2003-09-06

Dead Like Me

I have been watching a series on Showtime called Dead Like Me.

Georgia "George" Lass (ELLEN MUTH) is a college drop-out who has no job skills and seems unable to take an interest in anything, including her own life. She cultivates an air of cynicism that totally pisses off her mother, baffles her father, and isolates her younger sister. George is about to get a wake-up call.

With her mother Joy (CYNTHIA STEVENSON) insisting that she get a job, George applies to a temp agency that sends her out as a file clerk. Her lunch break - and her life - are cut short when a toilet seat from the MIR space station drives her into the pavement. George does not realize that she is dead until Rube (MANDY PATINKIN), the ring leader of a team of grim reapers, points out her remains. Rube takes George under his wing and introduces her to the other members of the undead group: Mason (CALLUM BLUE), Roxy (JASMINE GUY) and Betty (REBECCA GAYHEART).

The members of Rube's team of reapers are all, like George, people who died with unresolved issues. They still have lessons to learn that - for one reason or another - they failed to learn in life. They move about the Pacific Northwest in the full light of day. They walk the city streets and eat at all-night diners, just like anyone else. They have to find somewhere to live, cook, eat and do their laundry. They look just like everyone else but as grim reapers they appear physically different to the living than they did when they were alive.

What George experiences beyond death takes a slightly twisted look at life and at one possible version of life after life. What if death is not the end? What if it is not even an escape from the issues that plagued us? What if it is not a way to avoid accountability, but an opportunity to accept responsibility? What if it is a wake-up call?

Even after she dies, George ends up working back at Happy Time Placement Agency. I think I mentioned a few entries ago about an episode where she gets a call from Deloitte & Touche about an Executive Assistant role... that was just shortly after I lost my job. Hehe.. talk about ironic ;)

If you haven't already seen it, and you enjoy that dark, twisted humor, I think you'd enjoy the series.

kellbelle at 8:40 a.m.

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