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Death Grips

HBO's ''Six Feet Under'' is grabbing the kind of ratings even ''The Sopranos'' would have killed for.

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By Lynette Rice

What's a funeral home drama got to do to drum up some decent outrage these days? ''Six Feet Under'' has trotted out adultery, drug use, toe sucking, lost corpse limbs, even gay sex with a square-dance caller, and still the nation's morticians (and 5 million weekly viewers) are thrilled with the depiction. ''It's a fairly realistic presentation of a family in the death care industry,'' says Ron Hast, publisher of Mortuary Management, the Variety of the cadaver community. And ''Six'' creator Alan Ball is glad to have their endorsement. ''I wanted to portray them as human beings, not freaks,'' says Ball. ''These people face death for the rest of us. There's something kind of heroic in that.''

Not to mention appealing. Those 5 million viewers have helped ''Six'' set an HBO record for the largest audience for a new series, far surpassing the first season of ''The Sopranos'' (3.3 million). Those kinds of numbers not only up the you-simply-must-subscribe-to-HBO buzz factor (the precise impact it's had on HBO's 33 million-strong subscriber base is difficult to gauge, since its cable operators don't usually collect that kind of data), they make the decision to order a second season before the drama even debuted seem positively prescient. ''It was exactly what we hoped for in terms of creative execution,'' says HBO president of original programming Chris Albrecht, who saw the entire first season before inking the deal. ''It also gave us a chance to control our own destiny, to have this show available to put in a slot and hold on to it.''

It will certainly come in handy come winter 2002, when HBO will have a mammoth hole to fill on Sunday nights. Season 4 of ''The Sopranos'' -- which typically bows by March -- is not set to return until at least June, so ''Six'' (which has its season finale Aug. 19) will fill the void. ''We knew that ['Sopranos' creator] David Chase usually takes a little longer than 12 months to prepare,'' says Albrecht. ''That certainly factored into [picking up 'Six'].''

Granted, ''Six'' didn't exactly live up to expectations in its first two outings. The drama averaged only 4 million viewers -- due, in part, to a deadly lead-in from ''Arli$$.'' But laying the drama to rest behind ''Sex and the City'' gave it new life. ''It's starting to seep into the public consciousness,'' says Albrecht.

The only detractors seem to be the occasional bitter broadcast-TV writer (''It's just like NBC's 'Providence,' except they get to use the word f---,'' says one), and The New York Times called ''Six'' a ''sleazily mendacious'' show ''populated entirely by cartoon'' characters. ''I'd rather inspire a vitriolic, negative response than a tepid positive one,'' says Ball. ''At least I got to somebody.''

He's certainly gotten to funeral directors, who appreciate how Ball avoids depicting their industry as something out of ''Tales From the Crypt.'' ''Even though David's character [co-owner of the family biz, played by Michael C. Hall] is off in all directions with his personal life, he's supportive and kind when dealing with issues of death,'' says Hast, himself a licensed funeral director. But what about those outlandish tricks of the trade, like using cat food cans to hoist a dead stripper's sagging ta-tas? Admits Hast, ''It's not uncommon to use rolled cotton or empty embalming bottles to fit in creative places.'' Stop, you're killing us.