Lost Television: Dead like Me

Lisa Sadach, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Jul 31, 2008 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

We've all experienced this: A solid season or maybe even two of what we consider "the best freakin' show ever" then it's ripped out from under us like so many magic carpets. Dead Like Me, a series on Showtime, was one such magic carpet. For those not familiar with this gem it stars Ellen Muth as George Lass, an eighteen year old college dropout who is killed by a piece of falling space shuttle debris. The piece just happens to be a toilet seat but that's neither here nor there.

The delightfully glib Ms. Lass, by no choosing of her own, is turned into a grim reaper in her life after life. While no longer able to interact with her still breathing family, she does have a group of other grim reapers to hang out with. Each of whom has a fabulously interesting, quirky and dark story of their own.

This is quite possibly the most unique take on what could happen in the afterlife as viewers see that all the reapers, despite their undead status, claim no super powers and even have to choose between stealing from their recently dead "clients" or worse, applying themselves to menial labor. This not only results in laugh out loud funny situations but a surprising amount of wisdom, truth and poignancy about life and death and what life can mean when the fear of death is taken away.

The bad news is that the show was cancelled; the good news that both seasons are now available on DVD to rent or buy The even better news is that there is a Dead Like Me movie in the works though it will be a straight to DVD release and the premier date continues to be pushed back. Originally it seemed imminent that it would be gracing our televisions by this summer but the latest news from sites like IMDB.com seems to point to an early 2009 debut. The series star, Ellen Muth even indicated on her blog that if sales go well enough the show may actually be brought back to the airways. So, thank you Santa, there really is hope for all of us looking for a little bit of substance and originality with our humor.

If you're already a super fan of the MGM series, you can check out the official site at http://www.deadlikeme.tv. The lead character, Ellen Muth, also has a Myspace page and an official site at http://www.ellen-muth.com/.