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There are some things that America likes to see on television. There are very definite ideas, also, regarding what America won't tolerate on the small screen. And in the last four years, US cable station HBO has been wilfully, gleefully playing around with the rules. First with The Sopranos, then Sex And The City, and now, Six Feet Under.

On the surface, this new production is, well, pretty much standard apple-pie fare: a drama about a middle-class family business, all interpersonal relationships and family values. The show's creator, Alan Ball (writer of American Beauty) then takes that frame and twists it into an uncomfortable, yet all-too-recognisable portrait of simmering dysfunction, leaving us with a pretty damn unamerican show.

The family business, for starters, is undertaking. As in dead people. And if America doesn't like being reminded of its own mortality, then Ball shows he really doesn't care by brutally killing off the family's father in the first five minutes of the show. At this very moment, his daughter, Claire (Lauren Ambrose) is taking her first hit of Crystal Meth and his eldest son Nate (Peter Krause) is engaged in reasonably graphic carnal action with a complete stranger in a janitor's closet. Plainly, this is not The Waltons.

"I could immediately see from reading the script that it was bucking the norm," confirms Peter Krause, "and it was also apparent that this show was going to interest people. I think TV audiences are much more savvy than network programmers give them credit for."

And while you can't help saluting a dramatic production that sells death to America, there's no denying that a show does not succeed on shock value alone. To that end, Ball's involvement here is key. Much like The Sopranos and The West Wing, SFU boasts the kind of writing that astutely hits all reference points on the head, lines of dialogue that make you wish you could be that sharp in real life and - necessarily these days - the kind of production values that would have a UK director weeping with envy.

It's this smart, knowing slickness that is fast becoming the benchmark for quality US drama, and which has neatly lain to rest the notion that TV is the poor, red-headed child of The Movies. "I think a lot of the best dramatic work to be seen in America these days is on television," clarifies Ball, "but a lot of that is down to HBO. The factors that drive network TV are - out of necessity - not conducive to quality, sophisticated narrative, whereas with HBO that's exactly what they do want. In truth, most American movies are B-Movies these days," he shrugs.

Life, in all its complicated, messy detail, goes on though. As - by consequence - does death. For the Fisher family business, this means a steady stream of corpses crossing the threshold: for the viewer, it means facing up to the inevitability of death, sure, but Ball takes even that one step further by inviting us to laugh at the grim reaper. 'Comedy' deaths witnessed include the Vic & Bob-esque killing of a man with a frying pan by his wife, a man being kneaded to death by a dough-blending machine and a woman sticking her head through a sun-roof, only to have it pulverised by a passing cherry-picking machine.

Outside of work, things are no more straightforward, with the death of the patriarch turning the entire Fisher Family into a Pandora's Box of revelations and discoveries. One son is gay, for starters. Not Will & Grace cutesy-gay, but suburban closeted gay. Oh, and he's dating a cop. A black cop. Nice and simple, then. The mother? She's waking up to the fact that her family are, at best, strangers to her (oh, and finding time to announce that she's been having an affair with her hairdresser), and generally trying to hold life together whilst in the grip of grief.

Gratifyingly, it's not the subject matter that makes the show. It's the characters. This is a tightly observed ensemble piece, featuring people we really do care about. In America, they're already awaiting the third series: over here, we're just about to get started. The Fisher family are all set to bring real life (and death) into your sitting room, and only a fool would try to stand in its path, frankly.

• HBO
• Radio Times - http://www.radiotimes.co.uk/