TV company boss: I hear you have a great idea for a TV show for us. I really liked your last one. What is it this time?

TV Show Producer: (enthusiastic): Well we have this great idea — an existential comedy about death!

Boss: Death? You mean like in “dying”, “decomposing, “disappearing”? It was my impression that we are trying to help people forget that kind of thing.

Producer: But that’s the point! People do not forget that kind of thing. They may suppress it, but they cannot get away from it, so instead we make a comedy out of it. It is cathartic!

Boss: God, didn’t you do enough of this in college?

Producer: Listen, the show is about this 18 year old girl, you see. In the pilot she is hit by a toilet seat from the Russian Mir space station.

Boss: Toilet seat. I take it that this is symbolic?

Producer: Yes. Well, no. Hey, that’s not the point! The point is that it is funny! And then she is recruited as a grim reaper.

Boss: Really?

Producer: Yes, grim reapers are deceased or undead people that helps dead people over to the next life.

Boss: I see, so maybe we can capture the Christian conservative audience?

Producer: (in a low voice) Probably not.

Boss: I guessed as much (sighs).

Producer: People are killed by some ugly little fellows called Gravelings that arrange all kinds of accidents.

Boss: Gremlins?

Producer: And being a soul collector she must face a diverse collection of destinies, while at the same time keeping track of the family she left behind.

Boss So it is a ghost story? I guess I can sell that.

Producer: No! It is a black comedy!

Boss: I can’t pay for a comedy about death, you know that!

Producer: I have three words for you: Six Feet Under!

Boss: I hate it when you do that!

Great TV drama

Dead Like Me did actually reach the TV screens, and survived for two great seasons.

It was created by Bryan Fuller for the Showtime network starring Ellen Muth and Mandy Patinkin as grim reapers in Seattle, Washington.

The series is another proof of what cable TV has done for American TV. Cable can take chances the regular networks do not dare to take, even making a black comedy on death. It is intelligent, witty and shows a lot of love for the human race.

(And, by the way, the title sequence is brilliant!)

Dead Like Me official home page. | IMDB | Wikipedia | Sci Fi Channel

Amazon: Dead Like Me - The Complete First & Second Seasons [DVD] (Season 1 2)