TV: Dead Like Me

Just in time for its cancellation, I've started getting into the DVDs for the first season of Showtime's Dead Like Me, a weird and funny show about death.

Ellen Muth plays George, who is killed in the first episode by a toilet seat falling from a disintegrating Russian space station. (I didn't think they had toilet seats in zero-g bathrooms, but whatever.) But her death is just the beginning, as she finds herself forced into service as a Grim Reaper, under the genial but strict guidance of Rube, played by Mandy Patinkin. George and her fellow Reapers are given vague notices each morning about the time and location of that day's scheduled deaths, and they must then determine who's going to die (they only get a first initial and last name to work with), and extract that person's soul before death (to prevent their suffering during their last moments).

George spends a lot of time rebelling against her new responsibilities. For one thing, she keeps spying on, and occasionally interacting with, her family from her old life, which is forbidden. For another, she thinks the whole death business is unfair, and keeps shirking her duties, or trying to find loopholes, which invariably makes things much worse.

It's a very interesting premise, bolstered by excellent acting. Muth is perfect as a slacker who slowly begins to appreciate and experience life as an undead person more fully than she ever did while alive. Patinkin is also great, kind and friendly while still being tough as nails. Jasmine Guy is another Reaper; it takes some getting used to seeing her in this role -- she uses language that would have appalled Whitley!

The religious aspects of the afterlife are downplayed on the show, which is fine with me. Each dead person chooses their own destination, whether it be a carnival or the cliffs of Dover. And the deaths are caused not by any god, or even fate, but by malevolent-looking creatures called Gravelings. Each episode reveals some new facet of the way death works, which is a mystery even to Rube, the leader of George's group of Reapers. He receives his orders from an unknown and unexplored source (unexplored in the episodes I've seen so far, anyway). But George's inquisitiveness about -- and resistance to -- death's workings awakens a certain curiosity in Rube as well.

It's a shame it only got two seasons. And probably a mistake for Showtime. Dead Like Me feels like a flagship program, one a network can point to as an example of the best they have to offer, one that has the highest potential of attracting new viewers. What else does Showtime have that equals its quality and prestige? The L-Word? Huff? Fat Actress? I don't think so. Dead Like Me was the closest thing Showtime had to a reason I might want to sign up for the channel. By dropping it, and by failing to pick up the brilliant Sucker Free City as a series, Showtime instead looks like a floundering network, one that has no idea how to attract new viewers, nor serve the ones it's already got.

Side note: I find it interesting that the episodes of Dead Like Me are as short as broadcast network programs (minus commercials) -- 40 minutes or so. I know Stargate was the same way. On the other hand, HBO's shows fill the hour (sometimes going over, even), whether it be Carnivale or Deadwood or The Sopranos. It's obvious Showtime makes room for commercials, with an eye on possible syndication on the non-premium channels (which certainly turned into a goldmine with Stargate), which in my mind hamstrings the full potential of a premium channel program, whereas HBO (despite the surprise success of Sex and the City in syndication) has only one goal -- to make the best show for the audience they have now.