Dead Like Me coming to Sky One - I strongly urge you to watch

[Tabitha]

I was about to go and harass Sky One via email about this show when I found the following:

Sky Publicity Page

DEAD LIKE ME


Growing up is hard. Especially when you’re dead. A gritty, dark comedy, Dead Like Me is a classic coming of age story…. with a grim twist. Laced with gallows humour about life, death and the afterworld, the show features the brutally honest approach to death first seen in Six Feet Under.

For Georgia Lass (Ellen Muth), life is boring.  With a dreary day job and a lousy family life, the typically surly 20 year-old suspects that she must be destined for something more…. stimulating.  She’s right, of course, though she could never have known that destiny would take the form of an errant scrap of Soviet plumbing.  Welcome to the afterlife.

Forced by her mother Joy (Cynthia Stevenson) to take a job as a lowly file clerk, George is surrounded on all sides by the drab, lifeless concrete of the financial district.  As she prepares for lunch on her first day, she is blissfully unaware that miles above the earth, a toilet seat from the Russian space station Mir has dislodged itself and is hurtling through the atmosphere on a strange mission of destiny.  Killed instantly by the flying seat, George is unceremoniously thrust into a very weird afterlife.

Freshly deceased and more than a little perplexed, George is approached by Rube (Mandy Patinkin, Chicago Hope), who, after dispensing some kindly words of advice, reveals himself to be a grim reaper with George as his newest recruit.  Rube and his merry band of reapers, Mason (Callum Blue, As If) Roxy (Jasmine Guy, The Cosby Show) and Betty (Rebecca Gayheart, Beverly Hills 90210), take the sullen soul collector under their proverbial wing and show her the reaping ropes.

But life isn’t easy for the young reaper and the idea of collecting souls does not immediately appeal to George.  She has to learn the ways of the afterlife as well as resolving issues from her former life before she is allowed to “move onâ€.  Under the guiding hand of Rube, George gradually grows, in death, into the person she was meant to become in life.

Darkly funny, Dead Like Me can be seen exclusively on Sky One from Friday 19 September at 9.00 pm

 

[Annette]

Hehehe sounds good. I do like Mandy Patinkin, think hes funny. I shall try to remember about this.

annette

 

[Dave]

Everyone seems to like it, both the professional critics and the online fans.

Would you say that it was mainly a comedy something like 'Third Rock from the Sun', or mainly a fantasy drama like 'Six Feet Under', or a little of both?

Is this a show that needs it's own forum?

 

[Tabitha]

I am unsure of how to classify it exactly.

As with last year's Showtime scifi outing, Odyssey 5, Dead Like Me has a lot of strong language, and "gallows humour" is probably being a bit soft - it can be pretty gruesome at times.

I've never actually watched Six Feet Under, but your description of a fantasy drama sounds pretty close to the mark.
It definitely isn't a 3rd Rock style comedy, it's like a coming of age drama for adults and morticians or something. I don't know. It defies explanation! I hope it lasts a good few years.

I would be interested in getting a new forum for this show, although I don't know if it might suffer the fate of the Dead Zone forum, where people pop in to just say "this was a good ep", or "this is my fave character".

I have a feeling there might be a chance of some deeper discussion of the show, maybe.

 

[Dave]

I've not seen 'Six Feet Under' either, but I've read that 'Dead Like Me' is from the same mould, and also seen it compared to 'Third Rock from the Sun'.

from Zap2it
Premise:
In the mythology of "Dead Like Me," certain people, when they die, are offered the job of grim reapers. They get a rapidly healing physical body (which has a different face when seen by the living) and the chance to stay in the world until they collect a requisite number of souls. Then, the job passes to the last dead person on their list. The newest addition to this team is George, who died at 18 after being struck by flaming space debris. She was pretty unhappy in life, and learning that death doesn't offer relief from living is not sitting very well with her.

 

[Brit Chick]

Watched this last night - truly excellent and definately in the Six Feet Under Mould. In fact Georgia's attitude was similar to Claire's - the whole damn crappy life of a teenager and why is the whole world against me kind of thing.

enough humour in it as well, not so much to make you feel its a comedy comedy but enough to make it a watchable black comedy drama - yeah, I guess thats a good description

There are traumas too and Georgia having to cope with the first time she has to take a soul as a grim reaper is pretty tough - she really can't understand the sense of it all and at that point I was right there with her, then Rube comes along and explains the facts of life (death) and there you go - it does make sense

I agree with the title of this thread - I strongly urge you to watch this!

 

[Tabitha]

Well, as you might have guessed, I had already seen this episode before, but I watched it again because I didn't really have anything better to do on Friday, plus I wanted to make sure my flatmate saw it.

I still thought it was good the second time around, although perhaps not as good as when I first saw it. As I recall I didn't instantly love it, but by the third or fourth episode I was hooked.

There were overtones of sappiness in the premiere, that slowly get further and further from the surface. I think the show becomes a little snappier, and definitely less overly moralistic.

If you weren't too keen on the first show, at least give it a chance for a few more weeks. Please, for me

 

[angelle myst]

I had a few problems with the premier although there is definitely much more good than there is bad, especially for a Pilot.

It was very engaging, the writing and production was high quality and it was a lot more adult-orientated than i expected.

I had a little trouble about believing George was 18, i know the actress is 21, but she looks a little young. I realize we're supposed to suspend belief on some of these shows (just look at SMG, supposed to be 16 in the Buffy Pilot when she was nearer her 20's?) but it's more of a minor irritation for me than a problem.

The plot was slightly predictable, but the show is original enough for me to tune in again this week, especially since i don't watch 6 Feet Under which people seem to compare it to, it's a whole different show to me

I think a forum would be a good idea - people outside the US can't access the Showtime site for whatever info they may want about the show, a forum here would mean access to info and discussion that would otherwise be unavailable.

 

[Tabitha]

I started a dedicated thread for the pilot over -HERE

Come on over!