The Serpentimes

By: Jenna Hathaway

Drop Dead Diva is a show on Lifetime that not many people know about (I seem to be watching a lot of these types of shows). It tells the story of Deb Dobkins, a beautiful blonde supermodel on the cusp of her career and life when she got into a car crash and was killed. She then found herself in heaven, where she was declared to be someone who had done neither any good deed nor any bad deed while she was alive. She was, apparently, simply shallow. Deb didn’t like this, and decided to press the “Return” button on the desk of Fred, the gatekeeper. Unexpectedly she did get returned to earth… except not quite in her own body. She found herself trapped in the body of a similarly recently deceased lawyer with a plus-size body; Jane Bingum.

Naturally, Deb was horrified by her new body. She was also forced to take over Jane’s life—fortunately she now had Jane’s intelligent brain to allow her to do that—and started working as a lawyer to help people who came to her. Fred the gatekeeper was also sent to earth after his mistake; he was demoted to a guardian angel and was tasked to watch over Deb (now Jane). The only person beside Fred who knew of Jane’s real identity was Stacy, Deb’s longtime best friend. Jane longed to tell Grayson, her boyfriend who was still grieving over her death, the truth about herself, but constantly found herself unable to. Instead she became Grayson’s new best friend and was forced to watch as he moved on from one woman to another, including almost marrying one.

The show is mostly light and funny, but it’s full of heart and emotional moments. There have been some twists that really made me unable to wait until the next episodes, and the question of when Grayson would finally find the truth about Jane is one that looms upon every season. As the seasons progressed, we also saw how much Deb/Jane grew into a much better person, someone who would surely no longer be declared shallow but rather someone who had done a lot of good deeds should she ever find herself at the gates of heaven once again. It’s an easily likeable series in my opinion, and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. The supernatural theme is always there but doesn’t dominate it. And it’s sort of a lawyer show, but it’s not boring at all, in fact it never fails to be funny no matter what the cases are.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 4:13 pmand is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.