Guilty Pleasures

Drop Dead Diva

Guilty pleasures: you’re embarrassed by them, you admit to watching in a hushed voice, but something inside draws you to their surreal plotlines and hyperbolic emotions. Characters never live happily ever after, not really, but every episode, save for cliffhangers, has a conclusion, good or bad. It doesn’t sound real, I know, but that’s what happens when you step out of reality and into Seattle grace, Capeside, a ‘67 Chevy Impala, Stars Hollow, or even a plus-size lawyer’s body.

This brings us to the newest arrival in guilty pleasures, Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva. This newbie series features, Deb, a shallow, tanned and plucked, aspiring model, who dies in a car crash. Upon arrival to the Pearly Gates, (that looks more like an office building than Heaven’s welcome center) she’s greeted by Fred, who leads her to his steel-plated desk and begins typing in her fate. She is shocked when it declares her to be neither good nor bad. Thinking this to be a grave error, she notices a warning next to the all knowing computer: Do Not Push the Return Button. Well, who can resist that? Only something horrifying happens, she returns to earth, not in her svelte, twenty-four year old body, but in the body of do-gooder and plus-size lawyer, Jane. OMG! Guided by her guardian angel, Fred, she must lead Jane’s life and watch as her grieving fiancé, Grayson (who, get this, is a lawyer, too) accepts a job where she works, but has no idea who she is.

Sounds deliciously tantalizing, right?

No show can be a success without a great supporting cast. This show starts with archetypal characters, but turns them into these three- dimensional personalities that are irresistible. The cast starts with Kim, an attorney at the law firm and the quintessential office bitch. But within that, we see a wounded woman, who has all her defenses up. The creators really are able to construct a character that audiences love to hate. Fred, who gets banished to earth for Deb’s rebellion, is at Jane’s side as her guardian angel. Inexplicably, he disappears because he develops a crush (and eventual more) with Jane’s best friend, Stacy. Stacy is an aspiring model, who is more gifted in the looks department, than anything else. But she acts as the comedy relief, and does so without being annoying, which is very hard to do. Teri is Jane’s sarcastic assistant and Parker is Jane’s boss, the typical, but hilarious, how- can- we -make –more- money boss. And then there’s Grayson, the love of Deb’s life, a man she was about to marry. The love interest of the show, Jane soon finds, to her horror that his glances go to Kim, rather than her.

Catch up on all new episodes Sunday nights and 9pm on Lifetime. Bonus-don’t worry about being cancelled; it just got picked up for a second season!