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''Drop Dead Diva'' is a legal [[{{Dramedy}} comedy-drama]] fantasy television series that aired on Creator/{{Lifetime}}, premiering on July 12, 2009 and running for six seasons before concluding on June 22, 2014.[[note]]The show was actually cancelled after its fourth season due to it being too expensive for the network and producer Creator/SonyPicturesTelevision to maintain; however, it was revived a month and a half later after both parties reached a more cost-effective agreement.[[/note]]

Deb Dobkins (Creator/BrookeDOrsay) is an attractive, ditzy blonde model with aspirations of being a game show hostess. She is engaged to be married to her lawyer fiancé Grayson (Jackson Hurst), who is interviewing at a new firm. She goes off to her audition to be a model on ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'', talking to her friend Stacy (Creator/AprilBowlby) on her cell phone and filing her nails, [[WomenDrivers all at the same time]]. Poor Deb; if she had looked up for only a minute, maybe she would have noticed the grapefruit delivery truck parked in the middle of the intersection up ahead...

Meanwhile at the law firm of Harrison & Parker, Jane Bingum (Brooke Elliott) is preparing for her day. She is a literal PlainJane: mousy, overweight, and obsessed with self-help books. Jane chats with her witty assistant Terri Lee (Creator/MargaretCho) and haughty rival lawyer Kim Kaswell (Kate Levering), who is busy showing off her new designer purse. Jane steps out of her office just in time to see an armed gunman take the office hostage. Her boss, Jay Parker (Josh Stamberg), was apparently dating the gunman's wife. Jane tries to calm down the situation but trips over Kim's purse, and the paranoid gunman shoots her dead.

You're probably asking, "What the hell, the two main characters die in the first episode?" Rest assured; here is where it gets good.

Deb gets stopped on her way to heaven by angel Fred (Creator/BenFeldman) because she has never done a good or bad deed in her whole life, which doesn't necessarily make her a bad person, but "probably just really shallow." Outraged, Deb pushes the return button on Fred's keyboard and is sent back to Earth...into ''Jane's'' recently vacated body.

Now poor Deb/Jane has to deal with being a skinny girl in a fat girl's body, working as a lawyer using Jane's legal smarts (as Deb has all of Jane's knowledge of courtroom operations but no memories of Jane's past), working in the same room with her (ex?)fiancé (turns out Harrison & Parker was the firm Grayson interviewed at), and getting used to her new life in general, including dealing with things from her pasts as both Deb and Jane.

As a result of this, Fred is also sent to Earth as her guardian angel (or, as he calls it, her babysitter), and along the way gets a crush on Stacy, whom Jane lets in on the big secret.
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!!This show contains examples of the following tropes:

* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: Stacy develops this while she has a supporting role on a tv show.
* AlliterativeName: Deb Dobkins, Kim Kaswell.
* AmoralAttorney: To varying degrees, but especially Parker.
** Averted when Jane has a difficult crisis in the first season finale. [[spoiler:One of her clients pulls a 5-million dollar scam and Jane decides to turn him in, violating attorney-client privilege and potentially leading to her disbarment.]]
* ArtisticLicensePolitics: An extremely minor one. Jane makes a brief remark on the wedding of Princess Julia of Andorra. Although Andorra is a principality ruled by two co-princes as heads of state, there is no royal family since the thrones are filled by the current president of France and the current Bishop of Urgell, Spain.
* BaitAndSwitch: In the fifth season premiere, it seems that [[spoiler:Owen is dead, and Old Jane has taken over his body]]; however, it turns out that [[spoiler:Owen is alive, which Jane finds out after asking a small series of questions when he comes into her office. Old Jane shows up at the end of the episode in a model's body]].
* BettyAndVeronica: Jane and Vanessa halfway through Season 2. Shown in a dream sequence in Episode 12.
** Jane and Kim in Season 1 fit this even better.
** Owen and Grayson for Jane's Archie throughout Season 4.
* BrainlessBeauty: Deb was one, and Stacy can fall under it, though both have started picking up lawyer terms due to Jane's brains.
** Paul is a male version.
* BrickJoke : In "The Long Road To Napa," Stacy makes a pitcher of tomato-blueberry smoothies. No one has time to drink them, so she puts them in the fridge for later. They reappear at the end of the episode.
* TheBroCode: A GenderFlipped version, Jane at first refuses to accept Owen and Stacy dating, saying it's a violation of the girl code.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: [[LampshadeHanging Even literally.]]
** Counts as a ShoutOut too. Remember that other blonde ditz lawyer named [[Film/LegallyBlonde Elle Woods]]?
* ButtMonkey: Grayson claims himself to be this, given that his cases tend toward the unusual including representing a chimp and a couple who owns a haunted house.
* CastingGag: Natasha Henstridge plays Claire Harrison, the other partner in Harrison-Parker. This is [[Series/EliStone the second time]] she's played a lawyer in a legal fantasy-dramedy. Incidentally, former ''Eli Stone'' alumni Sam Jaeger and Matt Lescher appear as clients of the week.
* CatchPhrase: Jane tends to post-fix questions with, "right?"
* CelebrityParadox: In Season 5, Stacy shows off her social media acumen by claiming that "I can tell you what every cast member of Pretty Little Liars had for breakfast." Episode 6x04 features Janel Parrish as Jane's client Chelsea, a cheerleader.
* CelestialBureaucracy: How the afterlife is run.
* CloudCuckooLander: Stacey occasionally falls into a ditzy version of this. Jane comes across as this to her boss, though primarily due to her lateral thinking.
* ContrivedCoincidence: Happens all the time, especially when Jane needs inspiration to solve her cases. Also happens when she and Grayson gets closer: you can be sure that in the following minute (if not seconds) something will pop and stop their interactions.
* ControlFreak: Kim Kaswell. According to Fred, she's more of a control freak than his last boss... God (being an angel, he'd know).
%% * CrusadingLawyer: Most of the lawyers at Harrison & Parker fall into this but especially Jane and Grayson.
* CurseCutShort: Fred's cry of "Je-!" when Stacey uses Mace on him. Beyond the humour of the scene itself, what makes it hilarious is that Fred is an angel.
** In "Dead Model Walking", after unknowingly agreeing to a double-date with current boyfriend, rival, and ex?-fiance, Jane lets out a flat "Fun." Of course, the shocked expression on her face says that other F-word.
* DeadpanSnarker: Rosie O'Donnell's judge is pretty snarky.
** In fact, several of the judges on the show have a notable sarcastic edge.
* DeathEqualsRedemption: Aaron Howard from "Change of Heart". As he is set to be put to death for murder, he wants his heart to be given to his gravely sister Tina. The episode revolves around Jane and Kim's attempts to allow the heart to be donated without damage in time.
* DreamSequence: Quite a few, often involving guest stars as themselves.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Deb. She dies in the first episode because she was so busy talking on her phone.
* DumbBlonde: Deb and Stacy. And often subverted; both of them are a lot smarter than given credit for. It's just that their smarts don't necessarily revolve around the sort of knowledge most people would consider worthwhile. Plus, Stacy figures out and accepts Deb's new body/situation pretty quickly.
** It becomes much more subverted in the second season where Stacy starts to get a lot more savvy and smart, even using her image as a dumb blonde to her advantage.
** Also, the more Deb learns and experiences Jane's life and hears about Jane's life before Debbization, the more the viewers start to see how Deb as an outside observer makes rather insightful observations on her life. Indeed, there are signs that ditzy but well meaning Deb may actually be making a better life for Jane than Jane ever was. [[spoiler:Such as re-connecting with Jane's absent dad and getting Jane's mom to go into therapy for bi-polar disorder.]]
** Paul, Jane's latest guardian angel is basically the SpearCounterpart to Stacy.
* {{Flashback}}: Used to flesh out Deb and her relationship with Grayson before her death. Also used with stories or phrases Deb told Grayson and that Jane repeats; this confuses Grayson immensely.
* FeigningIntelligence: Stacy.
* FreudianTrio: Jane’s guardian angels fit this. Luke is the superego, a stickler for the rules and determined to keep Jane from her past as Deb. Fred is the ego prone to human weaknesses and willing to let Jane begin a relationship with Grayson provided she doesn’t reveal she’s Deb. Paul is the id, not caring what Jane does as long as he gets to stay on earth.
* FriendsRentControl : The house that Jane moves into is Stacy's home before she moves in...but no mention is made of how an out of work model/actress affords it.
** Averted of course after Jane moves in.
* GeniusDitz: The ditz part comes from Deb, the genius part from Jane. Though as with DumbBlonde, Deb isn't necessarily as ditzy or dumb as usual per the trope. She's just that way compared to Jane and in fact can be pretty insightful.
* HateSink: Charles Ellis from "The Long Road to Napa" is one in and out of universe. Charles married Maria and then married Emily without telling either woman about the other. After lying to them for five years, Charles is caught and they sue. During the trial, not only is it revealed that Charles got free stuff for his business because of his marriages, but Charles was also engaged to a third woman. The judge actually forces Charles to settle out of court because the jury all hated him.
* HelloAttorney: Jane, Grayson, Kim, Vanessa, and some of the recurring opposing counsel count.
* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: A common tactic by Jane (or one of her co-workers) is to use the opposing client's own tactics to beat them.
** A cheerleader has a public meltdown and is fired. She comes to Jane with a reporter to say she was driven wild because of constant bullying by her fellow cheerleaders. She's forthcoming to the point of signing a waiver so Jane can share information with the reporter. Midway through the case, Jane realizes the girl set this whole "meltdown" up just to get attention. The reporter shares this with the opposing attorney who gets the cheerleader to crack on the stand. She threatens to sue Jane for breaking confidentiality but Jane smugly points out that the cheerleader had given permission to share anything with the reporter, just as pissed as Jane about being used like this.
* IdentityAmnesia: Used by Jane as an excuse why she's different after she got shot.
* InsistentTerminology : A couple in a bitter custody battle...over a chimpanzee, which people refer to more than once as a monkey.
--> He's a chimp!
* MeaningfulName: Jane was a literal 'Plain Jane'.
** New guardian angel Luke Daniels counts as well. Luke and Daniel being books of the Bible. And for a triple, his earthly disguise is that of an angel investor.
** Grayson Kent's name is clearly a reference to Nightwing and Superman due to his strong moral compass.
** Deborah is Hebrew for "Bee." But in the Bible, Deborah was a prophet and a judge. Deb may be a shallow character but there's much more to her, which we find as the series goes on.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia / RetGone: In regards to Fred towards everyone but Jane after he romances Stacey.
** And while not brought up Luke as well.
* LoveDodecahedron: Not as much as other series but still a pretty large one considering Deb's past relationships and the original Jane's past relationships Jane has to consider both.
* MistakenForCheating: Jane is accused by a policeman's wife of having an affair with her husband. Considering it had to do with the original Jane, Jane worried it might be true. Much to her relief it was only for legal help and they were meeting in secret because he was framed by some dirty cops.
* MistakenForGay: Elaine, Jane's mother, tells Jane (about Stacy) that if "Roommates isn't the right word I'm very open-minded".
** Stacy in one episode when she is seen acting secretive and meeting up with another woman to have lunch, turns out she wants to have a baby through artificial semination and was asking for advice.
* MoodWhiplash: After a heart felt speech to save the home of an old lady who refused to move due to sentimental value, having lived there with her husband, had given Kim and Grayson cookies, etc., from developers, she profusely thanks Grayson and Kim for their help and hopes they'll help her again in six months time when her case goes on appeals. And then, making sure they promise to keep helping her and what have you, tells them something under lawyer-client confidentiality...reveals that in actuality, she doesn't want to move and have developers wreck her house because that would uncover the body of her dead husband. Whom she killed. It's not really clear if this is supposed to be funny, shocking or what, but it changes the mood considerably.
* MrFanservice: Paul's relevance in seasons 5 and 6 pretty much revolve around him getting shirtless scenes (when he is not simply in his ''briefs'').
** Also the shirtless dancers in Jane's dream sequences, such as the "Thunder from Down Under" in Season 2, Episode 8.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: "Empress Katia" in "Afterlife" is a pretty clear expy of Music/LadyGaga.
* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Fred, Luke (in Season 4) and Paul (in Season 5 & 6).
* PhonyPsychic: "Make Me A Match" features two psychic sisters fighting over their dad's shop. Grayson uses this to get the one sister to confess (while channeling their dead father) that she didn't want to keep fighting.
** It's worth noting that while the two act like phonies and the entire cast of characters sees them as such... to the viewers, it's obvious that a lot of what they're saying is true (knowing Grayson is mourning Deb, that Deb is near, etc).
* PutOnABus: Parker after season 4, he ends up moving to Canada to patch things up with his ex-girlfriend so he can be a father for his son, leaving a pregnant and heartbroken Kim behind.
* PstandardPsychicPstance: Whenever Deb gets an unusual flash of knowledge from Jane's mind, she tends to act like she has a mild shock/headache.
* ReallyGetsAround: Parker, Parker, Parker. Pretty much the only women in the building he hadn't slept with were Jane and Teri.
* RefugeInAudacity: In "Fifty Shades of Grayson" Kim goes into labor during a trial. She somehow manages to convince the judge to allow her to continue the trial over video ''while she's in labor''.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Several of the cases that Jane's law firm handles are based on real life cases. For instance, Mary Ann Nealy, in the season 1 episode "Second Chances" is partially based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Jane_Olson Sara Jane Olson]]. However, in keeping with the fact that this is a Lifetime series, the defendant is more sympathetic and gets a happier ending.
** The season 6 episode "Desperate Housewife" has the case of a couple who took in a group of foster kids to appear on a reality series so they could get their house renovated, then kicked out the kids. A similar situation happened on ''Series/ExtremeMakeoverHomeEdition''.
* RunawayBride: Vanessa does this to Grayson, realizing something is missing in their relationship.
* SamusIsAGirl: In one episode, Grayson uses the artwork of a well known graffiti artist to save a building from being torn down, at the end the artist turns out to be his female client.
* SecretKeeper: The only ones that know Jane is Deb are Stacy and her guardian angels, Fred (Seasons 1-3), Luke (Season 4), and Paul (Seasons 5-6) and in the sixth and final season [[spoiler:Grayson]]
* ShippingTorpedo: Luke was sent specifically to be this to Jane and Grayson.
* SecretSecretKeeper: On her deathbed, [[spoiler:Jane's mom, Elaine reveals she always knew Deb wasn't really Jane but still loves her like her real daughter.]]
* SleepingWithTheBoss: Kim in Season 2 through early season 4 with Parker the managing partner.
* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay:
** In the pilot, a newly reborn Deb is able to convince Stacy who she is by relating a few of the wild adventures the pair have been on which no one else could have known.
** When Jane [[spoiler:finally confesses to Grayson she's Deb]], he believes it because of how [[spoiler:he's noticed over the last few years "Jane" saying little things only Deb would have known]].
** [[spoiler:Grayson]] pulls this himself to convince Deb he's been [[spoiler:reborn into a man now in prison]].
* StarCrossedLovers: Fred and Stacey.
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: In the final season, Teri does one of her usual "whacky hijinks" by posing as a lawyer to help out a friend. She ends up being arrested and sent to jail for a few months for fraud and practicing without a legal license.
** As a topper, when Teri gets out jail, Jane is ready to welcome her back only to be told there's no way a legal firm is going to employ someone who was convicted of being a fake lawyer.
* ThickerThanWater: Sometimes played straight, others not so much.
* TooDumbToLive: While driving to a model audition, Deb is talking to Stacy on her cell phone and filing her nails at the same time. She doesn't realize she's about to get into a ''bad'' crash with the grapefruit delivery truck until it's too late.
* WhamEpisode: The season 4 finale. [[spoiler:Jane kisses Grayson on the day that she's due to marry Owen. Owen sees them and has a heart attack. Meanwhile, the original Jane pushes the Return button and comes back in Owen's body.]]
** Also season 6, episode 9. [[spoiler:Grayson defends a murderer and is shot.]]
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** Parker started off as a cheating womanizer. Once his relationship with Kim kicks into full swing, however, his wife isn't brought up even when Kim shows up at his home or when he's drinking over having broken up with Kim temporarily. Only the womanizing aspect remains and even then it's been downgraded mostly to him simply disassociating himself from past girlfriends.
** The fate of many characters is unknown at the end of the show, namely [[spoiler:Fred]] (who really should have huge problems after what he did) and [[spoiler:the original Jane]] (who didn't even make an appearance in the last season). Not to mention the real [[spoiler:Ian Holt]], who was [[spoiler:crudely executed for a crime he didn't commit, and whose body is now inhabited by someone else's soul]].
* VitriolicBestBuds: By the end, Kim and Jane have essentially evolved into this.
* WhatTheHellHero: Delivered by [[spoiler:the original Jane to Jane when she found out that her mother died, and that Jane didn't have the decency to call and warn her]] (and, as she points out, she could have perfectly done so).
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