Oh, to be dead...

If you've ever met me, you know how obsessed I am with television. Honestly, having television shows available by the series to rent on DVD is like discovering you can get crack from a vending machine--sweet, decadent and hopelessly addictive.

I am currently obsessed with Dead Like Me, a show that once aired on Showtime, but, alas, is no longer being filmed. It follows George Lass (played by Ellen Muth), an 18-year-old girl who was killed by a toilet seat falling from space and goes on to become a grim reaper. The show also features Rube (Mandy Patinkin) who plays the boss/father reaper, Daisy (Laura Harris) a reaper who died while an extra in gone with the wind, Roxy (Jasmine Guy) the takes-no-crap reaper who invented leg warmers and was then killed by her roommate for the patent, and Mason (Callum Blue) a British reaper who drilled a hole in his own skull while on drugs in the '60s.

These reapers are in charge of violent deaths--murders, suicides, accidents--so the souls they reap tend to go in some pretty interesting ways, but the reapers get themselves into some pretty interesting predicaments. They work crappy dull jobs (reaping doesn't pay), they steal, they run cons, they constantly eat at the same waffle house. Except that every character is depressed about helping other souls move on while being stuck un-dead, they almost make being dead seem like a fun job!

This show is hysterically funny, but with some very real, human, touching and poignant moments. George is grumpy and sarcastic, like someone else we all know, and we are treated to her inner monologue when she's thinking the things we all think but don't say out loud. It's a bit like being in my head...but that's not the point. These reapers are definitely not angels (in one episode Mason smuggles drugs in his rectum and ends up very, very high), so there's no sort of creepy/preachy religious overtones.

The show is just smart and funny and, like its main character, tragically short-lived.