I'm a late adopter when it comes to TV series. Early this year, Barb suggested we subscribe to Showtime to reward them for not punking out and showing The Reagans. I figured, what the hell, let's throw HBO into the mix while we were at it. Ever since, I have been hooked by The Sopranos (in its second-to-last season) and Six Feet Under (in its fourth) and finally figured out what everyone's so enthusiastic about: it's the writing, stupid. (Other favorites on non-premium channels: The Shield and Arrested Development, the latter--hooray!--renewed by the kind people at Fox. Thank you Rupert Murdoch!) Last night we watched the first-ever Six Feet Under episode, and it was kind of cool to see how it's evolved from sometimes in-your-face-bizarre to something deeper, where the characters are more rounded. What hasn't changed is how goddamn funny the show is. The sequence where Ruth and Claire are riding in the hearse right after Nathaniel's death, Claire high on crystal, and Ruth starts asking her whether she's having sex and doing drugs, and the one where David's (apparently still-secret) partner Keith shows up at Nathaniel's viewing dressed up in full police uniform and Claire, noting "The cop is hot," sidles up to bust a move on him, were my two favorites from last night. Granted you have to like your laughs a little dark and way mixed up. But that's me.