The Death of Dead Like Me

Why did no one tell me Dead Like Me was cancelled? Oh, right, the execs at Showtime sort of swept it under the rug, didn’t they? They dropped it in December, but kept the show info on their website. They’re re-running the second season (of which the DVDs are being released in July) but fail to directly state on the site that no third season is coming. They assume we know. Now Mandy Patinkin is on CBS.

As most people who know me can readily attest, I often get very attached to fictional characters. I choose to view this as a good thing, as I am a writer, and writing involves a fair amount of commitment to “people” who don’t actually exist. I am attached to the reapers on Dead Like Me. They fight over breakfast foods. They’re witty, dry & sarcastic at all hours of the day and night. They know who they are and don’t apologize for it. I want to hang out with them, and not just because Callum Blue (Mason) is the most adorable thing to come across the Atlantic since Ewan McGregor. (Ryan Kwanten is also high on my adorable list, but as he is from Australia, he likely came across the Pacific.)

If I were instantly killed by a flaming toilet seat from outer space, I wouldn’t mind Rube as a boss & surrogate parent. And if I needed a roommate in that undead afterlife, I could probably live with Daisy’s self-absorption, because she has a hell of a lot of naughty stories to tell. And she’s not as shallow as first she seemed. Just ask Mason. He’s smitten by her—utterly, inexorably, adorably smitten. I was awaiting the third season specifically to witness how the writers would finally bring them to that inevitable moment.

Well, now that there won’t be a third season, I can write my own climax, guilt-free. I think we all know who’ll be there in place of Daisy.