Newest rental addiction

Cruising the Black Dog video store the other day, Rocco and I noticed a tv series we hadn't heard of, available on DVD. Dead Like Me is produced by MGM and apparently airs on the Sci Fi chanel for those who have cable tv.

It's quite funny and very, very odd. The lead is an 18-year-old girl who is killed by the toilet seat of the Mir space station as it plummets to Earth. She dies in the first 20 minutes of the pilot episode. Allegedly, some souls have work to do before they can pass over, and newly-dead George (aka. Georgia) gets recruited as a grim reaper. Her job is to capture the soul of a person just before they die. Illogical and bizarre situations arise, colleagues are weirdos, and her family have trouble dealing with George's death.

Some of the characters are better than others, but many of the actors are familiar. Ellen Muth plays George and is essentially annoying and incapable of expression. But really, that's like any normal 18-year-old, so maybe she's doing an ok job of acting. From the tv series Criminal Minds, Mandy Patinkin plays Rube, the head-honcho reaper, on Dead Like Me. I can only think of him as Gideon in the Criminal Minds show since he really plays the same character and doesn't seem to be doing anything at all different in this series.
One of my favourite characters on Dead Like Me is Roxy, played by Jasmine Guy. Anybody of my generation watching The Cosby Show or A Different World will recognise Jasmine. I think she was the all-snooty, all-terrible, southern-accented bitch who maybe dated Theo on The Cosby Show then was living in residence at college on A Different World. Roxy is waspy and hormonal. She works as a parking attendant for her day job (yes, reapers need regular jobs too) and deals with a lot of shit, as you can imagine. She's super fun to watch and I wish she would show up more often.

It's a pretty good show. We're rented the pilot episode and half of the first season so far. I think Rocco might be picking up Season I, part II this afternoon. This is the best way to watch a tv series, I think. You can watch it in your own time, stretching them out if you want to savour the season, or overdosing and watching all the episodes in one long sitting with lots of supplies like chips and juice. Who needs cable when you can get your hands on just what you want when you want it? You should get your hands on Dead Like Me. It's no hilarious, really, and not the best series I've ever seen, but it is definitely entertaining and different. Forget all about Six Feet Under, because this is better.