About a week and a half ago I participated in the virtual tour of the Drop Dead Diva set, led by Ben Feldman who plays Deb’s on-again, off-again guardian angel, Fred. As the shooting schedule prevented our interviewing Brooke and cast after the tour, we were told the cast would forward on videotaped answers to our questions later.
Last week I received the video clips which included the virtual tour and the quick question and answer session with the cast. The short, post-tour interviews focused more on promotional material for the new Season 1 DVD and featured the show’s star (and former theatre diva) Brooke Elliott, with the now blonde Kate Levering, who plays Jane’s legal and physical nemesis, Kim. The interviews discussed how scenes are shot and the actors’ favorite episodes. Side note: Brooke loved ‘Crazy,’ with the still hunky Gregory Harrison. Here’s a fun fact about Kate: although she, like Brooke, did not feature heavily in TV outside her stint on Kevin Hill and guest spots, she did a lot of theatre, and received the Fred Astaire Award for Best Female Dancer in 2001 for 42nd Street.
Virtual Tour with Fred
Post-Show Interviews
Drop Dead Diva on DVD
Favorite Season 1 Episodes
I’ll admit I was a bit disappointed by the post-virtual tour interviews. They probably just didn’t have time to answer our questions, but I wondered if our questions were too repetitive, bland, or annoying.
Admittedly, there was one question I wanted answered. I know Margaret Cho, whom I luckily saw perform live a few years ago, participated in the American Belly Dance scene pretty heavily in the recent past by training with Suhaila Salimpour (whom Ellen featured in a couple exercise segments) and, afterwards, Princess Farhana (who also does Burlesque). In one of her blogs, Margaret described the dance’s focus on body acceptance. I wondered if the producers or writers might feature that part of Margaret’s past in an upcoming episode, considering Terri will receive more coverage and the show already included a reference to Brooke’s theatre past via the mother-daughter sing-off.
Someone sent me a mini-reminder to remind others, but the Season 1 DVD is out. I hope to review it for you in the coming week. Although Hulu features season 1, I’ll let you know about the Easter egg features you might not see in on-line archives or past episodes. I enjoyed season 1, and I hope Drop Dead Diva is renewed for many seasons to come.
If you didn’t know already, Drop Dead Diva‘s new season premiered last week on Lifetime, and will continue to air every Sunday at 9 PM (ET/PT) throughout the summer.
Poll time. I’m intrigued that out of the eight that responded to the last poll, the majority chose David. I thought more people would go for Grayson. However, based on a few issues raised by reader Ryan, I decided to create two new polls:
Clacked by An Nicholson 
on Jun 14, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
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Sorry, still haven’t watched Ugly Betty, so my vote was an uninformed one.
I was surprised that Grayson did so poorly in the last poll because he’s the Designated Love Interest with whom the show has spent the most time building an emotional connection for us with little peeks into his thoughts. David is basically perfect: charming, attractive, successful, sensitive, and sans baggage. However, the writers don’t need to give him flaws because we know he’s the guy that the girl won’t choose at the end of the movie (the Bill Pullman/James Marsden role), so it’s hard for me to get too attached.
*POST AUTHOR*
I was surprised Grayson did poorly as well because he’s the ideal. At the same time, David seems to care about Deb/Jane and actively pursued her. So, I’m glad people noticed that. But, I don’t think the writers know what to do with him, after making him the nice guy the lead female ignores, they clearly have to shuffle him off stage right somehow, which comes across in ep. 2.