Dead Like Me

This unemployment gig has been good for a few reasons (that is me trying to look on the bright side), one reason is that the free time allows me to watch entire seasons (or series) of shows that I was too busy to watch when I was in school. Forget the fact that I'm still in school, technically, community college doesn't give me enough work to make up for the lack of work in my life.

N-E wayz...this girl I was friends with in middle school started every sentence in letters with "N-E wayz" it drove me crazy! There are other transition words! But, alas, I use it as a way to reminisce.

I've nearly completed Dexter, but I have no desire to finish because Josie started school and watching it alone isn't the same. Also, I wiki'd the show so I know how the fourth season ends (don't give me that guilt trip, I have always hated surprises and so I want to know what I'm getting myself into ahead of time) and I'm not really excited to see how it ends. It is one of those things that you ignore in hopes that it will someway not happen. Oh well, soon enough I will get the courage to reach closure, maybe I'll wait until right before season five picks up in the fall.

To fill the hole that Dexter left, I have started watching Dead Like Me. I love Bryan Fuller, so it seems natural for me to dedicate myself to yet another Bryan Fuller creation. Dead Like Me, like Pushing Daisies and Wonderfalls, has a supernatural quirky element to it. However, instead of bringing people back to life (Pushing Daisies) or inanimate objects talking (Wonderfalls), this show is about a group of grim reapers (the undead) who live amongst the living and take people's souls upon death to allow them to "move on." The main character, George, is an 18-year old college dropout who enters the world of the undead when she is killed by a toilet seat from the Soviet Union space station that doesn't fall into the Pacific and instead hits her in Washington. She meets another grims quota, so while he is able to finally "promoted," she is stuck in the world she hated when she was alive.

I love George's character, she reminds me of Jaye Tyler in her I hate the world attitude and her reluctance to let anyone inside her life out of fear of pain. She must try to come to terms with her death and accept that she must let her family and old life go. Even though she hated it while she was alive, now that she is dead she is filled with regret and longing. She visits her family's home despite the better advice of her grim mentor, Rube (played by Mandy Patinkin), and she ends up hurting herself. She then tries to avoid her job of taking the dead only to find out the hard way that she can't change destiny, all she can do is her job.

I'm on episode 8 of 29 and I'm really loving it. There is also a movie that came out last year but the reviews I've read by fans on Amazon aren't very good. I'll watch it when the time comes and formulate my own opinion. The series, like so many of Bryan Fuller's creations, died young because rave reviews by critics and award nominations don't buy viewership. So sad :(

But, anyone interested in checking the show out, imdb has links to full episodes and Netflix has the series on instant queue.