Synopsis: One of the most acclaimed shows of the 2001 season, SIX FEET UNDER takes a darkly comic look at the Fishers, a dysfunctional family who own and operate an independent funeral home in Los Angeles. Patriarch Nathaniel Fisher is no longer living (except in the hearts and visions of his family). So his wife Ruth, sons Nate and David, and daughter Claire are left to cope with the routine and not-so-routine aspects of life in the grief-management business. What emerges over the course of 13 new episodes is the quirky, sometimes disturbing - but ultimately life-affirming - story of a resilient American family.

Six Feet Under's returning cast includes Peter Krause as elder son Nate Fisher whose new career as a co-owner of Fisher & Sons is sidetracked by romantic and medical problems; Frances Conroy as Ruth Fisher, the family matriarch, who turns to self-help seminars to find her identity; Michael C. Hall as younger son David Fisher, whose liberating admission that he is gay is offset by his inability to find a romantic replacement for Keith Charles (Mathew St. Patrick), his former partner; Lauren Ambrose as Claire Fisher, the restless teenage daughter with a dangerous attachment to a troubled classmate, Gabe.

The Fishers' lives are intertwined with friends and loved ones, both living and deceased. Rachel Griffiths as Nate's girlfriend Brenda Chenowith, whose own family might be more dysfunctional than the Fishers; Freddy Rodriguez as Federico Diaz, the young mortician who has his own growing family to worry about; and Richard Jenkins as Nathaniel Fisher Sr., the deceased patriarch, who reappears in flashbacks and daydream-like visitations, serving both as a comfort and conscience to those he left behind. (Courtesy HBO, 2001)