Dead Like Me (Sky One)

sceptre

Anyone else catch this new series on Sky?

It's based around a chick in her late teens who dies after being hit by a toilet from Mir and takes a job as a reaper.

It's not a comedy, more of a late teen drama with occasional sarcasm tossed in (I quite like late teen/early 20s sarcasm, my own has kept me happy for ten years now). Needs a little improvement if I'm going to keep watching it but at least we get to see pianos falling on people's heads and Rebecca Gayheart talking about her hard nipples. Some nice editing though and a supporting cast you'll mostly recognise from elsewhere.

Apparently inspired by Piers Anthony's "On A Pale Horse"


It's repeated on Sky One Mix tomorrow at 9 and on Sky One at 3am Tuesday.

one-angry-dwarf

It's quite good. I dont understand how she could kill the little girl in front of people and then just walk away though without anyone stopping her.

Stake

I'm new here and this is my first post, so I thought i might as well make it a snivelling ode to the pilot episode of "Dead Like Me", packed full of hyperbole. Here goes....




Unfair as it may be, “Buffy” is now the yardstick by which I measure how good, or dire as is the usual result, new TV programmes are. I remember the night I watched the first ever showing of Buffy in Ireland. It was a Saturday night and Sky was showing the stupid little programme with the vacuous blonde running and jumping. Or so I thought. “Welcome to the Hellmouth”, the first “Buffy” episode, was so good you could almost hear all the necessary components clicking into place. The directing was expert, the characters immediately likeable, the acting was superb and the script crackled with wit and verve. “Buffy” was a confident show from the start. It knew how good it was and it wanted to show the world.

I don’t think I was ever as sure of anything as I was of how good “Buffy” was going to be. Until now.

I’ve just finished watching the pilot episode of “Dead Like Me”. It struck me dumb. An incredible 80 minutes of television that is wonderfully original and inventive. The opening sequence is an absolute treasure and sets the tone so perfectly for what is to come that a précis wouldn’t do it justice. It just demands to be watched again and again. The production values throughout are fantastic. The Gravelings look absolutely amazing, as does the effect when George is sat on as a ghost. It’s sharply directed, no doubt, particularly with some audacious keyhole angled shots and so on. But it’s the acting and script where “Dead Like Me” really comes into its own.

Ellen Muth was brave cast considering she is not easily shoehorned into the conventional idea of what “sexy” is (For the record, I think she’s pretty hot). Muth plays George with a real deadpan wit of a “Generation Y” kid who is just jaded and tired of MTV, her teachers and her parents telling who and what she has to be. There is one line about “being on the cusp of adulthood and not knowing who you want to be” that really rang true in her delivery. I’m twenty-one now, so maybe I‘m past the cusp, but I know the feeling. Those opening moments present us with the character of George as a disaffected youth who deals with her fathers cheating in as deadpan a manner as she does losing a few files at work. For all her cynicism and bitterness, that is crammed into her in the first twenty minutes, it’s impossible not to like George. Her quiet dismantling of the interminably happy temp agency lady is a joy to watch for anyone who has had to watch and bite their tongue while some moron in a pin striped suit flicked through their CV. The character of Mason is a little too close to Doyle off “Angel” for my liking but it’s pretty clear that this is George’s show no matter how many loveable rogues are there to guide her new career.

The script is as sharp as anything on TV right now. “Six Feet Under” might have showed us that we could laugh while there is death in the room but “Dead Like Me” takes that to a new level. It’s packed full of quirky one liners that are almost thrown away and lost in the pace of the dialogue. George “excels at not giving a ****” and “some (college) seemed like enough”. The language is great and refreshing in this conservative day and age. I was delighted that Sky decided to run the show unedited and without cuts to the bad language. When a stray toilet seat is about to hit you, you don’t say, “oh gosh darn it”, you swear! When somebody is pestering you for your middle name in the busy streets you don’t plead, “well gee whiz, could you just pardon me as I run away?” you tell them to **** off! The use of “bad” language coupled with already believable dialogue gives “Dead like Me” an even more real feeling.

Some may argue that “Dead Like Me” is too downbeat, dealing only in tragedy and heartbreak. The central theme would appear to be the futility of life. We’re led to believe that our expiration date is written even before we are born. So the future isn’t only pencilled in, it’s written. And so god, or whatever, is playing a game with his own creation. So what? Does that make us puppets? Pawns for some cosmic forces? Perhaps. But I find that oddly comforting. If nothing we do ultimately matters, then all that matters is what we do when we have the chance. George found that out after death. Luckily that wasn’t too late.

sceptre

(I wish my first post here had been that interesting to read:mad: )

Welcome to the forums Stake, hopefully it won't be your last.

ixoy

To be honest, I wasn't impressed THAT much with the pilot. However I've also seen the next three episodes and think they're a vast improvement and display some real quirky potential.

I'd argue that the show isn't a drama but a black comedy. Certainly more comedic than Six Feet Under as it is, for one, slightly more surreal, and certainly more arcerbic. Ruben is great once you get a hold of him - dishing out pithy whiplash remarks, reprimanding the new Reaper George. The others are still a bit flat - cocky Brit, ditzy glamour girl, etc - but George's family are an interesting lot (ok the Dad isn't, but her sister - Ellie - is enjoyable bonkers and the mother is interestingly both annoying and likeable, a rounded person).

As long as the show doesn't descend into preachiness or morale lessons (whereby George learns something new about herself/life and becomes a better person and thus gets to transcend in the end).

Oh and for those who are wondering why nobody notices George... get used to it. There's currently a debate on it on uk.media.tv.buffy-v-slayer

here for those interested. It has a couple of spoilers about future episodes but nothing important...

Stake

Thanks sceptre. Nice to be here!

I thought it was pretty obvious why George did not get noticed after taking the girls soul. In conversation with George while she is still just dead, Rube implies that he can interact with people whenever he chooses too. (This would be at the funeral when he and George are on the couch and he says something like "here's something else I can do that you can't. Watch this" and then says hello to a passer by. That wasn't him being a smart arse. That was him becoming visible to the living.)
The problem with that is it the producers make no effort to show the audience when the characters are visible or invisble to the living, which leaves confusion.

Eden

Yerrr, it was okay. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't go setting the vid for it. George was something a little different as a heroine, although she did annoy me at times, coz at 18, she's a bit old for all that attitoood. She didn't look 18 either.
But yeah, a thumbs up. Just not a very enthusiastic thumbs up!

sceptre

Originally posted by Eden
She didn't look 18 either.

22

Still not as bad as Jason "I'm 64 but my character is 19" Priestley

Cabaal

Originally posted by sceptre
22

Still not as bad as Jason "I'm 64 but my character is 19" Priestley

Well I just saw aboiut 15min of the pilot before I headed out to the pub tonight and after seeing her again in the pilot she looks alot younger in it compared to later episodes (I've seen upto Ep12), she seems to get older as time goes on, amazing what makeup does, eh

I have to say I really like the series, though with my luck it will properly be canceled just like "John Doe", "Undergrades" and the one or two others TV shows I actually think are decent compared to the usual ****e that airs on TV half the day....

Pigman II

Originally posted by sceptre
22

Still not as bad as Jason "I'm 64 but my character is 19" Priestley

Jason Priestly was 21 when he started on Beverly Hills 90120. Luke Perry IMHO was the one on that show who looked far too old to be playing a high school student.

Roller Toaster

Thanks for the heads up Stake, I'll make sure to set the video come 3am Tuesday. Welcome to boards.ie too.

eggshapedfred

i liked the show. thought it could have done without the "bad" language. it didnt need it. it seemed to be just put in to make it a bit more "grown up" and a bit, well, less Buffy-ish. sorry stake.

and George's real second name is Muth. oh how appropriate.

that english guy did remind me of Doyle from Angel (RIP Glenn Quinn), even though the he was the bisexual guy in As If....

Pigman II

Originally posted by eggshapedfred
and George's real second name is Muth. oh how appropriate.

In fairness I thought she was pretty cute.

ixoy

Originally posted by Cabaal
I have to say I really like the series, though with my luck it will properly be canceled just like "John Doe", "Undergrades" and the one or two others TV shows I actually think are decent compared to the usual ****e that airs on TV half the day....

It's been renewed See here 15 episodes to come for the next season (12 for this first one).

keeaumoku_tofu

the better half walked in just as George walked away from the fire post-wreck with the excuse she had to pee. Could someone tell me what happened? You can PM me if you don't want to post a spoiler. Thanks.

John R

Repeated 3am tomorrow morning

ChumpStain

I saw the second episode the other day and I didn't really think it was good. It was Ok but I don't think I'll be going out of my way to watch it.

MrBigglesworth

I agree with chump about the second episode, I found my attention waning a tad. I'll check out the 3rd episode and make a judgement call.