- #More tv shows like dead like me and wonderfalls series
- #More tv shows like dead like me and wonderfalls tv
There’s an excellent ensemble cast of really strange characters, each of whom requires attention before you “get” them. We had to understand George’s two workplaces: the diner where she picks up her post-it assignments from taciturn boss-reaper Rube (Mandy Patinkin), and the Happy Times temp agency, presided over by Dolores Herbig (Christine Willes), who suffers from terminal perkiness.
#More tv shows like dead like me and wonderfalls series
It took a while to learn the internal logic of the series - how being dead worked, especially as the five main characters (all dead) interact at will with the living, even to the extent of Our Heroine losing her virginity to one of them. Then there’s the deadpan humour, the fact that she says “fuck” a lot, and the inexplicable scenario and plotlines. Her expressive face catches perfectly the bemusement and frustration of her character’s situation. We all agree that Ellen Muth is “drop dead gorgeous.” But it isn’t just that. How useless was that, seems to be the story of her life, now that it’s over. So now, here’s another rarity family communion, celebrated at the altar of “George” (Georgia Lass, played by Ellen Muth) - a teenager who’s dead, killed unglamorously by a toilet seat crashing to earth from Russian space-junk Mir. Week by week, the girls drifted in while it was on, and we ended up in a row like the Simpsons on the big yellow sofa, sometimes - it being what passes for winter in Australia - all snuggled under the one doona (quilt). But Dead Like Me achieved that minor miracle.
#More tv shows like dead like me and wonderfalls tv
Our family (two parents, three teenage girls) generally doesn’t eat or watch TV together. This dead chick rocked their dead housewife reeked. So we watched it, just long enough we thought to figure it out before going back to our Housewives duty.
Coming to it cold, Dead Like Me did not make a bit of sense, to such an extent that we decided - partner was back now and not missing the Desperates - that it must be Canadian. What is this? That delicious TV rarity, something that you can’t “place” in a millisecond.
So it didn’t take much commitment to “boop” from Seven to Eight, but that’s as far as I got. Fox8 has its moments - early America’s Next Top Model being one of them. The channel that sits between Seven and Nine is Fox8. Unlike the majority of Australians we subscribe to Foxtel (cable TV). In Australia Desperate Housewives is on free-to-air Channel Seven, currently resurgent in its ratings battle with arch rival Nine, not least because of this very show, together with some other high-profile buys from the US like Lost and 24. So while my partner is out of the room, and the three girls are watching it on the other telly upstairs, I find my attention drifting and hit the “booper” (the remote). In fact Desperate Housewives feels more like another episode in the long slow death-wish of American TV. And a dead leading character.īut it’s slow, and that polished look sometimes just says “look at the money on the screen,” which flatters the production system, not the viewer.
At my house we’ve been trying to give ourselves to this hot new series, and it certainly does have bright sets, a polished ensemble cast who show the right balance of allure and repellence, the promise of secrets to be revealed, cruelties lurking beneath. Mondays, 7.30pm: everyone in Australia knows that’s the time for Desperate Housewives. Betty: It’s not like you were doing anything with it.