Pick of the Week: Not Dead Yet
This article floated around in my drafts for quite some time before today. I never got around to finishing it because I was either going to bed at 8pm or watching movies. What happens when I spend too much time watching movies instead of TV shows is that I lose my touch. One of my primary hobbies is (what I like to call) keeping “my thumb on the pulse” of television, so when I forget and return to find something flatlining, I take it as a personal failure.
I’m finishing this article today because Not Dead Yet has been canceled.
I let out a very serious groan—frankly, a wail—when I heard the news, which is something I haven’t done over a TV show in years. After watching the season finale many weeks ago, I had a gut feeling that something was awry, but it didn’t even cross my mind that cancellation was a possibility. All because I lost my touch. I’d forgotten the ancient rule that just because I watch something on network television doesn’t mean everybody else watches. The landscape is brutal. No one is safe. But Not Dead Yet should have been.
It is your typical workplace sitcom, about a failing California newspaper and its journalists, with an all-star cast assembled from some of the biggest shows in recent history. Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin) plays Nell, the lead, a struggling millennial who can’t seem to do anything right. She writes the newspaper’s obituaries, which she hates, but the job has mysteriously given her the gift to commune with those she’s writing about. Essentially, she can speak to the dead. This is never quite explained, it’s just a fact of the show, but you learn not to question it. It gives the show (admittedly) its only edge.
Naturally, Nell is surrounded by a cast of zany characters. Her Michael Scott-esque boss is Lexi, played by Lauren Ash (Superstore), who is a nepo-baby put in charge of the newspaper despite being grossly out of touch. Nell’s co-worker and best friend is Sam, played by Hannah Simone (New Girl), who is normal and kind in all the places where Nell is weird and snarky. Now, my favorite dynamic of the show is between Nell and her random male roommate, Edward, played by Rick Glassman (As We See It). He begrudgingly allows Nell to rent a room in his apartment because she’s broke, even though they are polar opposites. Edward is autistic and Nell is just annoying, which makes their relationship hilarious and their friendship unlikely. What’s heartbreaking to say is that I believe they were set up to be one of the greatest slow-burn romances in the modern era of television…
Each episode follows Nell as she writes a new obituary and is haunted by a different ghost. Classic hijinks ensue. The first season is about Nell recovering from a world-wrecking breakup and learning to fend for herself for the first time in her 30s. She has a terrible track record with men, hates her job but can’t seem to get a better one, and thinks she’s going crazy because now she sees dead people. Nell rocks. Gina Rodriguez makes every character she plays jump off the screen and I deeply admire her commitment to working on network shows. Hannah Simone as Sam is also a great addition because she really hasn’t done much since playing Cece in New Girl. I hope Not Dead Yet is a jumping-off point for greater things in her career.
This show has (had) so much potential. It premiered right after Abbott Elementary and I figured it would draw the same audience. The cancellation is such a shame because the second season really picked up—the cast seemed more comfortable; the plot flowed organically; and all the pieces were in place to make this show a hit if it was given a season or two more. I wish it had that chance.
Not Dead Yet is goofy and ridiculous, but it tugs at your heartstrings. To me, that’s exactly what a sitcom should be: something you can put on in the background but then makes you laugh and want to pay attention. May this show be a precursor of more great sitcoms to come, instead of a hanger-on to what has already passed. Based on no logic whatsoever, I hope Not Dead Yet isn’t dead yet.
Check it out now on Hulu.