1.01: Pilot

[Tabitha]

Brand spanking new show hits Showtime, and boy is it good!.

First Aired June 2003 Showtime, September 2003 Sky One.

From www.epguides.com/deadlikeme:

The series begins when a young woman is killed by a piece of the Mir space station hurtling to earth. She discovers that the afterlife does indeed exist, where she has been assigned a job as a 'Reaper.' It's her job to reap the souls from the living and guide them to their eternal reward. Besides coping with her new job, she must learn to deal with being young and starting out - and of course, being dead.

Some tidbits also from the above site:


The budget of the 2-hour-pilot episode was about $6,000,000... It was shot in July 2002 (in Vancouver, Canada).
The working title of the series (while filming the pilot) was DEAD GIRL.
Meet the director. The man who directed the 2-hour-pilot is Scott Winant. He is a well-known tv-director. In 1994, he directed the 2-hour-pilot of Earth 2. His credits includes 'Cupid', 'My So-Called Life', 'thirtysomething', 'The West Wing', 'The Shield', 'Get Real' and other shows. He is also the producer of 'Dead Like Me'.

We learn in the pilot episode that Mason was the one who created the nickname "Toilet Seat Girl" for George.

The jazz song which plays in the back of almost the whole pilot episode is called "Hell" and the artist is Squirrel Nut Zippers.

In the original script, Georgia had told Reggie if she ever died to order balloons for her funeral, but other than that, in the pilot episode, it seemed like a pretty odd occurrence. Many people didn't understand the guy with the balloons because of that, the cut the conversation between Reggie and George. moment where George said to Reggie about the balloons (in the first version of the pilot script) was the scene where she found Reggie in her closet (like we saw in the aired pilot) and she told her to get out, and Reggie was upset so they talk for a while and in the end, George completed: "Hopefully when I die, I'll get balloons."


I did wonder about the balloon thing!

 

[ray gower]

I watcheed both the first showing and the repeat.

Unfortunately I think I was in a cynical mood for the first sitting. There were some irritations, like being hit by a toilet seat. Out of how many tons of metal, George gets struck by a plastic toilet seat?
The curried Borsch must be something else on Russian spaceships, if that is all they get back!
The damage to the city was a tad light too.

Nor am I entirely certain what the touching your victim was supposed to be for.

Still this is fantasy and I was in a much more mellow mood for the repeat. It made it easier to appreciate some of the more humourous events, like the victim in the bank heist (why didn't they need to touch him?) and the more emotive, like the young girls passing.

All in all it was a passable start and it will be interesting to see if they can improve on it, or if it will drift downwards.

 

[Tabitha]

Yeah, I wondered about the possibility of a toilet seat surviving re-entry, and also the chances of it hitting a populated area, but as we see from the subsequent deaths, these Reapers are involved with spectacular deaths, and I suppose people do die in strange ways every day. It is a wacky touch that doesn't really work if you think about it for long, but it is one of the quirks that I really like.

I have seen this ep about four times now, and the death of the guy in the bank still makes me wince every time. Black, black humour in that scene, because even though I wince, I still laugh.
He did get touched by the way. Mason looked at his cheque, clocked the correct name and brushed his shoulder.

I think the idea behind the touching them is removal of their 'souls', or something, but I don't understand how they (the victims) are then able to keep functioning for some time before they actually die. The ghost appears after the person's death - but why? If they "pop out the soul", why isn't the ghost immediately visible? This one has confused me for a while now.

All in all it was a passable start and it will be interesting to see if they can improve on it, or if it will drift downwards.

I have watched a few more eps of this, and upon rewatching the premiere again, I think it gets better and better. I think many would agree.

 

[Brit Chick]

Originally posted by ray gower

Nor am I entirely certain what the touching your victim was supposed to be for.

It seemed to me that the grim reapers touched their victims/charges in the certain way to remove their souls just before the violent death. i remember that the traffic woman didn't do that, she just kinda leant in and grabbed the soul after the death and Rube made the point that not all reapers use the same methods

 

[Dave]

I just saw this and I'm not sure if it something I will watch without fail. It was amusing though.

I'm not sure that the voice-over worked as well as just telling the story would have.

Actually, I think one of the funniest things was at the end of the credits: "The events and characters are entirely fictional. Any similarities to persons living or dead are entirely coincidental."

Thanks for explaining the balloons, that didn't make much sense.

Who sang 'Que Sera Sera'? (That was the reason I was reading the credits.)

 

[Tabitha]

You mean on the soundtrack to this ep? The only version I know is the one by Edith Piaf, and I am not sure if it was the same one played on the show.

 

[Brit Chick]

It definately wasn't the old version - it was really laid back almost grungy and I liked it a lot more than the Doris Day version !

 

[Annette]

can someone please please please help me? due to the stupid video cutting out before the end? (yes i know its me that programmes it BUT......) LOL what happens with George and the little girl on the train? :crying: I missed the last bit. AND I missed the repeat. Boohooooooooooo!!!!!!!

annette

 

[Dave]

The Ending...

George gets the girl to get up from her seat, a train guard tells her to go back, but at that point the carriage crashes. The girl doesn't die because she wasn't in her seat.

The survivors of the accident sit around a campfire. George walks off into the woods and meets with her "boss". He tells her that souls have to die when they are meant to, otherwise they "go bad". He convinces her to go back and take the little girl's soul, who then goes off to a virtual funfair that decends from the sky...

 

[Annette]

Thanks Dave, you're the best.

annette

 

[markpud]

Interesting pilot, should be a fun series depending on how they take it on.. The dead people going back to interact with their families, who can't recognise them, has been done before though....

Got me interested enough to watch the next episode, which I taped last night.....

 

[Krystal]

What got me is definitely that is different.
I have to adjust a bit to the humor because it wasn't my style but I have to admit that I really enjoy it.

The thing with the girl was very interesting and how George have to dealt with been dead but not only that with been a reaper.

Krystal

 

[Jay Jay]

I missed the pilot episode but thanks to you guys I've kinda got the gist of what happened.

Cheers.

I so love this programme. I have managed to watch every episode or taped it, though the 2 hours last night kinda threw me, glad I was sitting watching it or I would only have taped an hour.

J