If you’ve never seen Dead Like Me, then you’re not just living.

Terrible puns aside, this was a TV series that not only had an intriguing premise, it had fantastically believable actors, great drama, and a whole mess of interwoven storylines that just never got wrapped up in the TV series. It had a solid two seasons, but I get the feeling that  the show was simply too esoteric to really get a large enough audience to keep it going… So they wrapped it up with an ending that was pretty final, but also left pretty much every thread still hanging out.

That’s right, the vast majority of the storylines were completely unfinished, and they finished the series. Most likely this was because Bryan Fuller, the creator and original writer left after “complications with the studio”… He then went on to do other amazing shows like Pushing Daisies and the pilot for The Amazing Screw On Head… oh, and this little show you might not know about yet called Heroes.

This left the title, and the yet to be released films, in the hands of hacks brought in by the MGM, Masius and Godchaux… who have shows such as Touched By An Angel to their name. Yes, I hear you facepalming out there. I was too when I found this out.

Whilst Life After Death has a similar feel to the TV show, it really wasn’t the same. The character always had a certain sense of cynicism and defeatism about them, resigned to do their jobs as reapers, and fully aware of how the system worked. In this, they somehow mysteriously forget all that and fuck things up incredibly like it’s the first few episodes all over again, and then solve the problem in the most unimaginative way possible: Attempting to kill the dead guy.

Sadly, this is more due to the screening time being over in 10 minutes, because they’d fucked up the pacing.

Which is sad, because the storyline featuring George, the main character of the TV series, was actually well written, well thought out, and well paced… In fact, it wasalmost exactly like an episode of Touched By An Angel… which was not what was expected in the slightest when I got this.

To sum it up, they finally attempt to finish off the TV series, but really just made a double episode.

You might also like to read:

1. Fuck My Life
2. Mechanic fucked to death
3. Death has plenty of dominion

2 Comments »

1. 

   I was woefully confused by this “closer” to the series which I had never seen, but did find myself asking how they kept a series running about this topic.

   You’ve shed some light on that topic, so I thank you, now I should really put that godawful movie behind me and check out the show.

   Comment by Axyro — June 13, 2009 @ 2:21 am

2. 

   Yeah, it’s really not a movie in the sense people expect. Made for TV movie perhaps. Double length episode, like the first X-Files movie was… And it still leaves the damn thing open!!

   Comment by Egofreaky — June 13, 2009 @ 12:14 pm

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