# Tonight's Dead Like Me (10/15/04) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 16, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508 "2004-10-16T02:50:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Long\_Road](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@The\_Long\_Road](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Long_Road)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/21 "2004-10-19T16:21:09Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > Magic? Maybe magic can fix my sentence of “We saw George how she looked to others” to something less Yoda like aling the lines of “We saw how George looked to others”. Yikes. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/22 "2004-10-19T16:59:34Z")
> [@The Long Road](#): > > Maybe magic can fix my sentence of “We saw George how she looked to others” to something less Yoda like aling the lines of “We saw how George looked to others”. > > Yikes. No worries, I knew what you meant. The theory I’m advancing is that unGeorge is what George’s new body really looks like, but by means of illusion everyone sees a Reaper as he or she looked in life. The exception is people who knew the Reaper in life - they automatically see through the illusion because they can’t believe it’s real. I like this theory because it fits the facts and you can make special exceptions for anything that doesn’t, even if it turns out that photographs are affected by the illusion and camcorders aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Long\_Road](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@The\_Long\_Road](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Long_Road)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/23 "2004-10-19T17:09:20Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > No worries, I knew what you meant. > > The theory I’m advancing is that unGeorge is what George’s new body really looks like, but by means of illusion everyone sees a Reaper as he or she looked in life. The exception is people who knew the Reaper in life - they automatically see through the illusion because they can’t believe it’s real. I like this theory because it fits the facts and you can make special exceptions for anything that doesn’t, even if it turns out that photographs are affected by the illusion and camcorders aren’t. Remember in the earlier episodes when George was face to face with her mother? At one point she even tried to convince Joy that she was her daughter. Joy saw George in her reaper disguise. I just remember in the episode where their alter sleves were shown, Mason told George “This is what we look like to other people” and George said, “I look like a crack whore”. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/24 "2004-10-19T21:23:16Z")
> [@The Long Road](#): > > Remember in the earlier episodes when George was face to face with her mother? At one point she even tried to convince Joy that she was her daughter. Joy saw George in her reaper disguise. Would you mind actually reading what I write before replying to it, please? > [@EvilDeath](#): > > The exception is people who knew the Reaper in life - they automatically see through the illusion because they can’t believe it’s real. What I’m saying is that Mason has the disguise thing on its head: Reapers don’t have replicas of their real bodies disguised to look like someone else, they have a different body disguised to look like they used to. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Long\_Road](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@The\_Long\_Road](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Long_Road)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/25 "2004-10-19T22:25:56Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > Would you mind actually reading what I write before replying to it, please? > > What I’m saying is that Mason has the disguise thing on its head: Reapers don’t have replicas of their real bodies disguised to look like someone else, they have a different body disguised to look like they used to. What the fuck ever. Magic mystical pixies make a magic shell over them. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/26 "2004-10-20T01:24:13Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > What I’m saying is that Mason has the disguise thing on its head: Reapers don’t have replicas of their real bodies disguised to look like someone else, they have a different body disguised to look like they used to. Whether or not that theory covers most of the facts, it’s clearly not what the show’s writers intended. Why would Mason be wrong about that? Why would George appear as crack-whore to her mother? And George is still hanging around Chicago, where she was bound to have known many people before her death. This includes Delores - surely she wasn’t so close to George that she would see through the illusion you posit. No, your theory doesn’t really make any more sense than the writers going and just ignoring the different-appearance thing altogether. This is fine, I guess, it’s just a little mimesis-shattering for those who’ve watched the show since its creation. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/27 "2004-10-20T01:26:31Z")
[QUOTE=Cheese Monster] Why would George appear as crack-whore to her mother?QUOTE] What I meant to say was: Why would the writers make such an effort to show George as crack-whore to the audience for much of that scene, if that’s not how she appears to almost everyone? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/28 "2004-10-20T01:38:05Z")
George has been in Milly’s body for a year. George isn’t a crack whore. Why would Milly not appear more healthy after a year of living George’s life? Why would the power which changes their appearances make their appearances static? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/29 "2004-10-20T09:14:36Z")
[QUOTE=Cheese Monster] > [@Cheese Monster](#): > > Why would George appear as crack-whore to her mother?QUOTE] > > What I meant to say was: Why would the writers make such an effort to show George as crack-whore to the audience for much of that scene, if that’s not how she appears to almost everyone? To make the point that this is how she appears to her mother. Why would Mason be wrong? When has Mason been _right_? If I’d heard it from Rube I probably wouldn’t be quibbling, but Mason doesn’t know it all. Re: Delores. She knew George in life. That was the criterion I set, not being close to the Reaper. (That said, Delores gets close to everyone.) The only other Happy Time employee who met George more than in passing and who we’ve seen again is Crystal, and it is quite easy to see her knowing that George was Millie and not caring. **Tengu** - We don’t actually know that the Millie-body belonged to someone else before George “took up residence”. Personally, I assume the bodies are created for the Reapers; after all, it would be as bad for someone to recognise the real body as it would for them to recognise the Reaper in it. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/30 "2004-10-20T09:41:52Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > **Tengu** - We don’t actually know that the Millie-body belonged to someone else before George “took up residence”. Personally, I assume the bodies are created for the Reapers; after all, it would be as bad for someone to recognise the real body as it would for them to recognise the Reaper in it. I never said otherwise - the origin of the new appearance is entirely tangential to the point. She has been in her new body for a year, living the Georgia Lass lifestyle. She’s not a ‘crack-whore’, as she described Milly. Given that the reapers live among mortals, staying in one place for a length of time, it would not make sense to make their ‘mortal’ forms unchangable, and not responding to the Reaper’s lifestyle (or, undeathstyle). If, after a year, George still looked like crap, that would tip Delores, or the waitress at Der Waffelhaus that something was up - not neccessarily that she was a Reaper, but perhaps she’s not so much a ‘recovering’ alcoholic she’s claiming. Either way, not a good way to pass as relatively normal. (And I keep thinking of the poor actress who played Milly. What a thing to be known for!) ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/31 "2004-10-20T13:19:04Z")
Rather than start a new thread I’ll see if anyone knows the answer here. Last night I saw an ad on showtime for the show. It said “only two shows left”. It didn’t say, “this season”. Is this it? Will it be coming back? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/32 "2004-10-20T15:25:57Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Rather than start a new thread I’ll see if anyone knows the answer here. Last night I saw an ad on showtime for the show. It said “only two shows left”. It didn’t say, “this season”. Is this it? Will it be coming back? We haven’t heard that it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/33 "2004-10-20T18:06:46Z")
Well I decided to do my own footwork. I registered for the Showtime message boards which had a thread about what I asked. Someone gave a link to [this article.](http://www.cableworld.com/cgi/cw/show_mag.cgi?pub=cw&mon=101804&file=showtimeqa.htm) This is from the president of entertainment. > [@](#): > > Greenblatt: Queer as Folk has another year [season], and we’re going to see where that takes us. Five years with those characters may be the end of the road, and maybe not. The L Word is definitely coming back. **Dead Like Me is in its second season and we don’t know yet about the future of that, although it’s doing really well** (that’s also still shot in Canada, by the way.) Huff we’ve already ordered a second season of, so that will be around. Those are the big dramas coming back. I don’t know when the interview was given. With a quick glance I could not find any clues on the Showtime site. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508/34 "2004-10-20T19:33:39Z")
Never mind, I opened a separate [thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=281971) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tonights-dead-like-me-10-15-04/269508.md?page=1)