Friday, October 14, 2005
My eyes by the light of the cathode tube.
Dead Like Me
Dead Like Me is about a cynical, slacker, 18 year old girl named George, a college dropout from a fairly wealthy family. The pilot opens with George trying, not very enthusiastically, trying to get a job. On her first day, whilst on her 35 minute lunch hour, she is killed by a rogue toilet seat that was ejected from the Mir space station.
And thus a very dark, very funny, kinda confronting, emotionally engaging series takes off.
George doesn't move on after her death. No, instead, she finds that she's now a Reaper - not the Grim type, just a Reaper. Reapers take the souls of people just before death, and help those souls to go to wherever they go. Reapers do this until they reach an undisclosed quota, and then they themselves are allowed to move on. Reapers have physical form, and have to support their UnDead life somehow - however, the way the living view them is different from the way that they view themselves. So, George can go and visit her family, but none of them are going to freak at that - because, to them, she doesn't look like George.
Confused yet?
Anyhoo. The Reaper section that George has been assigned to appears to be the "death by ridiculous accident" section. Ridiculous accidents are caused by little creatures called Gravelings, who, occasionally, Reapers can see.
The other Reapers with whom George works are:
Rube (Mandy Patinkin) - a paternal, pissed off leader. He receives the assignments from TPTB, and hands them out to the Reapers on post it notes, with ETD (Estimated Time of Death), name and address of the soon to be departed. Love Mandy Patinkin. Love him. He can do no wrong, and is brilliant in this role.
Mason (Callum Blue) - or, as I like to call him, Doyle. (But not the same actor, obviously.) Cute, slightly sleazy, heart of gold, and occasionally carries 'illegals' in his bottom. Doesn't like get to get too close to the soon to be departed, but does so despite of himself.
Roxy (Jasmine Guy) - gumsnapping, foul mouthed, angry and sarcastic meter maid. When she's not being a Reaper.
Betty (Rebecca Gayheart) - slightly bitchy, always enthused and seemingly happy, girly Reaper. And I just realised why I got a slightly off feeling from the actress when I was watching the series - anyone seen Urban Legends? Yeah. Not really worth the revelation, huh?
Oh, and Jewel Staite, currently gracing cinema screens as Kaylee in Serenity (see it! See it now!) has a cameo in the last episode of Season One. So cute!
The series creator is Bryan Fuller (hey! I knew I'd be seein' that name again!) - he seems to like creating nice dark, slightly twisted worlds. I like that he does that. Someone needs to! Except, you know, dark slightly twisted worlds tend to lead to cancellation - Dead Like Me got a second season...and then got cancelled during that second season.
It took about 5 episodes for me to get into this series. The whole concept - of 'old' dead people taking the souls of, well, 'new' dead people - is actually really confronting. Having humour, having it treated as a job one second, and then reverently the next - also confronting. Having at least one to two graphic deaths (which range from really funny to heartwrenching) - hey, how many times can I say confronting? But man - by the end of the second disc? Hooked. So hooked.
I have one major beef with this series - and that is the lead actress, Ellen Muth, and her extreme skin-and-bone-y-ness. One the one hand - convincing as a dead person. On the other hand - seriously, fucking eat something. And, you know, keep it down.
I highly recommend this series - have a Bryan Fuller marathon of Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls. And then try and see the outside world and think that it's real.
Dead Like Me is about a cynical, slacker, 18 year old girl named George, a college dropout from a fairly wealthy family. The pilot opens with George trying, not very enthusiastically, trying to get a job. On her first day, whilst on her 35 minute lunch hour, she is killed by a rogue toilet seat that was ejected from the Mir space station.
And thus a very dark, very funny, kinda confronting, emotionally engaging series takes off.
George doesn't move on after her death. No, instead, she finds that she's now a Reaper - not the Grim type, just a Reaper. Reapers take the souls of people just before death, and help those souls to go to wherever they go. Reapers do this until they reach an undisclosed quota, and then they themselves are allowed to move on. Reapers have physical form, and have to support their UnDead life somehow - however, the way the living view them is different from the way that they view themselves. So, George can go and visit her family, but none of them are going to freak at that - because, to them, she doesn't look like George.
Confused yet?
Anyhoo. The Reaper section that George has been assigned to appears to be the "death by ridiculous accident" section. Ridiculous accidents are caused by little creatures called Gravelings, who, occasionally, Reapers can see.
The other Reapers with whom George works are:
Rube (Mandy Patinkin) - a paternal, pissed off leader. He receives the assignments from TPTB, and hands them out to the Reapers on post it notes, with ETD (Estimated Time of Death), name and address of the soon to be departed. Love Mandy Patinkin. Love him. He can do no wrong, and is brilliant in this role.
Mason (Callum Blue) - or, as I like to call him, Doyle. (But not the same actor, obviously.) Cute, slightly sleazy, heart of gold, and occasionally carries 'illegals' in his bottom. Doesn't like get to get too close to the soon to be departed, but does so despite of himself.
Roxy (Jasmine Guy) - gumsnapping, foul mouthed, angry and sarcastic meter maid. When she's not being a Reaper.
Betty (Rebecca Gayheart) - slightly bitchy, always enthused and seemingly happy, girly Reaper. And I just realised why I got a slightly off feeling from the actress when I was watching the series - anyone seen Urban Legends? Yeah. Not really worth the revelation, huh?
Oh, and Jewel Staite, currently gracing cinema screens as Kaylee in Serenity (see it! See it now!) has a cameo in the last episode of Season One. So cute!
The series creator is Bryan Fuller (hey! I knew I'd be seein' that name again!) - he seems to like creating nice dark, slightly twisted worlds. I like that he does that. Someone needs to! Except, you know, dark slightly twisted worlds tend to lead to cancellation - Dead Like Me got a second season...and then got cancelled during that second season.
It took about 5 episodes for me to get into this series. The whole concept - of 'old' dead people taking the souls of, well, 'new' dead people - is actually really confronting. Having humour, having it treated as a job one second, and then reverently the next - also confronting. Having at least one to two graphic deaths (which range from really funny to heartwrenching) - hey, how many times can I say confronting? But man - by the end of the second disc? Hooked. So hooked.
I have one major beef with this series - and that is the lead actress, Ellen Muth, and her extreme skin-and-bone-y-ness. One the one hand - convincing as a dead person. On the other hand - seriously, fucking eat something. And, you know, keep it down.
I highly recommend this series - have a Bryan Fuller marathon of Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls. And then try and see the outside world and think that it's real.
