‘Six Feet Under’ buries the rest of the prime-timers

I was looking for a laugh and got one when I found Fox’s “24” Tuesday night and watched fearless Jack Bauer take off on a suicide mission to save America by crashing a terrorist nuclear bomb and himself into the desert.

Jack was supposed to be alone, but talk about predictable. Before the Cessna dived, I kept my eyes on the back seat, where I anticipated Jack’s dying colleague, George Mason, would be hiding, waiting to emerge so he could talk his way into taking over the controls and then give Jack a parachute.

And yup, it happened. Out he came and down floated Jack, later watching from the ground as Mason and the bomb went kablooie.

It was no more surprising than Jack’s preyed-upon idiot daughter, Kim, trusting her life with yet another stranger near the end of the same episode. As for dubious plot twists, I expect the woman who picked Kim up on the road to pull off her rubber face next week and be revealed as Saddam Hussein.

“24” began diving long before Mason did, starting life last season as not-to-be-missed, snappy escapist suspense before somehow evolving into a comedy.

Such shows are why I cherish “Six Feet Under.”

There are at least 24 reasons to watch Alan Ball’s returning HBO series, whose pauses for death at the Fisher family mortuary in Los Angeles punctuate seductive tales of devotion and dysfunction.

It’s the class of prime time right now. The rest of the field are cadavers, mostly. Crank them into the ground, and good riddance.

Even TV’s other high achievers are wilted roses measured against “Six Feet Under,” which continues to be heroically smart, tender and witty while finding dark fun in formaldehyde in the early weeks of the show’s third season.

Five new episodes supplied by HBO for review are melodrama, surely, but soaring-IQ, low-fat melodrama. The show’s tremulous crescendos -- like Nate Fisher (Peter Krause) approaching surreal death during brain surgery last week, and his bright but impressionable younger sister, Claire (Lauren Ambrose), soon getting a line of supercilious baloney from a predatory art teacher -- are always within the realm of plausibility. And highly skilled writing, acting and directing ensure that major characters are never less than credible, and that their voices remain separate and distinct.

What the art teacher later tells Claire -- “Your talent is epic

Family matriarch Ruth Fisher (Frances Conroy) is about to acquire a brash, earthy, adventurous new friend named Betina (Kathy Bates) who helps her locate her inner whimsy and larceny. Ruth shoplifting? Get out!

Her fragility appears to drop away as that of her gay younger son, David (Michael C. Hall), grows. David’s live-in union with Keith (Mathew St. Patrick), a hot-tempered ex-cop, is top dog early in the season, and the depiction of their relationship is so true and vibrant that it jumps off the screen.

David’s love is smothering, Keith resists, and scenes of them trying to work out their problems in couples therapy are at once excruciating and hilarious. Keith equates David with his mother, which will gradually parallel Nate’s feelings about Lisa (Lili Taylor), whom he married after she became pregnant with their daughter, Maya.

For the moment, though, he splashes bliss on his face every morning like after-shave, and joins his earnest wife as doting Super Parent to Maya, as they live in the home of a crackpot movie producer (Catherine O’Hara), for whom Lisa works as chef and nursemaid. Great, great stuff.

Now that he’s a partner in the business, meanwhile, the Fishers’ body-rehab man, Rico (Freddy Rodriguez), is a surlier character who questions the policies of the brothers. His funeral-side manner leaves much to be desired, contrasting with Nate’s compassion and David’s oiliness, for example, in talking up a solid mahogany, hand-finished coffin to a client instead of a cheaper cedar model named the Sampson.

There are wonderful touches throughout, one being David becoming a soloist for a gay men’s chorus.

Another is the irony of Fisher & Diaz, as the mortuary is now named, holding funerals for both a murderer and one of his victims Sunday, the two of them laid out almost on adjoining slabs while engaging in one of those imaginary dialogues that the show uses to keep alive the dead. And a coming episode -- just a knockout -- merges opera with the ache of a gay man’s eulogy for his partner.

Note, also, how that grand character, the ever-surprising Ruth, lives rigidly by lists and rules, one of which includes having three categories of dishes: the regular china, the good china and the good-good china, which is never to be used under any circumstances. It’s a major hoot.

In addition, there’s Patricia Clarkson, again outstanding in brief screen time as Ruth’s sister, Sarah, at home in Topanga trying to kick her Vicodin habit.

So all is good? Hardly.

Where is Brenda, arguably the story’s hottest presence in its first two seasons? During early episodes, that’s what “Six Feet Under” zealots will wonder about the brilliant but neurotic Rachel Griffiths character whom Nate broke up with at the end of last season after learning she was a sleep-around sex addict. Surely Brenda, not his wife, is the true love of his life.

She doesn’t show up this season until episode five, about when -- uh-oh -- Nate’s mother and Lisa start merging in his mind. HBO isn’t saying what happens, but you’re free to speculate about this great series that unlike TV’s ordinary pine boxes, is solid mahogany and hand-finished.

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‘Six Feet Under’

Channel: HBO

When: New episodes are shown at 9 p.m. Sundays.

Rating: The network has rated it TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children younger than 17).