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Dead Like Me: The Complete First Season DVD Boxset
01/08/2005 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
DVD: MGM Home Entertainment 10006827. 10 hrs - 14 episodes with extras. Price: £29.95 (UK). stars: Ellen Muth, Callum Blue, Jasmine Guy, Rebecca Gayheart, Cynthia Stevenson, Britt McKillip and Mandy Patinkin not to mention a host of guest stars. check out website: www.mgmuk.com
This series hasn't even reached terrestrial TV yet but I've read enough about 'Dead Like Me' to take an interest in the now defunct series. After watching these 14 episodes, I'd be surprised if terrestrial TV would pick it up, unless it was in the very late night spot. This has nothing to do with the subject matter but the effing and blinding that permeates the show. OK, we hear just as bad in the movies and there is a level of logic that says bad language is part of everyday life but the success of any TV series needs as wide a viewership as possible. If limitations are going to exist from the start, then there are bound to be problems. This is a shame cos 'Dead Like Me' is a very interesting, black-humoured character study series.
Georgia or George Lass (actress Muth) is an 18 year-old at her first day of work at a temping agency, when she is fired and out in the Mall, when a toilet seat from a disintegrating Mir space station cuts her life short. At the same time, her soul is picked up and her ghost hangs around to be joined by Rube (actor Patinkin), a grim reaper who explains after her funeral that she's joining their ranks. She becomes solid once more with a different appearance - which we only see when she sees her reflection - and a new name, Millie. It isn't until you look at the 33 deleted scenes that you come across any more info about George's new identity. George is a girl with poor attitude, poor inter-personal relationships and only capable of being a filing clerk. Now, in this new life, she is also a grim reaper. Rube passes out stick-it notes over a meal or what have you in a diner of the souls they have to collect for that day. His group's speciality are people who are going to die accidentally. A lot of time, the reapers also have to establish just who the victims are as well. As Rube explains in the pilot episode, they just collect souls, it's the gravelyns - mischievous demon-like goblins - who cause a lot of the accidents to happen. The saved souls hang around sometimes for a little while before going to their own version of the promised land which I have to confess to finding rather touching.
George has a tough time adjusting to this and tries to evade her responsibilities before being brought into line by Rube. She also checks out her own family and sees how they are coping with her death and attempts to do little things that she probably not have done in real life.
There is a lot more going on in this series with all manner of problems but to elaborate on them all would probably deprive you of looking up this boxset for itself. What I found most unique for the series is, apart from the humour, is the insights given when you least expect it. My favourite being in one of the latter episodes where George's reflection on life being 'We're all temps. When we die, we go on vacation.' Very profound. Very true.
Whether or not such a series will give you any consolation over the death of someone close is debatable. Even the cast in the pilot episode audio commentary are quick to declare that nothing is based around one specific religion or god, but just a means to show there might be some place souls go after death. Although you would have to be careful, cos of the bad language, to show this to teens, I can see the lasting effect of this show will give it cult status.
GF Willmetts
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