A new season of HBO‘s Six Feet Under begins tonight. {I don’t have cable, but a friend tapes it for me.} The Washington Post ran an interview with creator Alan Ball last May.

“The show is about the loss I’ve felt in my life,” Ball says. “The grief I’ve felt over loss, the people I’ve lost, situations [lost] that I’d nurtured.” He rocks back in his metal chair and puts his feet on the desk. He has dark hair, pale skin — a round baby face with a goatee and a laugh that erupts unexpectedly, in great huffing guffaws. “It’s about moving on. About greeting grief, and being able to move past it.”

Tom Shales writes about it in yesterday’s Post, and Virginia Hefferman provides her take on the show for Slate. Meanwhile, over at Salon, Heather Havrilesky weighs in.