What’s this show called … Drop Dead Diva?

Two thing led me to choose Drop Dead Diva (see An’s take on a virtual tour) as this week’s column focus. First of all, after initially hearing about this Chances Are-like show, I never expected it to make it this far. And second, being an Army Wives fan, I’ve fast forwarded through a ton of advertisements for Drop Dead Diva over the last year.

As a disclaimer, the episode I watched actually aired last Sunday night, and is the season two premiere … there’s no way I can catch a previous night’s airing in time for this column. Plus, what better moment than a season premiere to try and get a feel for a continuing story?

Episode Summary – The fact that Paula Abdul was announced as a special guest star at the top of the hour was already a bad sign. I’ve been led to believe that singing and dancing is not a staple of the series, so I won’t judge based on the Eli Stone-like production, but a musical interlude? Yikes.

I was surprised that Jane’s (Brooke Elliott) roommate Stacy (April Bowlby) seemed aware of the situation, although it wasn’t clear whether or not she knew that Fred (Ben Feldman) was actually an angel. I suppose it’s important that Jane have someone she can talk to about what happened to her, but wouldn’t it make more sense for it to be an old friend of Jane’s guiding her, rather than an old one of Deb’s (Brooke D’Orsay)? Stacy must be just as clueless about Jane as Deb is.

I’ve never been a David Denman fan, so I wasn’t really into seeing him appear here as Jane’s new boyfriend Tony, but it was nice to see Kate Levering, best known by me as Veronica on Kevin Hill. Which was actually an interesting observation, because this was totally not a legal show. I’m not sure if it means to be one, but the emphasis is on heartstrings as opposed to the law (where was opposing counsel’s objection to that question about the doll, or the judge’s gavel bang on the little girl calling out in court?).

I don’t know much about the show’s general direction, but I did find myself wondering if everything that happened in the premiere wasn’t intended to set Jane up to go work at a legal clinic. She seems ill-suited for a big law firm, and there wasn’t much that was pleasant emanating from any of the scenes in that place.

It was fairly simple to hook into the two plots, one involving the appearance of Jane’s husband, the other her disbarment hearing. I don’t know how steep of a cliff people felt they were hanging off of when season one ended, but both plots were fairly big letdowns even to me, and I hadn’t been waiting for their answers. Someone whispers in the bosses ear, and suddenly Jane is all good on the disciplinary front, and he gets her disbarment hearing taken care of? And it was obvious from the beginning that Jane’s husband was there for a divorce; what, he’d suddenly come rushing in after seven years to say it’s been her all along? I just didn’t feel the dramatic impact.

Conclusions – Clearly this is a series that’s not intended for me (although I could argue that I watch other shows that similarly aren’t meant for me, but whatever). Even so, I found the episode to be rather blah. Deb is still struggling to find herself, and Jane. Stacy is vapid, but really smart if you look underneath (she’s the visual contrast to Jane, right? Just in case you forget that Jane has a “Stacy” inside of her.). Fred has his own life, pretends to be frustrated which babysitting Jane, and likes Stacy. And then there’s the new boyfriend, the old fiance who works at the firm, the mean boss, the ruthless competition, and the nosy but wise assistant. Super.

But if the premiere was meant to put on a show of the razzle-dazzle drama that Drop Dead Diva delivers, it failed to make that impression on me. It wasn’t a bad show on its face, it just left me feeling indifferent … and wondering just how much longer the trajectory of the series can be about Deb finding herself and figuring out who Jane is/was. Eventually she needs to just live life as a combination of the two, the “who” that she currently is.

I also think it has lessons to teach better suited to the length of a movie — that beauty isn’t only skin deep, and not to judge a book by its cover. Can a long-term series maintain that message in a non-objectionable way throughout its life?

So far it seems to be doing a good job of it … just not for me.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jun 14, 2010 @ 16:00 EST5EDT