Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

It was with some anticipation that I was waiting to view ‘Dead Like Me: Life After Death’ since the ‘Dead Like Me’ series was one of the few television shows that I watched with some regularity with its quirky approach and unique storylines. I knew before hand that Mandy Patinkin wouldn’t be reprising his character of Rube because I guess Mr. Patinkin has some issues that he is dealing with, and he would certainly be missed. I was not aware that Laura Harris wouldn’t be reprising Daisy Adair and instead of replacing the character as they did with Rube, the producers decided to simply recast another actress as Daisy, and as it turns out Laura Harris was also missed. The movie itself was… okay. Probably weighed down a bit by expectations, but this reunion movie did catch us up on some familiar characters however considering fans of the show waited some four years for it to come out, it was still just a bit underwhelming.

Of course ‘Dead Like Me’ follows the life, trials and tribulations of a group of lower management ethereals known as Reapers, who take the souls of those who are about to kick to the bucket as they continue their journey into ‘the light’. Our particular division or Reapers, formerly led by Rube, handles the particularly grisly deaths via by murder, unfortunate circumstance or some kind of horrible accident. Our Reapers of interest consist of the dry and acerbic Georgia (Ellen Muth), the hostile Roxy (Jasmine Guy), the self destructive hedonist Mason (Callum Blue) and the selfishly self centered Daisy (Sarah Wynter). This particular day when they start their day they know something is amiss since their usual coffee house has burnt to the ground and Rube is nowhere to be found.

Change is afoot as Rube has gone into ‘the light’ and has been replaced by the smooth, wealthy and technology minded Cameron Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) who will now be

texting our crews their daily reaps via Blackberry and pretty much leave them to their own devices completely unsupervised. We don’t know if that was best course of action since our crew starts doing things that normally wouldn’t have occurred under Rube’s tight watch such as missing reaps completely or bringing the dead back to life for personal gain among other things.

But of course the bulk of the show and this movie is about Georgia Lass. In addition to her usual duties at the Happy Time employment agencies in which George has become a bit of a rising star in our absence, she also has the misfortune to reap a popular high school boy who as it so happens has been secretly dating Georgia’s less popular sister Reggie (Britt McKillip) with George taking some extreme steps to help her sister cope and deal with her impending loss, since the boy refuses to die. Meanwhile the rest of the crews dissatisfaction with their new leader has grown to irreparable proportions, George’s life has become more complex than ever and Deloris Herbig’s (Christine Willes) cat is dead. Just another day in the life of the reapers.

And that pretty much is what ‘Dead Like Me: Life after Death’ is in that is just pretty much another day in the life of the reapers that we know so well, with a lot of added profanity. There’s nothing too terribly earth shattering or revealing that I think one would halfway expect in a beloved television series making a triumphant film-like return, other than Rube being gone, but I’m pretty sure almost everybody expected that to be the case. The storyline involving the new boss Cameron Kane was interesting enough and Henry Ian Cusick played the smarmy Englishman as over the top as possible, but it seemed to me that the story behind the new boss was slated to go somewhere in particular and I’m not sure if it ever ended up where it was originally destined to be. Not to slight actress Sarah Wynter but I’m thinking they would’ve been better off sending Daisy Adair off to ‘The Light’ as well and probably should’ve had Ms. Wynter play an entirely different character because as an audience you get kind of used to a character being played by a single actress in one particular way and Sarah Wynter’s version of Daisy Adair was ‘different’ from Laura Harris’ interpretation of Daisy Adair. The rest of the cast was who they were when we left them. George is as dry as ever with possibly an even worse attitude which does adjust somewhat when she deals with her sister, Roxy is as hostile as ever and Mason self-indulgence would’ve have gotten himself killed numerous times over if he wasn’t he wasn’t dead already. Only the lovely Cynthia Stevenson as the girl’s mother Joy has undergone a significant personality change as she has accepted the death of her daughter, council’s others on loss and is doing her best to relate to Reggie and avoid a repeat of the sour ending of her relationship with George.

As I said earlier this ‘Dead Like Me’ movie is only a small disappointment because I was kind of expecting more, but then that’s pretty much on me now isn’t it. It was still an entertaining enough little movie and it was also good to catch up with these unique characters that we’ve come to know over the years, and we do hope there will be more of these to follow.