Life After Death

Without a question, "Six Feet Under" is my favorite show. Ever. I'm still not over the fact that it ended – and my second family (yes, I'm that obsessed) is dead. That's why I was like a kid at a carnival when I was able to chat with Alan Ball, the creator of the edgy HBO drama, which – sadly – completed its five-year run in 2005. Now, he's got a new series, "True Blood" – and though it, after watching the first two episodes, trumped "SFU," it's definitely worth sinking your teeth into. Here's a taste of my article, out Thursday. 

When Claire Fisher drove into her family’s future during the series finale of “Six Feet Under,” fans of the five-season-running HBO drama likely wept much like they had lost someone in their own life. Alan Ball did – and then he quickly moved on.

“It didn’t take me time to move away from ‘Six Feet Under,’” the out creator says during a conference call with LGBT press. “When we ended the show, I was ready to end it. … All of us who worked on the show sort of grieved the show as the show itself was ending. And it was really sad, and everybody was hugging and crying.”

When his tears dried, his eyes sucked up every page of Charlaine Harris’ “Southern Vampire Mysteries” – and he was wholly enthralled by the author’s entertaining take on vampires. Plus, the shift from something as real as death to the totally unreal world of vampires in his new HBO series “True Blood,” which airs at 9 p.m. Sept. 7 on HBO, was like taking a dip in a pool on a warm day. There are still deeper themes, but the human condition – which Ball has often tackled in “Six Feet Under,” movie “American Beauty” and his latest film “Towelhead” – veered toward something far less dramatic (but equally edgy) and, well, less human.

“I got so sucked into this world,” he recalls. “Each chapter ended with a cliffhanger, and I would end up reading seven chapters when I had basically said to myself, ‘I’m only gonna read one chapter, ’cause I have to get up tomorrow at 6 a.m.’”