Though he’s fairly certain that his vision of an ideal career doesn’t include attending to dead people – after all, it’s a large part of the reason he took off from home as soon as he hit eighteen -- at thirty-some years old now, Nate’s feeling a little lost, like he still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. While Nate struggles with the dilemma of how to do right by both himself and his family, responsible, reserved, uptight David, always the good son, can’t help but resent his brother for feeling entitled to making choices at all. David’s whole life thus far has been devoted to trying to make his father happy, all the while repressing his own hopes and dreams – of a career as a lawyer, and a life spent with his secret boyfriend, Keith. Then again, David’s not the only one with secrets: prim and proper mom Ruth has been having an extramarital affair with a hairdresser she met at church, while little sister Claire, a rebellious loner who doesn’t fit in at school, finds herself making one bad decision after another with regards to boys and drugs. The characters are quirky, funny, and deeply, deeply, sympathetic, their relationships simultaneously difficult and simple – when it comes down to it, they’re family and they love each other – deep, and very real. Serious drama with a seriously humorous streak – of the dark sort, of course – Six Feet Under might center around death, but underneath it all, there’s actually a subtle – and rather optimistic – rumination on what it means to really live your life. Which may explain why a show that opens each episode with someone’s demise never fails to leave me feeling all lovey and warm and fuzzy inside. 

sex and the city 
buy the first season | the second season | the third season | the fourth season 
I am not a terribly girly girl – or, at least, it’s not a stereotype I generally like to find myself falling into. I am not eagerly anticipating the next fluffy Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy; I do not spend my free time getting pedicures and giggling with a gaggle of girlfriends; it takes me about thirty seconds  to “do” my hair, even when I’m going out. So it took me awhile to get over the fear of girly overdose enough to rent the first few episodes of Sarah Jessica Parker’s hugely popular show, Sex and the City. Maybe I’m just girlier than I like to admit, but after watching the first disc, I was completely hooked – by the ample wit, the gleefully irreverent humor, and yes, all that very frank, very down-to-earth, girl talk.  Sex and the City follows the lives of four beautiful, single, 30something Manhattan career women in their seemingly never-ending quest for the perfect man to go along with their otherwise perfect lives. Sex-and-relationship columnist Carrie Bradshaw makes her living by obsessing over the dating and mating trends of New York singletons – like her best friends Charlotte, a marriage-obsessed gallery owner, Miranda, a cynical, career-driven, workaholic lawyer, and Samantha, a nymphomaniac pr executive who believes in disposable boy toys rather than real relationships. Each of the characters is completely neurotic in her own very special, unique way, and as we watch the four of them date and discard just about every man in Manhattan, it’s hard not to notice that though they might be great at their jobs, they’re pretty lousy at the whole love thing, victims of their own self-sabotaging insecurities more often than not. Still, even if the glossy, privileged, big city lives of Carrie and Co. aren’t something you can personally relate to, there’s something addictively, frothily fun about watching the ups and downs of their crazy, crazy love lives. But the best thing about the show is that every episode is like a roundtable discussion about a different aspect of love and sex from the female perspective. While the characters may sometimes be guilty of being shallow, the issues at hand frequently aren’t. Bawdy, bold and provocative, Sex and the City shows that a half-hour comedy can generate plenty of laughs, and still make you think.

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