Dead Like Me had a lot of potential, but it was weighed down by the writers’ need to be quirky and end with lame cliches masked as clever pieces of wisdom. Plus, I eventually despised George’s character. She started off as a great centerpiece, but she never learns anything. She’s just a disaffected, well nothing. Sure, this kind of experiential blank slate works great for starting their undead coming of age story, but it always ends with her walking away from her experiences chalking her failure or conflict up to having to live on the fringe because of her undead status. Well, that means she starts each episode basically the same way she began. She never has a genuine arc, all so they can use the only face Ellen Muth seems to be able to make.
In pursuit of their witty wisdom, they also often forget the lore they’ve built up in the series. It’s not really that complicated either. We’re not talking about trying to keep straight the difference between tachyon and tractor beams. For instance, one episode ends with George saying, “Death is always on time.” Except for the fact that they established that death can actually be late for a variety of reasons. They use to it mild comedic effect several times in the series. One of the bigger oversights, is they mostly abandon the idea that the characters as reapers don’t look like themselves (until Life After Death). This is a powerful symbol of fringe that reapers live in and our own isolation. This is especially noticeable as they have George connect with guys. They compliment her, she gets all flustered, but is never forced to confront the fact they aren’t seeing her.
The show is full of similar missed opportunities and weak storytelling. That said, its concept is pretty strong and everyone but George (and Rube imo) and are exceptionally well cast and well defined by the writing. Well to be honest, I think both George and Rube are pretty well cast, but not well served by the writing. They rely too heavily on the wise cracking and cranky mentor vibe for Rube without ever really backing it up with genuine wisdom. They mistake Rube mysteriously offering people food as being wise. I get it, food is a comfort, but please get a new bit.
Life After Death, just exacerbates these problems by continuing to misunderstand and twist the show’s mythology to fit its hackeneyed plot rather than just lame truisms from the show. Really, this feels more like an after school special than anything else. At least the show understands its characters. The writing for Daisy was particularly bad. To be fair, the actress does a good impression of Laura Harris’ Daisy, but it just doesn’t fit her face. Structurally, they’re just too dissimilar. They should have let the new actress do her own intrepretation of Daisy, but it’s not like they gave her anything to work with.
However, taken as a series of unrelated vingettes, the show itself is pretty cool even if I’ve been relatively hard on it. The strongest arc in the show isn’t really about George’s journey, but her family’s. It’s unfortunate that the show ended in the second season because it felt like it just got started peeling the layers back for us.
Some side notes: First was Ellen Muth anorexic? She looked almost deathly thin at times. I figure she’s just wiry, but even with the screen adding 10 lbs… Wow. Secondly, Wow, add me to the long list of guys with a crush on Daisy. Laura Harris is going to age very well if she takes good care of her skin. Well, her hair looks very fine, so there may be some excessive thinning, but other than that, I have a feeling she’ll continue to look great for a long time to come. Also, did Muth get a boob job between the show and this movie? Or did they just fill in late?
