Dead Like Me is awesome
Why was dead like me canceled?
I just recently stumbled onto Dead Like Me while watching the series premier of Eureka on Sci-fi. From the commercial I saw that it was a dark comedy about a girl who died and became a grim reaper. After doing a search for it on the net it turns out that this was originally a Showtime series that ran 2 seasons in 2003-2004. Unfortunately I didn't think to do that search until after I had gotten both seasons and was severely hooked.
Dead Like Me is probably one of the most entertaining TV shows I have ever seen. I have a morbid sense of humor and this show fit me to a T. Season 1 of Dead Like Me starts out following one of your average going no where, just graduated from high school 19 year olds named Georgia (George) Lass. Georgia takes us along as she gets a crappy temp filing job and exagerates the stereotypes associated with an office to cement the idea that shes an outsider to the idea in our head.
Luckily this doesn't last long because on her first day during her 35 minute lunch hour she is struck by a toilet falling from the mir space station and explodes. What a humorous way to die. This is where the real story begins. At her dead she meets a group of people, grim reapers, that look just like us. They guide her around and help her come to terms with her death. They also have a surprise for her, she took the place of the grim reaper who took her after death since he had met his quota. Yep, she's now a grim reaper also.
The job of being a grim reaper isn't what you'd expect. No cloaks or sickles. The Dead Like Me grim reapers look just like normal people, although not the same as they did before death. In addition to looking normal, they also have to live fairly normal un-lives. There is no grim reaper boarding house or government subsidy. They have to get a job and find a place to live. Normally this means squatting in the place of someone who recently died. For George the job means going back to the temp place with her new look and an overboard fake happy attitude that makes her fit right in and earn a paycheck.
The pilot starts off as many do where all of the characters still feel like they're “acting” and the humor branches out from just morbid to some things most tv shows wouldn't consider socially acceptable. By the second episode of Dead Like Me discussions of periods and hard nipples fade so they can appeal to a wider audience. This doesn't take anything away though, since that off color humor appeared to just be thrown in to push the limits. Throughout season 1 of Dead Like Me they quickly hit a stride and find their place. The set changes a little and the cast switches out a character, but they stuck mostly with the same rock solid idea.
Season 2 of Dead Like Me realizes that their audience has grown accustom to the edgy morbid comedy so they hone in more on the entertaining deaths that we so love, while bringing the character development up a notch. We begin to actually identify and agree with some of the characters who were previously just side kicks, and by now we pretty much know everyones story and the circumstances of their deaths. The less open characters are just beginning to reveal their secrets though.
I personally would love to see a season 3 of Dead Like Me. There are very few TV shows that captivate me enough to want to watch every episode, but this one did. I loved it so much I immediately shared it with friends who were instantly hooked. Sci-fi seems to have picked the show up, but I am pretty sure its just the reruns. I hope that with enough feedback, this is a show that could be brought back from grave.
I'd definitely call it a 5 out of 5