Credit where credits are due.

(Here be Six Feet Under spoilers.)

I cannot count the times I sat exhausted, reeling in response to another high-intensity episode of the brilliant Six Feet Under, when Pete "Copperart" Smith (Network 9’s ubiquitous voiceover man), would bust in, trample the closing theme and vomit all over me with his pointless promo for some upcoming piece of nothing.

I know they need to advertise, but it always seemed so inappropriate, especially with a show like SFU. Instead of being a quiet moment of music and introspection that allowed you to disengage and start to process, it became a desperate scramble for the remote so you could hit Mute before Pete would hove into view and kill the moment.

One of the best things about watching SFU via… other means than network TV, besides being able to set your own agenda, was the freedom from Pete and his inane blather. So it was with great pleasure (although great sympathy as well) that I read the following letter in this week’s Green Guide.

If I hadn’t heard it I wouldn’t have believed it. Seven seconds into the closing credits of Monday night’s Six Feet Under, just after Nate had died, a Channel Nine voice-over said “We hope you enjoyed Six Feet Under. Tonight 10:30, we’ll have you laughing with brand new Comedy Inc, the series where no-one is safe and nothing is sacred, taking aim at the living and the dead.” Unbelievable.
Chris Page, East Malvern.

Sadly, Chris; it’s not unbelievable at all. Seems like a fitting epitaph for Six Feet’s run on network TV.