Pretty much your basic good news/bad news type scenario:
Dead Like Me, the 2003-2004 series which aired on Showtime and was stupidly cancelled, is coming back as an MGM direct to DVD movie!
DLM, as you may recall from my posts back when it was (if you'll excuse the expression) among the living, was a wonderful show- quirky, funny, often sad, and even profound once in a while. Created by Bryan Fuller, who went on to make the also quirky, funny, etc. even more prematurely and stupidly canceled series Wonderfalls (which I still have yet to get on DVD), DLM was also that rare thing: a show which continues to be of high quality and doesn't seem to lose the plot, even after the creator leaves citing that age old rationale "creative differences", mostly with Showtime. Fortunately, Showtime won't be involved this time.
Oh, the bad news? Well, it won't mean as much as it would if you were a fan of the show, but apparently Mandy Patinkin, who played "Reaper Foreman" Rube Sofay, won't be involved. No reason is given that I can find for his non-participation, but I'll betcha it has something to do with his dreary CBS cop procedural Criminal Minds. Anyway, the show will definitely miss him; he was the backbone of the whole thing. I'm holding out hope for a cameo, based on this description of the movie:
"When Calvin Kane, a slick businessman who couldn't care less about helping the newly dead, takes over Rube's [the character played by Patinkin] Head Reaper duties, all hell breaks loose, bringing out the worst in Daisy, Roxy, and Mason."
Also unfortunate, but not the major blow the loss of Patinkin is, is the non-return of Laura Harris, who played flaky Reaper Daisy Adair. She was an often amusing part of the cast, but she was rarely if ever the most interesting one, and I think they will be recasting the part anyway...which will work, because the Reapers don't look like themselves to the living anyway.
Anyway, got my fingers crossed for this one. In the meantime, if you're unfamiliar with the show, here's a clip which does a decent job of showcasing the cast. I know, it's kinda in medias res, but here's the basic setup (helpfully provided by the YouTube poster):
A clip from "Dead Like Me" where George tries to alter Death's List... in the process she fails to reap her mark and as a result the reapers have to deal with a sudden flux in deaths due to a defective product.
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