (inside his head), to Ruth throwing the phone (and the pot roast) across the kitchen, to Nate and Brenda heedlessly screwing in an airport supply closet, to (my all-time fave) Claire telling her friends she has to go because her dad’s dead and she’s high on crystal meth.

The Fishers were all-caps MESSED UP, and creator Alan Ball wanted to make sure everybody knew it. That effort strained some as the years went on, but much like Claire’s crystal meth experience, the pilot managed to burn a little bit brighter than most.

[You can watch the Six Feet Under pilot on HBOGo or HBO Now.]

Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.

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