Dead Like
Me takes a darkly comic look at mortality through the eyes of someone stuck
between this life and the afterlife. "Bail bondsmen for the disembodied" is how
Rube (Mandy Patinkin), the often exasperated Reaper foreman, explains it to
disaffected 18-year-old George (Ellen Muth) after she’s vaporized by a falling
toilet seat from the Mir space station and drafted into the ranks of the
Reapers. It's now her job to take the souls of the doomed, preferably before
their mortal coil is damaged beyond recognition by the devilish machinations of
the gremlin-like gravelings. You wouldn’t mistake George's fellow Reapers for the do-gooders of Touched
by an Angel, but they are anything but grim. Charming British shyster Mason
(Callum Blue) always has some scam brewing, high-living, fun-loving former
flapper Betty (Rebecca Gayheart) treats death as a cabaret ("Reaping Havoc"),
and one-time starlet and wannabe actress Daisy (Laura Harris) still nurses her
dreams of stardom. Even hard-bitten meter maid Roxy (Jasmine Guy) manages to
find a way to let loose. |