Dead Like Me

Dead Like Me
File:Dead like me header.jpg Dead Like Me cast photo showing reapers George, Rube, Roxy, Mason, and Daisy
Created by	Bryan Fuller
Starring	Ellen Muth Mandy Patinkin Callum Blue Jasmine Guy Laura Harris Cynthia Stevenson Britt McKillip
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	29
Production
Running time	47 minutes (approx) 1 hour 13 minutes (Pilot)
Original release
Network	Showtime
Release	June 27, 2003 – October 31, 2004

Dead Like Me is an American television comedy-drama created by Bryan Fuller for the Showtime network about a group of grim reapers in Seattle, Washington. The series stars Ellen Muth and Mandy Patinkin.

Eighteen-year-old Georgia "George" Lass (played by Muth) serves as the show's protagonist and narrator. Early in the pilot episode, she dies, leaving her parents and younger sister behind at a point when her relationships with them were all on shaky ground for varying youthful reasons. She is tapped to become one of the "undead", a grim reaper. She soon learns that a reaper's job is to remove the souls of people, preferably right before they die, and escort them until they move on into their afterlife. The show explores the "lives" and experiences of a small team of such reapers — a team led by Rube (played by Patinkin) — as well as the post-mortem changes in George and George's family as they deal with George's untimely passing.

Fuller, the show's creator, left early to co-create Wonderfalls; the creative direction of the show was taken over by executive producer John Masius.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler Georgia Lass was aloof and emotionally distant from her family and shied away from her life. After dropping out from college, she took a job at Happy Time Temporary Services. On her lunch break of her first day, she is hit and killed by a zero-G toilet seat from the de-orbiting of the Mir space station. The front page of the newspaper has an article and picture under the heading "Mir's Fiery Plunge".

She is informed shortly after her death that, rather than moving on to the "great beyond," she will become a grim reaper in the "external influence" division, responsible for reaping souls of people who die in accidents (many of which are of Rube Goldberg-style complexity), suicides, and homicides. It is learned in the deleted scenes of the first season DVDs that a Reaper is placed in the division of the factor that killed them: those who died from external influences are placed in the external influences division; those who died as a result of the Plague are in the Plague division and so forth.

Through the first season, George has trouble adjusting to her circumstances: collecting souls, while holding a day job at Happy Time. By the second season, she has mostly adjusted to her new role in the circle of life, though still has unresolved issues with her life and her afterlife.

George's family is struggling to deal with her death. Joy is depressed and visibly repressing it, while Clancy is cheating on her. Reggie acts out — stealing toilet seats from neighbors and school and hanging them on a tree — before being sent to therapy by Joy. She clings to the belief that George visits her but is starting to lie to cover this up. At the start of the second season, the family began to break apart as divorce proceedings began.

Nearly all of the main characters have some form of depression, however they cope with it in different ways: Mason resorts to alcohol and drugs, Daisy puts on a veneer of perkiness, and Roxy is physically and verbally aggressive. Rube and George are more open about their sadness, as they both tend to be brooding loners.

Cast and characters

Main article: List of Dead Like Me characters

Reapers

• Georgia "George" Lass (Ellen Muth): The show's protagonist. On top of reaping, she has a day job at Happy Time Temporary Services, under the assumed name 'Millie.' She was killed by the seat of a zero-G toilet from the Mir space station.

• Rube Sofer (Mandy Patinkin): The head of the group of reapers. He died in 1927 and had a daughter named Rosie. It is hinted that he died while on the run after a robbery.

• Mason (Callum Blue): An alcoholic and a thief, but serves as an "older brother"-type figure to George, and cares deeply for Daisy. He is originally from London, England. He died in 1966 by drilling a hole in his head to achieve a permanent high.

• Roxy Harvey (Jasmine Guy): A strong-willed, independent character. She is a meter maid turned cop. She was killed in 1982 by a jealous roommate; strangled to death with leg warmers - which she invented.

• Daisy Adair (Laura Harris): A spoiled actress who often tells stories about (alleged) sexual escapades with classic movie stars. She was transferred in from SoHo, New York City after Betty disappeared. She died on December 13 1938 in a fire in Marietta, Georgia, supposedly on the set of Gone With the Wind.

• Betty Rohmer (Rebecca Gayheart): A confident, well-adjusted reaper. She keeps Polaroids of each of the souls she reaped in department store shopping bags, organized by personality type. She was beginning to bond with George when she "hitched a ride" with one of the souls George had reaped and was never seen again. She died in 1926 while cliff-diving.

Family

• Joy Lass (Cynthia Stevenson): George's mother.
• Clancy Lass (Greg Kean): George's father.
• Reggie Lass (Britt McKillip): George's younger sister.

Happy Time Temporary Services

• Delores Herbig (Christine Willes): George's boss.
• Crystal Smith (Crystal Dahl): the lurky Happy Time receptionist.

Grim reapers

Grim reapers, portrayed without the traditional black cloak and scythe, are an integral part of the cycle of life and death. They remove the souls of the living shortly before death and escort them until they move on into their afterlife.

Death has a list of who is scheduled to die and when. The foreman gets the list, transcribes certain information to a yellow Post-it note (first initial and last name of the person, where they are to die, and their estimated time of death), and assigns them to the reapers; this assignment is non-transferable — only that reaper can remove that soul. That person must be reaped at the time of their intended death, or the soul will remain in the dead body until reaped. If the events surrounding a person's death are interfered with by a reaper and they do not die at their "appointment," the soul will "wither and die and rot inside" them. Deaths can also be stopped without risk to the soul by interfering well in advance, thus reapers would not be inferering with the events that lead to the death, however such actions do have consequences which can result in many more people dying before their time. Reapers collect souls until they reach a quota, though they do not know in advance what their quota is. Once that quota is reached, the reaper moves on and the soul collected last takes his or her place.

Reapers have a physical body and may interact with the living and the dead. They do not age, but reapers cannot fly, disappear or walk through walls, so they need to find their reap by conventional means of transportation. In fact, the only real power besides collecting souls is an ability to heal quickly, allowing a quick recovery from any physical harm incurred on the job. Reapers also have the same emotional needs and drives as living humans.

To remove a soul, a reaper must touch the body of the person to be reaped. When possible, the touch is done before death to minimize emotional harm to the soul, especially in cases of violent death. After death, the soul sometimes exists for a short time as a ghost. These ghosts retain the physical image of the being as it was reaped. If reaped before death, the ghost does not show any injuries suffered during death and usually doesn't remember dying. Souls reaped after death often manifest wounds corresponding to the manner of their deaths and may be heavily traumatized by the experience. (A soul cannot leave its body without being reaped. If the Reaper doesn't take it, it is trapped in a corpse, completely aware. This is as horrific as it sounds, especially when the deceased goes through an autopsy.) Ghosts cannot communicate directly with the living, only with and through the undead reapers. The passage into the afterlife is shown as a brightly lit scene towards which the newly-deceased is drawn. The portal/scene is unique to each soul: for a child, it may be a wonderful carnival, but for a yoga master, it may be a Deva beckoning from within a Divine Lotus. Souls cannot be forced to enter the portals and can be downright stubborn about it if they feel it is not yet time for them to move on. A big part of the Reapers' job is to convince such souls to do so.

Reapers do not get paid, so they must find ways to get money, whether a day job, or "living off the land". Reapers often take things from their reaps, sometimes with permission from their ghosts. Of the reapers featured in the show, only George and Roxy hold steady jobs, with Daisy getting occasional work as an actress.

It is important that the living do not figure out that reapers are among them. This makes it taboo for reapers to enter into romantic relationships with the living; it is allowed (though frowned upon) for reapers to develop platonic friendships, and there appears to be no explicit taboo on reapers engaging in sexual relations with the living (or each other). It is likewise frowned upon for a reaper to gain notoriety among the living (for example, when George receives a promotion at work, she is encouraged not to accept it). Apparently, reapers are never noticed in the immediate aftermath of a death, even when arguing with their reap. Ronnie, a person suffering from schizophrenia, could apparently see reapers at work, as well as gravelings, another normally unseen creature involved in deaths (see below).

When seen by the living, a reaper's physical appearance is different from the one they had when alive, though fellow reapers see their original appearances. This remains true as long as any of the reaper's contemporaries still live (Betty and Rube have apparently regained their original appearances). George says her appearance resembles someone familiar "with crack cocaine, ten-dollar blowjobs, and maybe even a trick baby or two." On Halloween, however, reapers regain their original appearance for the day, meaning the recently deceased need to wear masks. This effect continues into All Saints' Day; George's sister, Reggie, and even Krystal apparently recognizes her on that day. Although being dead for 60 years, Daisy was recognised by an elderly man who remembered her.

However, it is also possible that you can only be recognized by those who knew you when you died, as Kiffany at the Waffle house had no problems recognising the alter-egos of the reapers. Another possible explanation is that a person regains their original form after a set amount of time, which could explain why Daisy was recognized and how Rube had been previously recognized twice before.

To date, only George's and Mason's assumed faces have been shown on screen; the DVD commentary track for the pilot episode suggests Fuller's departure led a de-emphasis of this aspect of the reaper's back-story.

As part of the system, Reapers are forbidden to tell anyone about Grim Reapers or to reveal that they are dead people who have been returned to life. If they try, various bad things happen, including the spontaneous loss of any memory they try to use as proof that they know something only the dead person could have known. However, various psychically aware persons in the Dead Like Me universe can sense that there's something not right about Reapers, and are even sometimes dimly aware of what's happening if they see a soul Reaped. While some people claim to love Death and would seem to be ideal Reaper "groupies," the reaction to actually seeing a Reaper at work or suspecting what they are is always fear, horror, and immediate flight.

Pet reapers, who collect animal souls, also appear during the series, but it is unspecified how they are chosen or replaced. For that matter, it is unclear if these reapers are only for pets, rather than animals in the wild.

Gravelings

File:Dead Like Me -- Episode 112 - Vacation.jpg

Gravelings on vacation

The gravelings are mischievous gremlin-like creatures that cause the accidents and mishaps that kill people. They make their home in graveyards. The living cannot see them, though in one episode, a schizophrenic seems to be able to. A reaper can see them, but only "in the corner of his or her eye," and while they appear to understand human speech perfectly well, they don't communicate verbally with Reapers (although they do talk to each other in a hushed and unintelligible babble.) Reapers can apparently communicate with them to some extent (Daisy once shushed a graveling). George appears to be able to see them more clearly than the rest, and it has been implied that she encountered them at least twice as a child.

File:RayIsAGraveling.jpg

Birth of a graveling

In "Forget Me Not", one was produced from a character's death at the hands of a Reaper, implying that they may come from either evil or rotted souls, from the un-reaped soul of a person who dies before their destined time, or from someone who is killed by a Reaper. When Rube learns that someone died without a Post-It, i.e. without a predestined time of death, he clearly knows this means something very bad is going to happen and is not surprised to learn of the creation of the graveling. In a later episode, "Always", George vanquished it by a similar touch used during reaping. It is unclear if any reaper can eliminate any graveling, or just this particular one because it was killed ahead of time by a reaper, or just by George because she might have a special power that we can suppose is recognizable by gravelings, as hinted in "The shallow end" final swimming pool scene.

The gravelings, like the gremlins of modern legend, cause "coincidences" that make sure people die when they are supposed to. The Reapers know when people are supposed to die and can sometimes interfere. (The trick seems to be diverting them from their fate with enough margin that they don't "make their appointments." A person who makes their appointment, even if not killed, is doomed and must be reaped.) This infuriates the gravelings and they will unmercifully harass a Reaper who does this. The reapers have all been plagued by graveling vengeance during the series, although how(and why) the Gravelings harassed Rube and Betty was not seen during the run of the series.

Every so often, the gravelings take a "day off." It is not known whether nobody dies of external causes because the gravelings are taking the day off, or if the gravelings take a day off because nobody is scheduled to die of external causes.

Airings

Dead Like Me premiered in North America on June 27 2003; the second season began airing in the summer of 2004. The show was cancelled and the last episode aired on October 31, 2004. The show was one of the few high definition TV productions at the time. Season 1 has also been shown on Sky One in Ireland and the United Kingdom, America Plus in the Middle East, Sony in Latin America, Catch On in South Korea and Fox8 in Australia. The series was also aired in Croatia, currently on Showcase Diva in Canada (in both English and French), and it's being aired in Spain on Cuatro (since November 2005) (in Spanish) and Sci Fi Channel (since June 2006). Both seasons were aired in Iceland on Skjár einn.

As of January 2006, Swedish SVT2 has started rerunning the series. HDNet did likewise later in May. It premiered on Channel 6 in Ireland on April 1 2006.

The series has begun rebroadcast as a second-run series on the Sci Fi Channel (United States) beginning July 18 2006.[1]. Sci-Fi began showing episodes in pan-and-scan, as opposed to its original 16x9 format; but now has begun showing them in their original aspect ratio.

Episodes

Main article: List of Dead Like Me episodes

Trivia

• As of 13 October 2006, Dead Like Me has moved to #43 on the Top 100 TV shows listed at TV.com (the number fluctuates day to day).

• The series includes numerous pop culture references; see List of references in Dead Like Me.

• The setting is in Washington State but the show is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia. While license plates, telephone area codes, and other references are consistent with the show's setting, those familiar with Vancouver landmarks will recognize the Harbour Centre Tower, the Sun Tower, and the Sky Train in the background of some scenes. In addition, a scene where George and Daisy are driving in George's car, a sign for Shopper's Drug Mart, a chain of stores found only in Canada, can be seen.

• Dead Like Me was created by Bryan Fuller, who also co-created Wonderfalls. Both series begin their pilot episodes with the heroine of the series narrating a mythical tale about life and death.

• Dead Like Me's last episode aired on October 31 2004. This is also apparently the day it took place on, since their Halloween was on a Sunday, and the moon was in full phase, as depicted in the episode.

• Mir's de-orbiting, which plays a role in the pilot episode, actually took place in 2001, two years earlier than the show's setting.

• According to series creator Bryan Fuller, Clancy had a story arc that included George realizing her father is gay, and because of this, she shouldn't exist [2]. After Fuller left, Clancy was rewritten to be heterosexual, and has an affair with Charlotte, which results in Joy suing for divorce as the second season began. This rewrite upset Fuller. [3].

• "Der Waffle Haus" is inaccurate German; the correct gender and spelling would be "Das Waffelhaus." This is generally considered as a deliberate joke by the writers. The original script refers to it as "Das Waffle Haus." The name is most likely a play on a chain of restaurants in the southern U.S. called Waffle House.

• The set of Der Waffle Haus later appeared in the television show Stargate SG-1 (another series produced by MGM Television), when character Daniel Jackson contemplated ascending to a higher existence (for a second time).[4][5]

• The show is said to be inspired by On a Pale Horse, the first volume of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, in which a personification of death is physically sent to collect souls from the newly dead.

• The show also has a resemblance to The Twilight Zone episodes One for the Angels and Nothing in the Dark, which similarly featured a manifestation of Death calling to collect someone at the time of their passing.

• There were several inconsistencies in the series: We are told gravelings can vaguely be seen "out of the corner of the eye", yet several episodes suggest otherwise. We are told reapers can only reap souls assigned to them; some episodes follow this rule (and found the plot on it) while other episodes prove the opposite. Reapers cannot be recognized by the living (except on Halloween), but in one episode, Rube is recognized from an old Wanted poster, however it is mentioned that after everyone from a reaper's time period has died that reapers revert to their normal appearance. Reapers have no special powers except fast healing, yet in the first episode, a reaper stands on a virtually unclimbable tower in the middle of the city without being noticed in broad daylight.

• At the end of the final episode of the first season, the camera zooms out above the Earth and is actually panning out from the Portland, Oregon area rather than Seattle.

• In the pilot episode the camera zooms in towards the Earth (showing us the fall of the toilet seat that kills George), but instead of the Seattle area we see it approaching downtown Vancouver, BC.

External links

• Dead Like Me at MGM
• Dead Like Me's Scifi Channel page
• Dead Like Me at Showtime (link not accessible outside United States)
• Template:Tvtome show
• Dead Like Me at IMDb
• 'Dead Like Me' Brings Reapers' Stories Back to TV, an August 2004 NPR interview of Masius