Product Details

• Actors: Ellen Muth, Callum Blue, Jasmine Guy, Cynthia Stevenson, Mandy Patinkin
• Directors: David Grossman, David Straiton, Helen Shaver, James Marshall, James Whitmore Jr.
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Widescreen, Box set, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: June 15, 2004
• Run Time: 627 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (260 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0001GF2F6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,684 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Dead Like Me - The Complete First Season" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Pay cable's "other"show about life and death, Dead Like Me takes a darkly comic look at mortality through the eyes of someone stuck between this life and the afterlife. "Bail bondsmen for the disembodied" is how Rube (Mandy Patinkin), the often exasperated Reaper foreman, explains it to disaffected 18-year-old George (Ellen Muth) after she’s vaporized by a falling toilet seat from the Mir space station and drafted into the ranks of the Reapers. It's now her job to take the souls of the doomed, preferably before their mortal coil is damaged beyond recognition by the devilish machinations of the gremlin-like gravelings.

You wouldn’t mistake George's fellow Reapers for the do-gooders of Touched by an Angel, but they are anything but grim. Charming British shyster Mason (Callum Blue) always has some scam brewing, high-living, fun-loving former flapper Betty (Rebecca Gayheart) treats death as a cabaret ("Reaping Havoc"), and one-time starlet and wannabe actress Daisy (Laura Harris) still nurses her dreams of stardom. Even hard-bitten meter maid Roxy (Jasmine Guy) manages to find a way to let loose.

Dead Like Me puts a light touch on black comedy, but it has a sneaky way of using humor to explore loss, loneliness, and regret, as well as kindness, and courage, and responsibility. George gets a hard lesson when she tries to wriggle out of her assignments like some overgrown kid, only to see the damage of her (in)action in "Reapercussions." And as George's angry, tightly-wound mother (Cynthia Stevenson) and withdrawn little sister Reggie cope with death, she breaks the rules to watch over them: their own pouty, glum guardian angel. There's nothing like your own death to put your life into perspective.

The four-disc set features all 14 episodes of the debut season of Showtime's witty black comedy. The feature-length pilot includes optional commentary by cast members Ellen Muth, Mandy Patinkin, Jasmine Guy, Cynthia Stevenson, and Callum Blue. Other supplements include the nominal documentary featurettes Dead Like Me: Behind-the-scenes and The Music of Dead Like Me (with theme song composer Stewart Copeland), 32 deleted scenes, and a still gallery. --Sean Axmaker

Stills from Dead Like Me - The Complete First Season (Click for larger image)

Product Description

DEAD LIKE ME:COMPLETE FIRST SEASON - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 118 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The early adventures of the Grim Reaper known as Toilet Girl, September 13, 2004

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dead Like Me - The Complete First Season (DVD)

I am sure the people at Showtime knew what they were doing when they scheduled "Dead Like Me" to start when HBO's "Six Feet Under" was over, because the two shows are certainly complementary. However, while the deaths that begin each episode of "Six Feet Under" have their moments in terms of being rather weird (my favorite was the woman convinced it was the Rapture when she saw the a bunch of helium filled inflatable dolls floating away), they do not have the Rube Goldberg quality of what the gravelings can set in motion in "Dead Like Me."

The idea of the afterlife created by Bryan Fuller, who also created the similarly quirky Wonderfalls," is that right before you die you soul is taken from your body by a Grim Reaper. Although they are replete in the opening title sequence these are not Grim Reapers as in figures in black hood carrying scythes. In fact, they look like regular folk, although not the regular folk they were when they were alive now that they are a peculiar variety of undead. We learn the rules of the game along with young Georgia Lass (Ellen Muth), an 18-year-old sourpuss called George. Having decided to forego the college experience George has been sent out into the world to find a job and during lunch she is passed on the street by a strange man who touches her. We see a light passing from her to him and within seconds a toilet seat from a disintegrating Russian space station strikes her dead.

George is surprised to see herself looking at the big hole in the ground where she had been standing a moment ago and even more surprised to be informed that she is now a Grim Reaper. This task is done by Rube (Mandy Patinkin), who is in charge of a cadre of Reapers in this particular town. This includes Mason (Callum Blue), an English bloke who has figured out that you cannot overdose when you are already dead so indulge in drugs to your heart's contextt; Roxy (Jasmine Guy), a meter maid for the police department with ample attitude to spare; and, at first, Betty Rhomer (Rebecca Gayheart), a former beauty queen who is ready to move on to the next level. We are not quite sure what that is, because while Grim Reapers get to release souls and head them in the right direction (bright lights that assume various pleasing shapes), they really do not know what the final destination is really like for the dead.

Of course, in the early episodes of the series George is not happy with being dead and not exactly thrilled with a job when she is given a post-it note with a name, address and E.T.D. (estimated time of death) so she can go reap a soul. The latter is taken care of when she gets a couple of hard lessons about what happens when she does not (your form in the afterlife is not how you look at the moment of death, but at the moment that your soul is reaped, so it is something you would want to have done before the autopsy). The former is more difficult, because trying to reconnect with her life from beyond the grave is hampered by the fact that she looks different (to everyone else) and she cannot say anything that would convince anyone who knew her before that she was still around.

One of the strengths of this quirky series is that we do not ignore the family that Georgia has left behind as her mother (Cynthia Stevenson), little sister (Britt McKillip), and father (Greg Kean) try to deal with moving on after her death. Watching the Lass family disintegrate is almost a show within the show, capable of standing on its own, because their interaction with Georgia the Grim Reaper is infrequent and usually something indirect. We are as interested in what is going to happen to Joy and Reggie (and J.D. rather than Clancy) as we are to Georgia and her friends.

Another thing that makes "Dead Like Me" work is the actual friendship that springs up between George and Dolores Herbig (Christine Willes). Now known as Millie, George ends up going back to work at Happy Time, the employment agency that she was taking a lunch break from when the sky fell on her head (even when you are undead a girl has to eat). Dolores is extremely annoying, but "Millie" pretends to play along so long that she actually starts playing along with Dolores' weltanschauung.

The cherry on top with this show is Mandy Patinkin as Rube, who finally has a role in which he can say pretty much anything he wants, especially when it comes to what he is having for breakfast and how it is cooked. I like the way he calls George "Peanut" all the time as he imparts to her the facts of being undead. I also like the way Roxy gets mad at people who tear up their tickets, the moments of conscious that Mason has when doing his job, and the way Reggie honors the memory of her sister. But then it is a well- established fact that I like quirky.

Joining the cast during this first season is another Grim Reaper, Daisy Adair (Laura Harris), an actress who had a role in "Gone With the Wind" and makes no bones about how she got the gig before she died. She and George become roommates just to cause further trouble for our heroine (and her frog) and is most definitely the character who rubs me the wrong way. But in the end I have to say that the only thing about "Dead Like Me" that really bothers me is that the post-it notes only have the first initial of the person who is destined to die. You cannot tell a person's gender from just an initial.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mysterious and Reassuring, November 21, 2004

By 

Michael Burton (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dead Like Me - The Complete First Season (DVD)

A friend once told me that he was creeped out whenever an episode of "The Twilight Zone" featured a ventriloquist's dummy. Those episodes never impressed me, but recently I got chills watching an old episode about a toy telephone.

You can never tell what's going to strike a chord and resonate with a particular person. "Dead Like Me" is not for everyone. Some people will hate it. Others just won't "get" it. It's too bad, really, because they're missing out on something truly wonderful.

18-year-old Georgia (George) Lass, deceased, has a new job: collector of souls of the newly departed--a grim reaper, if you prefer. She doesn't want to be a reaper. She doesn't know how to be a reaper. She gets on-the-job training. What she learns about, mostly, is life.

In life, George was too cool to care about anything. In death, she learns to care, in ways that are funny and sad together. The result is the most consistently moving television show I've ever seen. At the end of each episode, when the credits appear, I find myself shaking my head and muttering, "What a GREAT show!"

The language and some visuals are too harsh for young children. The show contains a lot of adult subject matter--no, not like cable porn--rather, like parents struggling over how to cope with an emotionally troubled 11-year-old daughter. Material for genuinely mature audiences. Very rare, that.

Not for everyone, but I couldn't recommend it more highly. What a GREAT show.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When are they going to release the second season on dvd?, March 3, 2005

By 

Michael J. Murphy "Questore" (AK USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dead Like Me - The Complete First Season (DVD)

I thought the first season was very compelling and since I don't have showtime, I had to buy the first season on dvd. It was great - one of the best series ever on tv right up there with all the great shows in cable series format. For example: Nikita even though DLM it wasn't all action all the time, in it's own way it was just as good as any other hit cable show. So where's the second season my money is in my hand ready to buy? You too, should want this impressive cable series the second season of this fantastic and highly entertaining 'Dead Like Me'!