| Dead Like Me | |
|---|---|
Dead Like Me's intertitle |
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| Format | Bangsian fantasy Dramedy workplace comedy |
| Created by | Bryan Fuller |
| Starring | Ellen Muth Laura Harris Callum Blue Jasmine Guy with Cynthia Stevenson and Mandy Patinkin |
| Theme music composer | Stewart Copeland |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 29 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
John Masius |
| Running time | approx. 47 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Showtime |
| Original run | June 27, 2003 – October 31, 2004 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | Dead Like Me (film, 2009) |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Dead Like Me is an American television comedy-drama starring Ellen Muth and Mandy Patinkin as grim reapers in Seattle, Washington. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, the show was created by Bryan Fuller for the Showtime network, where it ran for two seasons in 2003 and 2004 before cancellation. Fuller left the show after five episodes due to creative differences; he went on to co-create Wonderfalls and create Pushing Daisies. Creative direction of Dead Like Me was taken over by executive producers John Masius and Stephen Godchaux. HDNet is currently showing reruns of the series on Monday evenings; the series is also being rerun in Broadcast syndication. A direct-to-DVD movie has completed filming and the target release is 2009;[1] depending on the movie's success, the series may be picked back up again.[2] A petition to bring back Dead Like Me is currently running.[3]
Eighteen-year-old Georgia "George" Lass (played by Muth) is the show's protagonist and narrator. George dies early in the pilot episode. She becomes one of the "undead", a grim reaper. George soon learns that a reaper's job is to remove the souls of people, preferably right before they die, and escort them until they move on into their afterlife. George's death leaves her mother (Cynthia Stevenson) and rest of her family behind at a point when her relationships with them were on shaky ground.
The show explores the "lives" and experiences of a small team of such reapers — led by Rube (played by Patinkin) — as well as the post-mortem changes in George and her family as they deal with George's death.
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Georgia Lass is aloof and emotionally distant from her family and shied away from her life. After dropping out of college, she takes a job at Happy Time Temporary Services. On her lunch break of her first day, she is hit and killed by a toilet seat from the de-orbiting of the Mir space station.[4] She is informed shortly after her death that, rather than moving on to the "great beyond", she will become a grim reaper in the "external influence" division[5], responsible for reaping souls of people who die in accidents (many of which are of Rube Goldberg-style complexity[6][7]), suicides and homicides.
Through the first season, George has trouble adjusting to her circumstances: collecting souls, while holding a day job at Happy Time. By the second season, she has mostly adjusted to her new role, though still has unresolved issues with her life and her afterlife.
George's family is struggling to deal with her death. Her mother, Joy, is depressed, and visibly repressing it, while Clancy, her father, is cheating on Joy. George's sister, Reggie, acts out — stealing toilet seats from neighbors and school, and hanging them on a tree — before being sent to therapy by Joy. She clings to the belief that George visits her, but is starting to lie to cover this up. At the start of the second season, the family began to break apart as divorce proceedings began.
Nearly all of the main characters have some form of depression, but they cope with it in different ways: Mason resorts to alcohol and drugs; Daisy puts on a veneer of perkiness; and Roxy is physically and verbally aggressive. Rube and George are more open about their sadness.
Each episode lasts approximately 45 minutes and usually follows the events of a single day.
| Season | Release dates | Includes |
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Season 1 |
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Season 2 |
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On April 18, 2007, MGM announced that they are developing several direct-to-DVD movies and sequels. Included among them is a brand new film based on Dead Like Me. [15] The movie is to be set two years after the last series episode.[16] The movie's release date was originally set for the summer of 2008, but has now been pushed for a release in 2009.[1]
In the world of Dead Like Me, Grim reapers do not wear black cloaks or carry scythes (cloaks and scythes are only featured during the opening credits), but their role remains traditional: they remove the souls of the living shortly before death and escort them into their afterlife.
Death has a list of who is scheduled to die and when. Each Reaper is given a non-transferable assignment to collect particular souls.[17] Completing that assignment is often difficult for the Reapers who only receive the first (and sometimes middle) initial and last name of the person about to die, the location, and estimated time of death (ETD). If the events surrounding a person's death are interfered with by a reaper and they do not die at their appointed time, the soul will "wither and die and rot inside" them.[17] When the souls remains in a dead body, the person has an extremely traumatic experience. Deaths can be stopped without risk to the soul by interfering well in advance, thus reapers would not be interfering with the events that lead to the death, however such actions often have unintended consequences, such as more people dying before their time.
Reapers have a physical body and may interact with the living and the dead. The only special abilities Reapers have besides collecting souls are the powers to remain ageless, heal quickly, and forcibly pull a soul from a living body and replace it (as seen done by Roxy in Episode 9 "Sunday Mornings").[18][19] When seen by the living, a reaper's physical appearance is different from the one they had when alive (except on Halloween when the living see them as they were in life[20]), though fellow reapers see their original appearances.[21] Laura Boddington portrays lead character George's 'undead' appearance in six episodes.[22]
The passage into the afterlife is shown as a brightly lit scene towards which the newly-deceased is drawn. The portal is unique to each soul: for a child, it may be a wonderful carnival, but for a yoga master, it may be a Deva beckoning from within a Divine Lotus. Souls cannot be forced to enter the portals, so part of the Reapers' job is to convince such souls to do so.
Groups of reapers are organized into "divisions" according to various causes of death. In addition to Rube's "external influence" team, the three other divisions mentioned in the series are Circulatory Systems Division [21], the very uneventful Plague Division and the Natural Causes (Old Age) Division mentioned in the 27th and 28th episodes (according to the running order).[23] However, George (and Reggie) do meet a child reaper who reaps the soul of an animal in a vet clinic; he died when he was run over by a car which was driven by a female drunk driver. The teams are apparently organized into jurisdictions of geographical areas, with several teams associated with different causes of death operating within one area. It is not known how much geographical area a single division covers, but the reapers in the series seem to only cover the area around Seattle and King County, Washington.
In the show, Reapers do not actually kill people. Instead, deaths are arranged by 'gravelings'.[24]
Gravelings are mischievous gremlin-like creatures that cause the accidents and mishaps that kill people. The living generally cannot see them, though in one episode, a schizophrenic seems to do so. Reapers can see and interact with them to some extent: Daisy once shushed a graveling; Rube yelled "Get outta here!" when he saw gravelings playing on a cemetery statue; George chased gravelings around her flat. Gravelings do not communicate verbally with Reapers, and talk to each other in a hushed and unintelligible babble.
In one episode it is noted that if a Reaper does not take a soul which they are meant to, a "hunting season" will be declared on them until that soul is taken and order is restored. Throughout the series, some of the Reapers, including George, Roxy, Mason, and Daisy have been plagued by the wrath of Gravelings.
A graveling rose from the body of Ray in "Forget Me Not" (Season 2, Episode 12) following his death at the hands of a reaper.[25]
The graveling that arose from Ray's body was later "reaped" by George. When George touched it, it turned to dust.
The episode entitled "The Shallow End" (Season 2, Episode 4) shows gravelings appearing to hesitate from claiming a young Georgia's life and again in "Haunted" (Season 2, Episode 15) George recalls a Halloween afternoon during her youth when as a young girl she has a near-death experience, barely escaping the clutches of a serial killer with gravelings scurrying around in the background behind the man.
| Year | Group | Award | Result | For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films | Best Actress in a Television Series | Nominated | Ellen Muth |
| Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series | Nominated | |||
| Emmy Awards | Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) | Nominated | Episode: Pilot | |
| Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series | Nominated | Episode: Pilot | ||
| International Horror Guild | Best Television | Nominated | ||
| Satellite Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Series, Drama | Nominated | Ellen Muth | |
| 2005 | Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films | Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series | Nominated | |
| Image Awards | Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series | Nominated | Jasmine Guy |
The show's complete ratings were not released, though executives had claimed to at least one reporter that Dead Like Me had ratings three times Showtime's primetime average.[26] This contradicts the network's statement that the ratings were not high enough for a third season.[27] When questioned by critics about the ratings in January 2005, Showtime Chairman and CEO Matthew Blank responded "I really don't think we know...."[28]
Bryan Fuller left early in the first season due to conflicts with MGM Television, including disagreement over major script and storyline cuts considered important to the main theme. He stated that the "lack of professionalism... made it really difficult... it was like being at war... they were constantly trying to strong arm me. It was the worst experience of my life." According to Fuller, Showtime canceled the show because of "a loss of quality and a sense the problems would continue."[29]
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