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| Showtime June 27, 2003 – October 31, 2004 |
Television Network : Showtime
Running Time : 40-50 Minutes
Broadcast Run : June 27, 2003 – October 31, 2004
Do you know Bryan Fuller? Because you should. He's the guy that gave Heroes its heart in the first season, penning the episode "Company Man" where ol' Horn Rimmed Glasses chooses his adopted daughter over the company Primatech he's been so loyal too. If you're a Heroes fan, you remember the series dipping in quality in seasons two and three before gradually regaining it's footing in season four. Wanna know why?
Bryan Fuller. Co-Executive Producer on Heroes, left the show after the first season to create the deliciously delightful Pushing Daisies, about a piemaker who can bring the dead back to life with a single touch, only for another person to die in their place if they aren't retouched in exactly one minute. Daises debuted to nice ratings but saw it's time slot juggled and was ultimately a series just too good to last. After Pushing Daisies had it's minute in the spotlight, Fuller returned to Heroes late in it's third season.
Dead Like Me, however, is Bryan Fuller's first original series. Debuting in Showtime in 2003, it starred a fresh faced Ellen Muth as aimless 18 year old slacker Georgia(George to her friends) Lass. Having just dropped out of college, her ironically named mother Joy(Cynthia Stevenson) angrily sends her off to a temp agency to find her work. During her 35 minute lunch hour on her first day at "Happy Time Temporary Services", a toilet seat from a Russian Space Station breaks into orbit and drops onto George, obliterating her into pieces.
Normally that'd be the end of the story, no? Main character's dead, not exactly an uplifting tale filled with aesops. Instead, George becomes a disembodied spirit, only able to speak to one droll individual, Rube(Mandy Patinkin). She gets to attend her own funeral, and watches her family attempt to move on from her death.
After the funeral, George asks what's next for her, wondering whether there's a heaven or a hell. Rube doesn't know, but does know what's next for George. Rube takes her to "Der Waffle Haus" and tells her she's going to become a Grim Reaper. It's their job to take the souls of the soon to be dead or recently deceased out of a person's body, and allow it to ascend to the next plateau. It is here that George realizes she's corporeal once more when asked by a waitress to order something off the menu. So hey, brand spanking new body, but other than that, she doesn't get paid for collecting her souls until she collects the very last one, and is allowed to cross over herself. This forces her to go back to Happy Time and seek work at the very place that lead to her death.
Obviously this causes quite the double take from George, who is reluctant at first to be effectively killing people, dooming them to horrible physical traumities while working in the "External Influence" division. But touching their souls allows the person to experience the horror of death without the trauma and physical pain associated with, say, a piano falling on you or being impaled by a precariously hung swordfish.
George, being the supreme slacker she is, tries to skirt her responsibilities as a reaper to dreadful results for both the dying and the living. She eventually comes to terms with her situation, and joins Mason(Callum Blue : drug fiend brit with sticky fingers), Roxy(Jasmine Guy : a strong willed parking attendant who becomes mistaken for a God), and Betty(Rebecca Gayheart : a "mysterious & reassuring" reaper) as regulars at "Der Waffle Haus." Eventually Daisy A'Daire(Laura Harris) joins the cast as a selfish former film starlet who claims to have once blown Clark Gable.
There are quite a few reasons why this show failed over time. Bryan Fuller, the show's creator, parted ways with the network due to executive meddling halfway through filming the first season.
"It was like being at war...
They were constantly trying to strong arm me.
It was the worst experience of my life"
-Bryan Fuller on Dead Like Me
In various interviews, Fuller has stated that he wanted to make George's father gay, which would have made him less of a dick character for cheating on his long term wife. After he left, Dead Like Me spun a storyline that would have had George value her life more than she ever did when she was alive(for "She's not supposed to be there!" © Clerks) and given sympathy to both sides of her divorcing parents into just another philandering professor with a fascination for youth breaking the heart of a middle aged woman.
The whimsical and plot irrelevant but stunningly vivid metaphorical explanations about life, the universe, everything, usually to set up the theme of the episode, were abandoned. The wit and charm of the show was dulled but still "better than most" out there. When John Masius took over as show runner, the show effectively matured into something else all together, almost as if it went through three seasons of evolution in a matter of moments only to see the characters drift into caricatures of themselves. It was still a good show, but seemed to be going through the motions rather than breaking new ground.
And yet every time I see a parking meter, I think of the scene below the tag. I've fast forwarded to the relevant part.
Show Quality: C+
Mason fights the law and the law wins:
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