After reading a few bad reviews of 'Dead Like Me: Life After Death', I was prepared for something not very good. What I got was like watching a necrophiliac having his way with the corpse of that wonderful show. How Stephen Godchaux and John Masius, both regular writers on the series, could seemingly have so little connection to everything that made that series special is a deep mystery (and I don't feel good slagging this off, as I've enjoyed their work in the past).
Where the series had been original, lively, funny, poignant and quirky (in the good way, which is a rarity), this thing is irritating, boring, not even remotely amusing and feels disrespectful and opportunistic. The threadbare plot involving a callow replacement for the sadly absent Rube (performed with subtlety and wit in the series by Mandy Patinkin) is a bust that never goes anywhere or even resolves itself. That Rube's substitute is a man who was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 is in particularly bad taste, especially since it adds nothing to his character, who is a miserable creep; it's just a weird throwaway. The replacement of series original Laura Harris, as Daisy Adair, is also a major trouble spot. Sarah Wynter, in a word, is awful. Harris's Daisy was imbued with a knowing sadness under her surface superficiality. Wynter just devours the scenery playing Daisy as a vapid, talentless idiot.
It's nice that talented original cast members Ellen Muth, Callum Blue, Jasmine Guy, et al, got work, but they deserved a better vehicle than this shoddy, mawkish mess.
If you are a fan of the Showtime series, do yourself a favor and skip this. Once you've watched it you can't un-watch it and doing so will only make you mourn anew the premature death of the original. Which, I suppose, is apt.
Where the series had been original, lively, funny, poignant and quirky (in the good way, which is a rarity), this thing is irritating, boring, not even remotely amusing and feels disrespectful and opportunistic. The threadbare plot involving a callow replacement for the sadly absent Rube (performed with subtlety and wit in the series by Mandy Patinkin) is a bust that never goes anywhere or even resolves itself. That Rube's substitute is a man who was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 is in particularly bad taste, especially since it adds nothing to his character, who is a miserable creep; it's just a weird throwaway. The replacement of series original Laura Harris, as Daisy Adair, is also a major trouble spot. Sarah Wynter, in a word, is awful. Harris's Daisy was imbued with a knowing sadness under her surface superficiality. Wynter just devours the scenery playing Daisy as a vapid, talentless idiot.
It's nice that talented original cast members Ellen Muth, Callum Blue, Jasmine Guy, et al, got work, but they deserved a better vehicle than this shoddy, mawkish mess.
If you are a fan of the Showtime series, do yourself a favor and skip this. Once you've watched it you can't un-watch it and doing so will only make you mourn anew the premature death of the original. Which, I suppose, is apt.