I’m almost through with another well-written TV series, this one British, called, “William and Mary.”
Have I said how much I love Netflix?
The show’s about a single dad who is an undertaker and a single mom who is a midwife and how they get together (via a dating service) and all the baggage that goes along with their families.
(I think it should have been the other way around, with the dad the midwife and the mom the undertaker.)
For instance, Mary’s mother spends a couple of episodes trying to get Mary back with Mary’s long-ago ex-boyfriend and she wants nothing to do with him and is very clear about it. You find out soon enough that the mom and the ex have spent so much time together, they’ve actually fallen in love. And the Brits make it all quite all right. They are much less stuffy about those things than us Yanks.
It’s so well done and has me laughing and crying through each episode. It is filmed making the most of the beginnings and endings of life and is not depressing at all, despite the tragedies that occur because they show the best moments right along with the worst. It feels quite real.
Granted, I am still in a weakened condition, but not too weak to know great story lines.
I thought I would have avoided romantic movies and shows right now, and life and death events, seeing as how my marriage so recently became undone, but I am drawn to them by some invisible force. Possibly one of self-flagellation.
I do find it therapeutic, though; watching them gives me a reason to let go with my emotions in a safe place and not keep stuffing my busted heart inside my shirt, with it surreptitiously leaking when I least expect it. It’s so boring when I just cry all the time in front of people—not fun at all.
Shows and movies give me hope.
Celluloid hope, but hope nonetheless. And fake hope becomes real if you hold onto it long enough.
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Death lives!
I’ve been watching a short-lived gem-of-an-HBO series using Netflix: “Dead Like Me.” It’s a quirky, entertaining little show, well written, tackling the ever-interesting subject of the after-life.
Ellen Muth stars as George, an 18-year-old, life-avoiding girl who is working the first day of her first job after high school graduation as a file clerk at a temp agency when she goes out during her lunch hour and is killed by a space shuttle toilet seat plummeting to Earth. As you can imagine, she is pretty much blown to smithereens and her mom, dad and 11-year-old sister have to pick up the pieces of their lives and try to go on. But the story isn't about them.
Immediately after death, George finds that she’s a grim reaper, part of a small group of reapers headed up by Rube, played by Mandy Patinkin. She’s known as Toilet Seat Girl, thereby confirming my own suspicion that at least the writers of this show think like me: Life is no different after high school or death. Most people don’t seem to change. (Did I say high school equals death?)
The reapers must take the souls from bodies of people about to die and they do it after getting a name, time and place on a Post-It note from Rube, every morning at a pancake house where they meet.
I'm just saying, hilarious.
They make their way to the place, find a way to discover the person there who is scheduled to die and run their hand along an arm or shoulder, drawing the soul from the body. A moment later, whatever is scheduled to happen to that person takes place and they lead the just-dead person away from the scene and toward his or her “light.” Each reap has a twist of its own.
One kicker: George is a reaper in her hometown, something that is unusual even by reaper standards, and she gets to check in on her family every now and then. She is seen by the living, has to live and work among them, earning money for her expenses as if she was alive.
But reapers don’t look like themselves to the living. George takes advantage of this to visit her family, pretending to be somebody else and see how they are dealing with her death. This is not encouraged by Rube as it can wreak havoc with your focus. There is one day a year—Halloween, natch—when they are seen as they looked when alive.
The stories are great and ironic and interesting. The series ended all too soon, as the good ones all do.
Ellen Muth stars as George, an 18-year-old, life-avoiding girl who is working the first day of her first job after high school graduation as a file clerk at a temp agency when she goes out during her lunch hour and is killed by a space shuttle toilet seat plummeting to Earth. As you can imagine, she is pretty much blown to smithereens and her mom, dad and 11-year-old sister have to pick up the pieces of their lives and try to go on. But the story isn't about them.
Immediately after death, George finds that she’s a grim reaper, part of a small group of reapers headed up by Rube, played by Mandy Patinkin. She’s known as Toilet Seat Girl, thereby confirming my own suspicion that at least the writers of this show think like me: Life is no different after high school or death. Most people don’t seem to change. (Did I say high school equals death?)
The reapers must take the souls from bodies of people about to die and they do it after getting a name, time and place on a Post-It note from Rube, every morning at a pancake house where they meet.
I'm just saying, hilarious.
They make their way to the place, find a way to discover the person there who is scheduled to die and run their hand along an arm or shoulder, drawing the soul from the body. A moment later, whatever is scheduled to happen to that person takes place and they lead the just-dead person away from the scene and toward his or her “light.” Each reap has a twist of its own.
One kicker: George is a reaper in her hometown, something that is unusual even by reaper standards, and she gets to check in on her family every now and then. She is seen by the living, has to live and work among them, earning money for her expenses as if she was alive.
But reapers don’t look like themselves to the living. George takes advantage of this to visit her family, pretending to be somebody else and see how they are dealing with her death. This is not encouraged by Rube as it can wreak havoc with your focus. There is one day a year—Halloween, natch—when they are seen as they looked when alive.
The stories are great and ironic and interesting. The series ended all too soon, as the good ones all do.
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