Office Comedy Week Part II: Dead Like Me

Wheras Better Off Ted was a laugh a minute satire, Dead Like Me is the sort of office comedy that works by making something that would obviously be insane and making it mundane instead. So I guess it’s more of a “Ha, isn’t that weird.” Kind of humor than knee-slapping, vaudevillian, drug-addled crazy time. The show follows one Georgia Lass, who I love. Not the actress. I mean, she’s good. But the character is...well, like me. If I were an attractive girl instead of a fat, ugly man. And also if I were killed by a flaming toilet seat from outer space.

Oh, did I forget to mention that part? Right. Well. Georgia Lass is a reaper. She reaps. Also, she works part time for a large company. But that’s not where most of the office in the office comedy comes in. No, her real office is Der Waffle Haus where her sourpuss boss (played by Mandy Patinkin distributes Post-it notes containing a name, time, and address that the reapers need to be at to relieve dying bodies of their souls. Despite Georgia being 100% green and being a disenfranchised, cynical young idealist, none too keen on the rules of the game, she’s actually one of the better reapers. When your associates are an excessively violent meter maid, a British drug addict who died by drilling a whole in his head while tripping, and a self-important B-Actress of the early days of the cinema, who is always, always always Daisy, Daisy Adair and never JUST Daisy, you don’t have much choice but to step up. Add to this the fact that Georgia barely had a chance to live, her younger sister’s deep emotional trauma regarding the death, her parent’s crumbling marriage, and the menacing gravelings who raise holy hell if she so much as tries to delay the inevitable death of innocent children and you’ve got…well, you’ve got enough hamhanded drama for a soap opera. But there are dead people. And post-its. In a waffle house. Yeah. Yeah. Think about that. Then check the show out.

Objectively it’s not top tier but subjectively? It’s surprisingly effective at keeping your attention once it has it. Which it might have trouble getting since the first few episodes (including the very long pilot) are really setting the situation and don’t really highlight the show’s more unique aspects.

Also, I have decided that this and yesterday's subject are made for each other. Even now, my crack team of humorologists, Phil and Lem…oh no wait. I mean, Travis and Eduardo, are hard at work at the two hour TV-Special cross over extravanganza Ted Like Me. I don’t want to give too much away, but suffice to say that an enormous, life threatening crisis resulting from what should have been a harmless experiment causes Veridian Dynamics (Better off Ted) to be locked down while the reapers, who are there in force due to the size of the impending incident rush around trying to figure out who is who and getting lost in the insane personal dramas of Veridian’s staff while Georgia faces a difficult decision: Save them all and face the graveling’s wrath, or step up to her new responsibilities as head reaper (which she earned in a special that wraps up Dead Like Me, made several years after its cancellation.) In essence, what I’m saying is… crossovers are really easy to write. All you have to remember is that you’re desecrating not one, but TWO worthwhile franchises. If you can keep that in mind, it’s a snap. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to spoon feed some bullshit to idiot executives who cancel good shows but can probably be cowed into making cheesy TV specials after the fact to appease vocal fans(To quote Wikipedia: “A direct-to-DVD movie titled Dead Like Me: Life After Death was released on February 17, 2009,[1] with an option to restart the series.[2]”). Speaking of which- anyone seen the new season of Futurama? Jus’ sayin’. Although to be fair, that show came back with A material. I guess after years off the air, they’d accumulated a ton of good ideas.

Anywho, join me next time as I review Archer, which I can only describe as the bastard child of The Man Who Knew Too Little starring Bill Murray, and the absolutely tasteless (but funny in a disturbing way) animated spoofy sitcom Drawn Together. If you don’t know what that means… consider yourself lucky. Because tomorrow, your innocence will be mine. MUAHAHAHAHAHA.