The short dark nights

Maybe I should have mentioned this one sooner, but Six Feet Under's back on Thursday. Which is strange, as we seem to be back in the long dark summer again.

Series Two ended in a confusing blur of violence, death and ghosts, with Nate plagued by the ghosts of his loved ones goading him to end it all.

In a way that would have been as good a place as any to leave it. I don't imagine the writers of Six Feet Under to be the type of people who believe in endings and conclusions, and short of Federico going postal, I'd never be able to think of an ending that ties up all the characters that's true to the programme (although it's generally impossible to second-guess this one).

It's hard to see a third series being better than the second one, I think I'm just scared it won't be as good. But I said that about the last series as well.

Six Feet Under is a programme that belongs late at night, where certainties of story-telling and faith are far away and time seems to run to strange rules. I associate Six Feet Under not just with the characters and the stories, but the state of mind it alway induces in me. I tend to find myself staying up half the night and sitting under trees in the dark because, well, they put me there.

It's hard to explain this to anyone who's not into it. Somehow, if stories of SFU prompt someone to tell you about the ITV docusoap based in a funeral parlour, you can be pretty certain they're not going to get it. Or that they'll like the story about Claire and the foot.

But that's never stopped me. Don't call me on Thursday!