Showtime have announced they will not be bringing back "Dead Like Me", which is disappointing, but not unexpected. "Dead Like Me", which Showtime aired for two series was centred around George Lass, a young woman, who at lunchtime at her first day at work is killed by a toilet seat from a disintegrating MIR space station. She however, finds out she is undead and has a new job, reaping the souls of those who die accidentally, so they can go on to wherever it is they go.

The show ran two story-lines, George learning her new job with her crew of reapers, and what was happening with her family after her death. Even in death, she has both a job, and has to earn a living.

George was played by Ellen Muth, and the crew she was part of was bossed by Rube, played by Mandy Patinkin, who handed out death appointments to his crew at Der Waffle Haus, which had a waitress, Kiffany, who just might be an avatar of a higher being. Or just the ultimate waitress.

The short-coming of the series is shared by many other Showtime original series, it was good, but not great, and could, with a little editing for language easily fit into regular broadcast teevee. After a first season which saw the show trying to find a direction (with some behind the scenes wrangling), the second season really picked up with some great story-lines, including George moving up at the Happy Time Temp agency where she worked, the struggles of her mother to raise her sister Reggie, and steer her away from the nihilistic course George was on, and some back story on Rube. I'm somewhat disappointed I'll not find out what George's connection with the gravelings is, and who is Kiffany, really?

In the first season DVD set, on the pilot commentary, there is an undertone of surprise that the show got picked up (there's also the same conversation in the pilot of "Six Feet Under"), so at least there were two seasons of some pretty good shows. In the second season, "Dead Like Me" started to show some real development, without it being essentially the same situation every episode.