HBO is dragging Six Feet Under back out of its grave for some kind of reboot
Creator Alan Ball is apparently attached to a Six Feet Under project in "early development" at the network
There are few shows, in all of TV history, that have ended as definitively as Alan Ball’s Six Feet Under, a series that capped off its fives-eason exploration of the way death colors and shapes our lives with an iconic flash-forward showing the passing of every single one of its (temporarily) surviving characters. It was elegiac, ambitious, and beautiful, a stirring testament to the show’s cherished motto: Everything dies.
Except TV shows!
This is per Variety, which reports that HBO is apparently in early development on a Six Feet Under revival project of one stripe or another, with Ball and producers Bob Greenblatt and David Janollari apparently attached in at least a “We’re going to get some money for this, right?” capacity.
Details on the revival are extremely scant at present—the news at this is point is basically just, “God, they’re doing this”—but we’re certainly happy to pitch ideas to get the ball rolling. Hell, the opening sequence writes itself: We start with that legendary ending, as Lauren Ambrose drives off into a future of infinite possibilities and certain termination. We’re just about to get seriously into the deaths montage—and then cue the record scratch as Claire pulls a U-turn, and drives right back to the funeral home for some more wacky mortem and post-mortem hijinks. Maybe Peter Krause’s ghost is there to greet her, 16 years older, and wearing a “NARM” T-shirt the kids are gonna just love.
Okay, so: We might be being a little hard on this whole concept, but it’s only because, of all the shows that literally didn’t need to be revived, Six Feet Under seems like it’d go right at the top of the list. But a recognizable brand name is one of the only currencies that spends in Hollywood these days—and Ball’s last HBO show, the Tim Robbins and Holly Hunter-starring Here And Now, vanished from the consciousness so quickly that we just had to go back and Google our own review to remind ourselves it actually came out. So, here we are; it turns out you can take a picture of this, because nothing’s ever really gone.
Oh, hey, maybe they can get Michael C. Hall to play Dexter in this one, too. That’d be fun.