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* {{Bowdlerization}}: The Sci Fi Channel took out the curses.
Deleted line(s) 126 (click to see context) :
* EditedForSyndication: The SciFiChannel took out the curses.
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* FiveStagesOfGrief: Everyone, at some point or another, but primarily George and her family.
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* FiveStagesOfGrief: Everyone, at some point or another, but primarily George and her family. PlayedForLaughs right after George dies in the pilot.
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* TheOtherDarrin: Daisy is played by Laura Harris in the series and Sarah Wynter in the movie.
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* OhCrap: George's last (living) words (especially appropriate since she was killed by a falling ''toilet'')
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* CoolOldLady: "Grandma Phyl," Mother of Joy and George and Reggie's grandmother. Joy was always at odds with her, but the latter two liked her.
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* CoolOldLady: "Grandma Phyl," Mother of Joy and George and Reggie's grandmother. Joy was always at odds with her, but the latter two liked her. Somewhat deconstructed in that Joy's uptight personality is a result of her mother's carefree/irresponsible parenting leaving her to act like the grown-up even when she was a kid. Phyl makes a much better grandmother than she did a mother.
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* CameBackWrong: Ray died and came back as a graveling.
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* CameBackWrong: Ray died and came back as a graveling. It's unclear wether this is a result of his total JerkAss status or the specific nature of his death.
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* AbusiveParents: Emotionally, Joy; reasonable adults don't look at their daughter struggling to cope with her sister's sudden, violent, untimely death and think that banning all forms of talking about it, calling her insane, forcing her to go to therapy, and generally belittling her at every turn is the best way to handle it. Not to mention that most of the things she says to either of her daughters are mean-spirited and judgmental.
to:
* AbusiveParents: Emotionally, Joy; reasonable adults don't look at their daughter struggling to cope with her sister's sudden, violent, untimely death and think that banning all forms of talking about it, calling her insane, forcing her to go to therapy, and generally belittling her at every turn is the best way to handle it.it (well, maybe the therapy was appropriate). Not to mention that most of the things she says to either of her daughters are mean-spirited and judgmental.
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removed thread mode
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** It did rain in episode 3.
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* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: The "Lights" spirits (and Reapers) go into.
to:
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: The AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence:
**The "Lights" spirits(and Reapers) go into.
**The "Lights" spirits
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* CameBackWrong: RAY. [[CrazyJealousGuy RAYRAYRAY OHGODRAY.]]
to:
* CameBackWrong: RAY. [[CrazyJealousGuy RAYRAYRAY OHGODRAY.]]Ray died and came back as a graveling.
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** Deleted scenes in the pilot, which are also included in the Sci-Fi airings, show reapers standing in a DMV-like office building and filling out lots of paper work to get new identifications.
*** Not just "DMV-like", it was the DMV. The clerk providing George with new ID was another reaper, using earthbound facilities to help other reapers with the transition to unlife. He used his breaks to do his reaps in the hospital around the corner.
*** Not just "DMV-like", it was the DMV. The clerk providing George with new ID was another reaper, using earthbound facilities to help other reapers with the transition to unlife. He used his breaks to do his reaps in the hospital around the corner.
to:
** Deleted scenes in the pilot, which are also included in the Sci-Fi airings, show reapers standing in a DMV-like office building and filling out lots of paper work to get new identifications.
*** Not just "DMV-like", it wasthe DMV. The clerk providing George with new ID was another reaper, using earthbound facilities to help other reapers with the transition to unlife. He used his breaks to do his reaps in the hospital around the corner.
*** Not just "DMV-like", it was
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*** Mason didn't just not develop. He regressed. In the pilot he seemed calm and competent at his job. He got thoroughly Flanderized over the course of the series.
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** When the condom full of heroin bursts while inside Mason's rectum, he has to experience a lethal overdose without actually dying from it.
*** Mason later drinks from a glass of steaming liquid, not realizing it's a Halloween prop filled with dry ice solution. He promptly turns blue and vents steam from various facial orifices but soon recovers.
*** Mason later drinks from a glass of steaming liquid, not realizing it's a Halloween prop filled with dry ice solution. He promptly turns blue and vents steam from various facial orifices but soon recovers.
to:
** When the condom full of heroin bursts while inside Mason's rectum, he has to experience a lethal overdose without actually dying from it.
*** Masonit. He later drinks from a glass of steaming liquid, not realizing it's a Halloween prop filled with dry ice solution. He promptly turns blue and vents steam from various facial orifices but soon recovers.
*** Mason
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* GogglesDoNothing: Literally: Mason's death. He fails safety forever. Of course, why he thought they would do any good when he was [[spoiler:drilling a hole in his own head]] is anyone's guess.
** Presumably, the goggles would keep [[spoiler:blood and bits of bone]] out of his eyes.
** Presumably, the goggles would keep [[spoiler:blood and bits of bone]] out of his eyes.
to:
* GogglesDoNothing: Literally: Mason's death. He fails safety forever. Of course, why he thought they would do any good when he was [[spoiler:drilling a hole in his own head]] is anyone's guess.
**guess. Presumably, the goggles they would keep [[spoiler:blood and bits of bone]] out of his eyes.
**
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* {{Scotireland}}: in "Reaping Havoc", an Irish-American saw Ireland's Cliffs of [[CriticalResearchFailure Dover]] waiting for him in the afterlife... while the soundtrack played "Scotland the Brave".
** Even worse, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover Cliffs of Dover]] aren't in Ireland at all, but in England.
** Furthermore, the actual image they showed was of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffs_of_Moher Cliffs of Moher]], which ''are'' in Ireland. Which means ''someone'' in post-production caught this and didn't bother to tell anyone.
*** Hey, maybe the poor guy was going to hell. An Irishman's version of hell, that is...
*** You're right about them showing [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w7NOi9sQz0 Moher]]; however, compositors aren't given the soundtrack when special effects are handed off to them. It wouldn't have been caught until the finished effects and the soundtrack were put together, which most likely would have been too late for a change to be made due to either deadlines or budget, or both.
** Even worse, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover Cliffs of Dover]] aren't in Ireland at all, but in England.
** Furthermore, the actual image they showed was of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffs_of_Moher Cliffs of Moher]], which ''are'' in Ireland. Which means ''someone'' in post-production caught this and didn't bother to tell anyone.
*** Hey, maybe the poor guy was going to hell. An Irishman's version of hell, that is...
*** You're right about them showing [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w7NOi9sQz0 Moher]]; however, compositors aren't given the soundtrack when special effects are handed off to them. It wouldn't have been caught until the finished effects and the soundtrack were put together, which most likely would have been too late for a change to be made due to either deadlines or budget, or both.
to:
* {{Scotireland}}: in "Reaping Havoc", an Irish-American saw Ireland's Cliffs of [[CriticalResearchFailure Dover]] waiting for him in the afterlife... while the soundtrack played "Scotland the Brave".
**Brave". Even worse, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover Cliffs of Dover]] aren't in Ireland at all, but in England.
**England. Furthermore, the actual image they showed was of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffs_of_Moher Cliffs of Moher]], which ''are'' in Ireland. Which means ''someone'' in post-production caught this and didn't bother to tell anyone.
***anyone. [[{{WMG}} Hey, maybe the poor guy was going to hell. An Irishman's version of hell, that is...
*** You're right about them showing [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w7NOi9sQz0 Moher]]; however, compositors aren't given the soundtrack when special effects are handed off to them. It wouldn't have been caught until the finished effects and the soundtrack were put together, which most likely would have been too late for a change to be made due to either deadlines or budget, or both.is...]]
**
**
***
*** You're right about them showing [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w7NOi9sQz0 Moher]]; however, compositors aren't given the soundtrack when special effects are handed off to them. It wouldn't have been caught until the finished effects and the soundtrack were put together, which most likely would have been too late for a change to be made due to either deadlines or budget, or both.
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* ShipTease: Mason gives George a quick peck on the lips when he thinks his time as a reaper is over. [[spoiler:It's not.]]
** Not to mention "I really love you, Georgie."
** Not to mention "I really love you, Georgie."
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* ShipTease: Mason gives George a quick peck on the lips when he thinks his time as a reaper is over. [[spoiler:It's not.]]
** Not to mention]] He also says "I really love you, Georgie."
** Not to mention
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* EmptyFridgeEmptyLife: George's dad more or less only keeps leftover takeout in his fridge after the divorce.
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* [[FoutTemperamentEnsemble Five-Temperament Ensemble]]: Rube (choleric), George (melancholic), Roxy (phlegmatic), Betty and her replacement Daisy (sanguine), and Mason (leukine).
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* [[FoutTemperamentEnsemble [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five-Temperament Ensemble]]: Rube (choleric), George (melancholic), Roxy (phlegmatic), Betty and her replacement Daisy (sanguine), and Mason (leukine).(leukine).
* {{Flanderization}}: Daisy in TheMovie.
* {{Flanderization}}: Daisy in TheMovie.
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* {{Flanderization}}: Daisy in TheMovie.
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* [[FoutTemperamentEnsemble Five-Temperament Ensemble]]: Rube (choleric), George (melancholic), Roxy (phlegmatic), Betty and her replacement Daisy (sanguine), and Mason (leukine).
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* '''Daisy Adair''' (d. 1938), a Hollywood starlet who may (or may not) have slept with Creator/ClarkGable and nearly all of 1930s Hollywood. Died in a terrible fire on the set of GoneWithTheWind. [[spoiler:She replaced Betty.]]
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* '''Daisy Adair''' (d. 1938), a Hollywood starlet who may (or may not) have slept with Creator/ClarkGable and nearly all of 1930s Hollywood. Died in a terrible fire on the set of GoneWithTheWind. [[spoiler:She She replaced Betty.]]
Betty.
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[[DirectToVideo A DVD movie came out in February of '09.]] It aired in Canada on January 1st. Fan response to it [[BrokenBase was mixed]].
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[[DirectToVideo A DVD movie came out in February of '09.]] It aired in Canada on January 1st. Fan response to it [[BrokenBase was mixed]].
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\"Everything\'s Worse With Bears\" clean-up
* BearsAreBadNews: Episode 3.
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* EverythingIsWorseWithBears: Episode 3.
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** At one point in Der Waffle Haus, the manager is killed by the big neon sign falling down on him, while George is sitting at the counter. As she gets over that shock, she notices a two foot long piece of neon tube stuck in her chest. She pulls it out, bloody but apparently otherwise undamaged, then later that evening she coughs up a mounting bracket in bed.
to:
** At one point in Der Waffle Haus, the manager is killed by the big neon sign falling down on him, while George is sitting at the counter. As she gets over that shock, she notices a two foot long piece of neon tube stuck in the side of her chest. She Rube (who was there to reap the manager) pulls it out, out for her, and while the wound is bloody but apparently and temporarily painful she is otherwise undamaged, then unharmed - later that evening she coughs up a mounting bracket while lying in bed.
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** On another occasion, George's middle finger comes off in a paper shredder at work. She puts it back on, but needs a band-aid so no one will suspect anything and because it hasn't quite stuck yet.
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** On another occasion, George's middle finger comes gets sawed off in a paper shredder at work. She puts it back on, but needs a band-aid so no one will suspect anything and because it hasn't quite stuck yet.
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* QuitYourWhining: Rube has this attitude toward George.
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* QuitYourWhining: Rube has this attitude toward George.towards George. And Mason. And Daisy.
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* YankTheDogsChain: In the thirteenth episode of the second season, we see that [[spoiler: Reggie's dog J.D. has managed to run away from home because a previously visiting neighbour didn't close the gates. When Reggie is out looking for J.D., we spot Charlie, the animal reaper and also a car that has pulled over. George, who is visiting home once again, realizes that Charlie has been there to reap J.D.'s soul and panicks, but then we suddenly see J.D. running happily towards Reggie who's looking at the car... just for him to run through her and up to Charlie. Cue many [[{{TearJerker}} tears]], especially for dog lovers]].
to:
* YankTheDogsChain: In the thirteenth episode of the second season, we see that [[spoiler: Reggie's dog J.D. has managed to run away from home because a previously visiting neighbour didn't close the gates. When Reggie is out looking for J.D., we spot Charlie, the animal reaper and also a car that has pulled over. George, who is visiting home once again, realizes that Charlie has been there to reap J.D.'s soul and panicks, panics, but then we suddenly see J.D. running happily towards Reggie who's looking at the car... just for him to run through her and up to Charlie. Cue many [[{{TearJerker}} tears]], especially for dog lovers]].
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spelling correction
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* AuthorAppeal: After BryanFuller left, the show was taken over by John Masius and Stephen Godchaux. What ironic is the show is sometimes called a dark sarcastic ''TouchedByAnAngel'': John Masius was in fact the original creator of Touched By An Angel. However CBS threw out his original pilot because it was considered two dark: fueled by his anger at the time at God for having his two kids be disabled, it had the Angels be foulmouthed and argumentative and cynical. Sound familiar? The show was ReTooled into a very preachy lighthearted Christian drama, but he profited from the royalties. A decade later, he ended up writing for essentially a very similar idea.....but he actually took up the task of [[http://onlineathens.com/stories/062603/ent_20030626022.shtml lightening the tone of the show a little bit from Fuller's episodes,]] as his perspective on life and spirituality softened a bit in the years since, comparing Fuller to where he was 10 years prior.
to:
* AuthorAppeal: After BryanFuller left, the show was taken over by John Masius and Stephen Godchaux. What ironic is the show is sometimes called a dark sarcastic ''TouchedByAnAngel'': John Masius was in fact the original creator of Touched By An Angel. However CBS threw out his original pilot because it was considered two too dark: fueled by his anger at the time at God for having his two kids be disabled, it had the Angels be foulmouthed and argumentative and cynical. Sound familiar? The show was ReTooled into a very preachy lighthearted Christian drama, but he profited from the royalties. A decade later, he ended up writing for essentially a very similar idea.....but he actually took up the task of [[http://onlineathens.com/stories/062603/ent_20030626022.shtml lightening the tone of the show a little bit from Fuller's episodes,]] as his perspective on life and spirituality softened a bit in the years since, comparing Fuller to where he was 10 years prior.
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'''Georgia ("George") Lass''' is an unmotivated eighteen-year-old slacker; a college dropout, she's returned to live with her unhappily-married parents (Joy and Clancy) and withdrawn younger sister (Reggie) in her family's Seattle home. To make her miserable existence even ''worse'', her father is cheating on his wife with one of his students, and her mother is so uptight that she thinks the word 'moist' sounds pornographic. (Her mother [[CharacterDevelopment later got over it]].)
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{{fellfromfiction}}
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{{fellfromfiction}}
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* '''Daisy Adair''' (d. 1938), a Hollywood starlet who may (or may not) have slept with ClarkGable and nearly all of 1930s Hollywood. Died in a terrible fire on the set of GoneWithTheWind. [[spoiler:She replaced Betty.]]
to:
* '''Daisy Adair''' (d. 1938), a Hollywood starlet who may (or may not) have slept with ClarkGable Creator/ClarkGable and nearly all of 1930s Hollywood. Died in a terrible fire on the set of GoneWithTheWind. [[spoiler:She replaced Betty.]]
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* PuppyDogEyes: Mason is the master of this, since he somehow manages to look like he's on the verge of tears at a moment's notice. But it rarely works.
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* AuthorAppeal: After BryanFuller left, the show was taken over by John Masius and Stephen Godchaux. What ironic is the show is sometimes called a dark sarcastic ''TouchedByAnAngel'': John Masius was the original creator of Touched By An Angel. However CBS threw out his original pilot because it was considered two dark: fueled by his anger at the time at God for having his two kids be disabled, it had the Angels be foulmouthed and argumentative and cynical. Sound familiar? The show was ReTooled into a very preachy lighthearted Christian drama, but he profited from the royalties. A decade later, he ended up writing for essentially a very similar idea.....but he actually took up the task of [[http://onlineathens.com/stories/062603/ent_20030626022.shtml ''lightening'' the tone of the show a little bit from Fuller's episodes,]] as his perspective on life and spirituality softened a bit in the years since, comparing Fuller to where he was 10 years prior.
to:
* AuthorAppeal: After BryanFuller left, the show was taken over by John Masius and Stephen Godchaux. What ironic is the show is sometimes called a dark sarcastic ''TouchedByAnAngel'': John Masius was in fact the original creator of Touched By An Angel. However CBS threw out his original pilot because it was considered two dark: fueled by his anger at the time at God for having his two kids be disabled, it had the Angels be foulmouthed and argumentative and cynical. Sound familiar? The show was ReTooled into a very preachy lighthearted Christian drama, but he profited from the royalties. A decade later, he ended up writing for essentially a very similar idea.....but he actually took up the task of [[http://onlineathens.com/stories/062603/ent_20030626022.shtml ''lightening'' lightening the tone of the show a little bit from Fuller's episodes,]] as his perspective on life and spirituality softened a bit in the years since, comparing Fuller to where he was 10 years prior.
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* AuthorAppeal: After BryanFuller left, the show was taken over by John Masius and Stephen Godchaux. What ironic is the show is sometimes called a dark sarcastic ''TouchedByAnAngel'': John Masius was the original creator of Touched By An Angel. However CBS threw out his original pilot because it was considered two dark: fueled by his anger at the time at God for having his two kids be disabled, it had the Angels be foulmouthed and argumentative and cynical. Sound familiar? The show was ReTooled into a very preachy lighthearted Christian drama, but he profited from the royalties. A decade later, he ended up writing for essentially a very similar idea.....but he actually took up the task of [[http://onlineathens.com/stories/062603/ent_20030626022.shtml ''lightening'' the tone of the show a little bit from Fuller's episodes,]] as his perspective on life and spirituality softened a bit in the years since, comparing Fuller to where he was 10 years prior.
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* GenreBusting: It was actually for the most part a sitcom, with Fantasy Dramatic arcs.
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[[DirectToVideo A DVD movie came out in February of '09.]] It aired in Canada on January 1st. Fan response to it [[BrokenBase was mixed]], but it did well enough to renew interest in networks considering to pick up the series again, especially after the cult success of Bryan Fuller's other (and then recently canceled) series ''PushingDaisies''.
to:
[[DirectToVideo A DVD movie came out in February of '09.]] It aired in Canada on January 1st. Fan response to it [[BrokenBase was mixed]], but it did well enough to renew interest in networks considering to pick up the series again, especially after the cult success of Bryan Fuller's other (and then recently canceled) series ''PushingDaisies''.mixed]].
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Moving from Trivia tab
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* ShoutOut:
** At one point Rube mentions that he doesn't like salmon because he had a bad can of salmon mousse once. If you've ever seen ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife''...
** The season 1 episode ''Nighthawks'' is, appropriately enough, chock full of visual [[ShoutOut Shout Outs]] to [[{{Nighthawks}} the painting]].
** At one point Rube mentions that he doesn't like salmon because he had a bad can of salmon mousse once. If you've ever seen ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife''...
** The season 1 episode ''Nighthawks'' is, appropriately enough, chock full of visual [[ShoutOut Shout Outs]] to [[{{Nighthawks}} the painting]].
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* ConspicuousCG: Mostly averted with the gravelings and the lights, but a little to obvious on things like the train derailing in season one and other causes of death.
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* ConspicuousCG: Mostly averted with the gravelings and the lights, but a little to too obvious on things like the train derailing in season one and other causes of death.
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''Dead Like Me'' was a MundaneFantastic BlackComedy television series created by BryanFuller. It aired on {{Showtime}} from 2003 to 2004.
to:
''Dead Like Me'' was a MundaneFantastic BlackComedy television series created by BryanFuller.BryanFuller, with John Masius and Stephen Godchaux taking the creative reigns halfway through season one. It aired on {{Showtime}} from 2003 to 2004.
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* [[ButHeSoundsHandsome But She Sounds Pretty]]: While Delores and George (as Milly) go over Georgia Lass' job interview files from a year before and see that they don't have a lot of positive things to say about her, George says that at least she was pretty. For Joy's sake, the two decide to alter them to sound more positive...with Delores deciding to base the new information off of "Milly."
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Georgia ("George") Lass is an unmotivated eighteen-year-old slacker; a college dropout, she's returned to live with her unhappily-married parents (Joy and Clancy) and withdrawn younger sister (Reggie) in her family's Seattle home. To make her miserable existence even ''worse'', her father is cheating on his wife with one of his students, and her mother is so uptight that she thinks the word 'moist' sounds pornographic. (Her mother [[CharacterDevelopment later got over it]].)
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* FridgeLogic: Shouldn't the Lasses have received compensation from the Russian government for their daughter being killed by MIR?
** Do space stations even have toilet seats?
*** They can. Space toilets need to use suction devices to collect waste, but that doesn't preclude the existence of a toilet-like housing apparatus. Having said that, the "seat" would probably not be raisable--or, indeed, a separate item at all. [[RuleOfFunny But who cares]]?
** Do space stations even have toilet seats?
*** They can. Space toilets need to use suction devices to collect waste, but that doesn't preclude the existence of a toilet-like housing apparatus. Having said that, the "seat" would probably not be raisable--or, indeed, a separate item at all. [[RuleOfFunny But who cares]]?
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* [[NeverLiveItDown Never "Live" It Down]]: In Reaper circles, George will always be known as "Toilet Seat Girl."
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sinkholes
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* CameBackWrong: [[BastardBoyfriend RAY]]. [[CrazyJealousGuy RAYRAYRAY]]. [[CompleteMonster OHGODRAY.]]
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* CameBackWrong: [[BastardBoyfriend RAY]]. RAY. [[CrazyJealousGuy RAYRAYRAY]]. [[CompleteMonster RAYRAYRAY OHGODRAY.]]
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** TheLancer: Betty. A veteran like Rube but perkier and, of course, female. George steps into this role after she leaves, being somewhat idealistic and a rookie
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** TheLancer: Betty. A veteran like Rube but perkier and, of course, female. George steps into this role after she leaves, being somewhat idealistic and a rookierookie.
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[[quoteright:220:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/220px-Dlm_season1_dvd_3920.jpg]]
-->I'm going to tell you a story. Not my story, that's later...This is just a story...ready?
-->Once upon a time, (or more specifically at the dawn of time), god--lower case "g"--was getting busy with creation, as the kids these days are saying. He gave Toad a clay jar and said,
-->"Be careful with this. It's got death inside."
-->Pleased as punch and oblivious to the fact that he was about to become god's fall guy on the whole death issue, Toad promised to guard the jar. Then one day Toad met Frog.
-->"Let me hold the jar of death, or whatever you call it," Frog begged. With a nod to Nancy Reagan's pearls of wisdom, Toad just said 'no'. But Frog was determined, and after much whining, Toad finally gave in.
-->"You can hold it, but only for a second," he said.
-->In his excitement, Frog began to hop around and juggle the death jar from one foot to the other.
-->Frog... was an ''asshole.''
''Dead Like Me'' was a MundaneFantastic BlackComedy television series created by BryanFuller. It aired on {{Showtime}} from 2003 to 2004.
Georgia ("George") Lass is an unmotivated eighteen-year-old slacker; a college dropout, she's returned to live with her unhappily-married parents (Joy and Clancy) and withdrawn younger sister (Reggie) in her family's Seattle home. To make her miserable existence even ''worse'', her father is cheating on his wife with one of his students, and her mother is so uptight that she thinks the word 'moist' sounds pornographic. (Her mother [[CharacterDevelopment later got over it]].)
On George's first day at the Happy Time Temp Agency, she loses an important file down an elevator shaft, unwittingly insults the boss, and to top it all off, is killed on her lunch break by a toilet seat that detached from the deorbiting space station Mir.
Instead of going off to the afterlife, however, George is drafted to serve as a [[{{Psychopomp}} "grim reaper"]] (not ''the'' Grim Reaper, ''a'' Grim Reaper; it's a team effort, with a supervisor and assignments handed out via Post-It Notes), in the 'External Influences' division -- which handles suicides, homicides and fatal accidents like George's own. A ''perfect'' job for a depressed teenage reaper.
[[AC:On her team:]]
* '''Rube Sofer ''' (d. 1926), was the boss who affectionately calls George 'Peanut' and is constantly trying to manage his ''very'' unorthodox employees.
* '''Roxy Harvey''' (d. 1982), tough-as-nails meter maid (and, later, cop) strangled to death by a jealous roommate for inventing legwarmers
* '''Mason''' (d. 1966) a 60s druggie who trepanated himself (ie, drilled a hole in his head) to try and reach the Ultimate High.
* '''Betty Rhomer''' (d. 1926), a cheerful mostly-adjusted reaper who keeps photos of her reaps in shopping bags which she organizes by category. She died after diving off a cliff into a river for a thrill. Early in Season 1, [[spoiler:she [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascended To A Higher Plane of Existence]]...maybe.]].
* '''Daisy Adair''' (d. 1938), a Hollywood starlet who may (or may not) have slept with ClarkGable and nearly all of 1930s Hollywood. Died in a terrible fire on the set of GoneWithTheWind. [[spoiler:She replaced Betty.]]
In the other corner: Gravelings. Dark, mysterious, and (apparently) unwilling or unable to harm George for reasons never explained, they're responsible for ''causing'' the deaths that the reapers have to clean up.
Oh, and did we mention that reaping is a 'public service', and reapers don't get paid? That's right, George pays the bills by holding down a 9-to-5 job, under a different name, at the Happy Time Temp Agency.
Because it was TooGoodToLast (and, at least according to WordOfGod, due to ExecutiveMeddling) it was canceled after the second season with much of the side-story and back-plot unresolved.
[[DirectToVideo A DVD movie came out in February of '09.]] It aired in Canada on January 1st. Fan response to it [[BrokenBase was mixed]], but it did well enough to renew interest in networks considering to pick up the series again, especially after the cult success of Bryan Fuller's other (and then recently canceled) series ''PushingDaisies''.
----
!!Provides examples of:
* AbortedArc: According to WordOfGod, George's Dad was originally going to be gay, as evident in the Pilot, and this would have led to a storyline where George learned to appreciate her existence because she "wasn't meant to be". After Bryan Fuller departed the show the college student her father was said to be having an affair with was changed to a female.
* AbusiveParents: Emotionally, Joy; reasonable adults don't look at their daughter struggling to cope with her sister's sudden, violent, untimely death and think that banning all forms of talking about it, calling her insane, forcing her to go to therapy, and generally belittling her at every turn is the best way to handle it. Not to mention that most of the things she says to either of her daughters are mean-spirited and judgmental.
* {{Adorkable}}: Mason. Oh, Mason.
* AgeAppropriateAngst: George died at just 18, after all.
* [[AloofBigBrother Aloof Big Sister]]: Generally, what George was to Reggie in life. And after.
* AndIMustScream: Not getting reaped before you die will trap the soul in their corpse conscious but completely helpless.
* AnimalMotifs: Frogs generally symbolize "death" or "moving on". (A [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_American_horned_frog South American horned frog]] appeared as the main one.)
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Reggie, in George's eyes.
* AntiHero: George, Type I. (The other regular Reapers fall into one category of AntiHero, too.)
* ArtisticLicenseGeography: For a series that takes place in Seattle, it rarely rains, and seems to be sunny and warm year-round. This is made even weirder by the show having been filmed in Vancouver, where it rains as much as or more so than Seattle. Numerous recognizable Vancouver landmarks, skylines and street names, as well as a Canadian flag, also show up in the background. However, the show's location has never really been an important factor other than an incidental fact, so that may have been why they let it slide.
** It did rain in episode 3.
** Although the geography is never specific it is occasionally referred to as "the north west", and the name Seattle does appear once on a sign that a graffiti artist is painting over.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: The "Lights" spirits (and Reapers) go into.
** Also happens to reapers when they reach their quota of souls.
* AskAStupidQuestion:
--> '''Ed Barphin:''' Can I ask you a question?
--> '''George:''' That ''is'' a question. Would you like to ask me ''another'' one?
* AssShove: Mason once tried to smuggle drugs in a condom stuck up his ass. HilarityEnsues.
** In another episode, an exhausted Roxy gives us this gem:
-->'''Roxy''': The next Post-It that man gives me, I'm shoving it up his butt."
* AttendingYourOwnFuneral: George does this after dying, but this is a privilege extended only to reapers. In a later episode, an old man wants to do this and has to be dissuaded by Mason and Rube.
* {{Backstory}}: We learn how Mason, Betty, and Roxy died in the first season, with Rube's gradually being revealed over season two.
* BananaPeel: "Pilot". [[spoiler:During a bank reap, George suspects a banana peel on the floor will be the cause of death when two people start waving guns around and the entire second floor collapses. The death occurs when someone slips on the banana peel on their way out of the bank and gets their head lodged in the revolving door as the police and firemen start charging in.]]
-->'''Mason:''' Well, what do you know? It really ''was'' the banana peel!
* BaitAndSwitch: Almost all of the deaths. Incredibly dangerous situations are set up only for the death to be caused by something almost completely random.
** Happens so much, even the Reapers [[GenreSavvy begin to notice.]] Some have even made a game of picking out just what's going to happen. And, since this is the norm, when everything happens as predicted (see the banana peel above) it actually ends up going full circle and becoming a surprise.
* BigEater: Rube.
* BlackComedy: It's a show about grim reapers. What did you expect?
* BloodyHilarious: Most of the deaths and George's antics with [[spoiler:her own severed finger, which gets cut off at one point. (With her Reaper powers, that merely inconveniences her.)]]
* BookEnds: Season 1 began and ended with a shot of earth from space.
* BreadEggsBreadedEggs: Daisy describing George to George's (Millie's) co-workers:
-->'''Daisy:''' I'm looking for a girl. She's about yay big, brown eyes, pretty... angry... pretty angry, actual—Oh! That's her.
* BreakTheCutie: Daisy and Reggie both suffer from this.
* BrokenPedestal: Mason had to reap one of his favorite rock stars who had become a sad drug addict of a has-been.
* ButtMonkey: Mason.
** George, as well.
** The Reapers and mortals in general as far as the Gravelings are concerned.
* CaliforniaDoubling: Anyone in the northwest could tell you that Seattle is rarely that sunny and bright for more than a week per year, much less all year round. Reggie and her mom sleeping in casual spring clothes outside in the middle of fall would have more likely given them frost bite.
* CameBackWrong: [[BastardBoyfriend RAY]]. [[CrazyJealousGuy RAYRAYRAY]]. [[CompleteMonster OHGODRAY.]]
* {{Cancellation}}.
* CatchPhrase: "Delores Herbig, as in, her big brown eyes."
* CelestialBureaucracy: Implied to exist. Most of the reapers are on the bottom rung, Rube is one level up, and whoever supplies Rube with names and dates is a level above that. No one knows how many levels there are in total.
** Deleted scenes in the pilot, which are also included in the Sci-Fi airings, show reapers standing in a DMV-like office building and filling out lots of paper work to get new identifications.
*** Not just "DMV-like", it was the DMV. The clerk providing George with new ID was another reaper, using earthbound facilities to help other reapers with the transition to unlife. He used his breaks to do his reaps in the hospital around the corner.
* CharacterDevelopment.: Plenty, especially George, Daisy and (surprisingly enough) Rube.
** In a behind the scenes DVD interview the actor playing Mason revealed that he demanded that his character ''never'' be allowed to develop [[RuleOfFunny because it was funnier]] to let him remain a lovable idiot.
*** Mason didn't just not develop. He regressed. In the pilot he seemed calm and competent at his job. He got thoroughly Flanderized over the course of the series.
* TheChosenOne: George seemed to be picked by the Gravelings to be important somehow, revealed in a flashback to an early near-death experience in a swimming pool.
** And in another flashback (second season's finale), she seems to be able to see the gravelings in the house of her neighbor, at least on Halloween.
** The next to last episode showed [[spoiler:she can reap them]].
* ChronicPetKiller: George and Reggie.
* ClipShow: "Nighthawks", due to budgetary reasons and that episode's plot running short. On that note, it does get bonus points for having a plot, even if the clips are irrelevant.
* CloudCuckooLander: Mason, quite often. According to him, college is a plot by bacteria to transmit themselves more effectively.
** And then there was Ronnie, a clinical schizophrenic who could see the gravelings.
* ClusterFBomb: Mason, who probably swears more than actually speaking.
** Lampshaded by George in one episode.
--->'''Mason:''' Crazy fucking fuck.
--->'''George:''' I wish the words just rolled off my tongue like they do yours.
** Everybody swears quite a bit.
* ComedicSociopathy: Indulged in frequently by Mason and sometimes by George (until she has a change of heart).
* ConspicuousCG: Mostly averted with the gravelings and the lights, but a little to obvious on things like the train derailing in season one and other causes of death.
* CoolBigSis: Reggie looks up to George, despite the lack of affection she gave back.
** Also, though non-biological, Betty assumes the role for George.
* CoolOldLady: "Grandma Phyl," Mother of Joy and George and Reggie's grandmother. Joy was always at odds with her, but the latter two liked her.
* CreepyChild:
** Reggie's way of coping with her sister's death was a bit disturbing.
** Charlie, the animal reaper.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Again, most of the deaths.
** [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]; George and the other main cast members are a unit assigned to accidents, murders, suicide, etc.
* CurseCutShort: "Oh shi....", but only in the broadcast edit.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Ms. Herbig, the extremely GenkiGirl boss of the temp agency who casually mentions things she did in her youth like participating in lesbian orgies, doing coke in a public restroom and picking up random homeless men for sex...
** Rube. [[spoiler: It's strongly implied that he was a criminal in life who robbed at least one bank.]]
* DawsonCasting: George, initially unobtrusive since she's the only teen character we regularly see. Becomes inconvenient since undead characters are not supposed to age. Increasingly obvious makeup is HandWaved as office-worker glam. [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with Reggie, who gets to grow up on screen.
* DaydreamSurprise
* DeadpanSnarker: George and boy does she deliver some gems.
-->'''George''': ''licks finger and holds it up'' You feel that? That's the IQ falling.
* DeathByFallingOver: Many of the deaths on the show seem like something most people would walk away from.
** Well of course. If someone ''had'' just walked away, there wouldn't really be a reason to call in the grim reapers.
** TruthInTelevision too. For every "I can't believe he walked away from that" you have someone who, say, gets sucker punched in just the right spot, and dies from it.
* DeathByIrony: Almost OnceAnEpisode.
** Also, the name of the space station Mir means "peace" in many Slavic languages, including Russian. Rest in PEACE, anyone?
* DeathByLookingUp: George.
* DeathByOriginStory: George and all the other Reapers, of course.
* DeathTakesAHoliday: Literally, in one episode.
* DeathsHourglass: A central theme to the series.
* TheDitherer: George becomes this when she's called to interview three applicants to a job and choose one. [[spoiler: She takes such a long time deciding, that it proved to be the final straw for the mentally unstable boss of the firm that was hiring; he snaps and murders several people in a shootout, including the person George selected.]]
* DirectToVideo: ''Life After Death'', a much-delayed continuation finally released in 2009.
* DontFearTheReaper: The first several episodes revolve around George learning that Reapers don't actually kill anybody; they make death easier for people to handle. They pop souls out of their bodies so they don't have to experience the moment itself, nor carry the scars and emotional trauma into the afterlife. Reapers also provide a comforting presence to help the recently deceased understand their fates and move on. Most early episodes include a key scene wherein Rube berates George for her well-intention efforts that ultimately make things harder for the dead.
** Betty herself was tired of the image of the grim reaper being "black hooded skeleton with a scythe". So she wanted to help change the stereotype to being "fashionably dressed pretty lady holding a camera saying 'happy thoughts!' " instead.
* DysfunctionalFamily: The Lasses.
* EditedForSyndication: The SciFiChannel took out the curses.
* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: George's death can be this for the Lasses on occasion.
* EpisodeOnAPlane: Where Mason and Roxy were about to go to Mexico but the deaths of the two they reaped cancelled the flight.
* ExecutiveMeddling: The Behind the Scenes reason for [[spoiler:Betty's disappearance]]. Creator Bryan Fuller recounts numerous problems with them. (Note that TropesAreNotBad. Some of the things Fuller ''wanted'' to do with the show sound like WriterOnBoard. If George's father was gay, in a sham marriage, would that mean that spiritually George should ''[[MindScrew never have existed]]?'' This would also [[UnfortunateImplications apply to millions of real people]].)
* EverythingIsWorseWithBears: Episode 3.
* FaceHeelTurn: George's childhood friend Beth Anne Miller who pushed her into the public pool to gain the approval of the popular kids, an act George herself refused to do. [[spoiler:It was at the bottom of the pool that George first saw gravelings]].
* FanService: Of all the characters, Mason is the one seen naked or in his underwear the most. Fans are now well aware that his favorite pair is his Union Jack briefs.
* FanDisservice: One episode has a shameless old man die wearing nothing but a towel. His ghost promptly frolics around naked, much to the displeasure of all Reapers present.
* AFatherToHisMen: Rube. A brusque, eccentric father, but like a father nonetheless. (A critical revelation later in the show leads Rube to consciously abandon this role.)
* FauxlosophicNarration: George's narration can sometimes become this if she's feeling angsty enough.
* FirstEpisodeResurrection: George
* FirstPersonSnarker: George, in her narration.
* FiveManBand:
** TheLeader: Rube. He tells everyone what to do, up to and including, their daily reaps. George refers to him as 'middle management'.
** TheLancer: Betty. A veteran like Rube but perkier and, of course, female. George steps into this role after she leaves, being somewhat idealistic and a rookie
** TheBigGuy: Roxy. She's a cop and very aggressive.
** TheSmartGuy: Mason (in the "trickster" sense)
** TheChick: Daisy. Flaunts her sex appeal and manipulates others, like George and Mason.
* FiveStagesOfGrief: Everyone, at some point or another, but primarily George and her family.
* FourLinesAllWaiting: The main gang usually split into two groups, each having its own plot. Besides, most episodes have a plot for Georgia's family, for Happy Time and for some flashback of Georgia's childhood.
* {{Flanderization}}: Daisy in TheMovie.
* FreakyFashionMildMind
* FrenchJerk: Roxy reaped a French woman at the airport. She was crushed by her own luggage.
* FridgeLogic: Shouldn't the Lasses have received compensation from the Russian government for their daughter being killed by MIR?
** Do space stations even have toilet seats?
*** They can. Space toilets need to use suction devices to collect waste, but that doesn't preclude the existence of a toilet-like housing apparatus. Having said that, the "seat" would probably not be raisable--or, indeed, a separate item at all. [[RuleOfFunny But who cares]]?
* FrogsAndToads: Throughout the series, frogs are used as a recurring symbol for life, death, and change. George herself has a pet frog that belonged to her first reap that apparently followed her home, and a frog-shaped pendant given to her by her [[CoolOldLady grandmother]].
* FunWithAcronyms: '''T'''hieves '''H'''arm '''E'''veryone's '''F'''un '''T'''ime, '''R'''eport '''I'''dentify '''P'''unish '''O'''stracize '''F'''ire (slogans George learned at work) and '''T'''rans-'''N'''ational '''A'''irways.
** At one point Delores tells George "'''GFY'''". George is nonplussed until Delores explains that she means '''G'''ood '''F'''or '''Y'''ou.
* GarageSale: Joy holds one after George dies, much to George's horror as a good chunk of the stuff for sale is George's. Mason also holds one ([[WhatAnIdiot on somebody else's lawn]]) when he thinks he's about to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascend]]; [[ContinuityCavalcade pretty much all the items present are things he picked up in previous episodes.]]
* GoIntoTheLight: The souls all see glowing visions (usually tinted blue), called lights, which they walk into to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence.
* GodGuise: Three times (Roxy, Mason and Daisy) were mistaken for God.
* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Most of the reapers.
** At one point in Der Waffle Haus, the manager is killed by the big neon sign falling down on him, while George is sitting at the counter. As she gets over that shock, she notices a two foot long piece of neon tube stuck in her chest. She pulls it out, bloody but apparently otherwise undamaged, then later that evening she coughs up a mounting bracket in bed.
--> "That is not right."
** On another occasion, George's middle finger comes off in a paper shredder at work. She puts it back on, but needs a band-aid so no one will suspect anything and because it hasn't quite stuck yet.
** When the condom full of heroin bursts while inside Mason's rectum, he has to experience a lethal overdose without actually dying from it.
*** Mason later drinks from a glass of steaming liquid, not realizing it's a Halloween prop filled with dry ice solution. He promptly turns blue and vents steam from various facial orifices but soon recovers.
* GoOutWithASmile: Mason died with a big dopey grin on his face. [[DrugsAreBad Probably literally dopey]].
* GogglesDoNothing: Literally: Mason's death. He fails safety forever. Of course, why he thought they would do any good when he was [[spoiler:drilling a hole in his own head]] is anyone's guess.
** Presumably, the goggles would keep [[spoiler:blood and bits of bone]] out of his eyes.
* GoryDiscretionShot: For particularly violent deaths. Sometimes knowing what's happening is enough.
* {{Goth}}: A couple show up, presented in various degrees of accuracy. Reggie hangs out with a goth crowd and experimented with this style in one episode. Another famous goth musician goes by the ridiculous name of "Bandar" and looks nearly as silly as the name implies.
* GratuitousGerman: Der Waffle Haus.
* GreasySpoon: Der Waffle Haus, where the Reapers meet and eat. Famously re-used in ''StargateSG1''as a higher plane of existence.
* {{The Grim Reaper}}s: Duh.
* HalloweenEpisode: The final one.
* HealingFactor: one of the perks of being a Reaper.
* HistoricalInJoke
** Mormon founder Joseph Smith had his religious awakening after a reaper encounter.
** Rube reaped AmeliaEarhart.
** Daisy claims she reaped JamesDean.
** Mason reaped former RollingStones member Brian Jones.
* {{Homage}}: to HillStreetBlues, down to use of theme music when the meter maids roll out onto the streets.
* ISeeDeadPeople: The schizophrenic boy who can see the Gravelings, and the Reapers as they really look.
* [[IWasToldThereWouldBeCake I Was Told There Would Be Cookies]]: Reggie says this to her psychiatrist.
* ImagineSpot: Every now and then.
* ImmortalImmaturity: Mason. Oh, Mason...
** Charlie, who's been--ten? eleven?--since 1993, also qualifies.
* InnerMonologue: George.
* JacobMarleyApparel: Only for regular ol' dead folk; Reapers can (and do, and should) change their clothes.
* JerkassFacade: George tries to develop one, believing that [[{{Jerkass}} jerks]] are in general liked better...but quickly realizes it's just not for her.
* KilledMidSentence: "Oh Shi...." again. Also, only in the broadcast edit.
* LastDayToLive: Mason gets a purple post-it and becomes convinced his time as a reaper is up, but it then turns out [[spoiler:they were just out of yellow ones]].
** [[spoiler:This is also a case of FridgeLogic, since in an earlier episode Rube was shown to keep a huge supply of yellow post-its in his apartment.]]
* LifeWillKillYou: Common in this series.
* LikesOlderWomen: Deleted scenes indicate that the guy whose apartment George takes was very much this, if his octogenarian PornStash and appearance of an older girlfriend were anything to go by.
* MeaningfulName: Gee, I wonder who [[RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts Rube]] was named for...
** Then there's Joy. Seems like an ironic name at first, until we add Lass to the end of it.
** Ned from a company called ''[=LunaTeca=] goes on a shooting spree.
** Possible [[InSeriesNickname meaningful nickname]] (to the nicknamer, at least): "Georgy Girl," Mason's nickname for George, was the title of a hit film that was released in 1966 - the year of his death. It's a [[PunnyName punny nickname]] as well: George Lass = Georgy Girl.
* MediumBlending: The opening recap of the movie is done in a comic book form.
* MisplacedKindergartenTeacher: Ms. Herbig, of that particular variety that thinks children are happy little elf-things rather than real people with the capacity to actually think. And she tries to talk to her employees like they're children. You see where I'm going with this. It gets hard to tell if she's being passive-aggressive or if she really thinks offering up "her big brown eyes" as a mnemonic to remember her name is a perfectly acceptable way to address adults.
* MoodWhiplash: The show regularly shifts between black comedy, drama, office comedy and UrbanFantasy. [[TropesAreNotBad It does it well though.]]
* MundaneAfterlife: At least for Reapers, life after death continues on more or less as normal.
* TheNameIsBondJamesBond: "Daisy; Daisy Adair."
** Played straight in the speed dating scene, even if that isn't his name.
* NecroNonSequitur: Very, ''very'' often.
* NeverGotToSayGoodbye: George. Subverted with [[spoiler:Rube]], who does eventually.
* [[NeverLiveItDown Never "Live" It Down]]: In Reaper circles, George will always be known as "Toilet Seat Girl."
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Early in the series, George attempted to prevent her mark from dying by making sure he wouldn't show up for his "appointment" on time. It worked, but had a domino effect that ended up getting even ''more'' people killed.
* NightmareFetishist: Reggie's tastes are a little...macabre. At one point, she even expressed interest at the sight of a disembodied heart.
* NoSympathy: None of the Reapers are all that inclined to show that much support for George after she dies.
* NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat: Mason trips over himself during the reap of a gay couple.
-->'''Mason:''' So... which one of you is the woman?
-->'''Josh:''' Neither of us. We're two gay men.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Ghosts exist, but they're the result of a sloppy reaping where the soul is allowed to wander off instead of getting its lights, instead of emotional trauma or unfinished business or any of the other usual causes.
* OurSoulsAreDifferent: If a person's soul isn't reaped and they continue living it eventually goes rotten.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Despite the fact that they are extremely human like, the reapers themselves are in a way zombies(Type O i suppose) based on the fact that they are technically reanimated dead people. The show even uses the term Undead to refer to their state of being
* OutWithABang: A newlywed husband cheats in an Airplane Bathroom, and has an allergic reaction to the peanuts the stewardess he was making out with had eaten.
* ParentsAsPeople
* PluckyGirl: Betty.
* PornStash: The previous owner of George's apartment in the first few episodes had a collection of octogenarian porn.
* TheProblemWithFightingDeath: Or rather, the problem with trying to [[DeathTakesAHoliday holiday]], use your powers irresponsibly or for self gain, kill people who aren't supposed to die, not allow people who are supposed to die to die, and in the movie, [[spoiler:[[{{Immortality}} trying to kill a Reaper]].]]
* {{Psychopomp}}: The premise of the show.
* PullingThemselvesTogether: George reattaches her finger after an accident with a shredder.
* QuickNip: Mason, when he's OffTheWagon.
* QuitYourWhining: Rube has this attitude toward George.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Again, the External Influence Division.
* RasputinianDeath: [[spoiler:Cameron]] in TheMovie. It's ''really'' difficult to kill [[spoiler:a reaper]].
** Specifically, [[spoiler:after drowning, suffocation, and shooting in the head all fail, Mason makes use of a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]] to slice him apart, and they proceed to throw his body into a fireplace. He may or may not have actually died from this, but just to make sure they cremate him, switch his ashes and that of Delores' cat, and launch them into space.]]
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Reapers stay the age they were when they died, and all but George have been dead for at least a few decades.
* RetCon: A few details were added in and taken out between the pilot and the second episode. And, for the most part, in the second season and in the movie, the detail of the Reapers looking different to living people seemed to be more or less dropped. (Though the last episode of Season 2 alluded to it.)
* RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts: All of the deaths involve this to some degree. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and justified in that the Gravelings exist to ensure that the improbable coincidences occur resulting in the death of the right person at the proper time.
* RunningGag: One of many is George making up bizarre excuses to escape certain situations, such as spending more time than she has to with Delores. In the pilot episode she says she can't talk with a man because she is praying, she avoids scrapbooking with Delores by saying she is having a "heavy flow day" and avoids going to a stationary store (that apparently has to be "seen to be believed") with Delores by saying she has been alcohol-free for a year and her AA sponsor is taking her to the park to fly kites.
* {{Scotireland}}: in "Reaping Havoc", an Irish-American saw Ireland's Cliffs of [[CriticalResearchFailure Dover]] waiting for him in the afterlife... while the soundtrack played "Scotland the Brave".
** Even worse, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover Cliffs of Dover]] aren't in Ireland at all, but in England.
** Furthermore, the actual image they showed was of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffs_of_Moher Cliffs of Moher]], which ''are'' in Ireland. Which means ''someone'' in post-production caught this and didn't bother to tell anyone.
*** Hey, maybe the poor guy was going to hell. An Irishman's version of hell, that is...
*** You're right about them showing [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w7NOi9sQz0 Moher]]; however, compositors aren't given the soundtrack when special effects are handed off to them. It wouldn't have been caught until the finished effects and the soundtrack were put together, which most likely would have been too late for a change to be made due to either deadlines or budget, or both.
* ShaggyDogStory: The story of the man who rode through a swamp to get back to the woman he loves whom with he had quarreled. He met a boy and asked him if the bottom was hard. As he sank, he told the boy that the swamp does not have a hard bottom. The boy replied, "It's bottom is hard, [[DownerEnding you just haven't reached it yet]].
* ShesAllGrownUp: Reggie, in the movie. Her hair let loose, her glasses gone, and wearing make up and pretty dresses causes her to become nigh unrecognizable to fans expecting her to still look the same five years later.
* ShipTease: Mason gives George a quick peck on the lips when he thinks his time as a reaper is over. [[spoiler:It's not.]]
** Not to mention "I really love you, Georgie."
* ShrineToTheFallen: Reggie makes one out of toilet seats for George.
* TheSnarkKnight: George
* SoftWater: Averted by Betty's death, jumping off a cliff into water that was too far down.
* SpontaneousHumanCombustion: One episode sees an untalented stand-up comedian, literally, die on stage by inexplicably exploding after one of his bad jokes.
** Also happened to an arm wrestler the night they met Ray.
* StealingFromTheTill: something that comes up both at Happy Time and amongst the reapers taking art, jewelry, houses, cars, drugs, etc. from those they just reaped. The morality of the stealing from the dead appears to be pretty gray, sometimes a character will be scolded and punished for stealing from bodies, others times they treat it like a normal thing. Then again, as it has been noted many times, the reaper job is completely unpaid.
** But don't EVER steal from Der Waffle Haus.
* StepfordSmiler: Daisy initially appears to be a ditzy starlet who is as promiscuous as it gets, who is selfish and full of it. But as George notes, she seems to simply be putting on an act. And her final thoughts when she died in a fire was [[spoiler: Why has no one ever loved me?]]. Combined with her psychological problems with seeing women being attacked by men and she seems to be a pretty troubled character.
** George's mother is this in a huge way. Absolutely everything in her life must be perfect, fitting every single stereotype of suburban life exactly. No variation allowed. This makes it hard for George's sister to actually come to terms with her sister's death.
** Dolores Herbig. She puts on a happy, cheery demeanor, but it's strongly implied that she's a sad and desperately lonely individual with a DarkAndTroubledPast.
* StrangeGirl: George, pre-death, as well as her little sister Reggie.
* StupidCrooks: In the pilot episode one of George's first experiences with the reapers is with Mason at a bank, where we meet Bret, the hapless bank robber. Bret stumbles through a prepared announcement he wrote up before entering the bank and gets upstaged by one jealous wife of the bankers. However, he [[SubvertedTrope miraculously manages to get away with the bank's money.]]
** Meanwhile, Mason is oftentimes the dumbest of the team of reapers and is the only one who looks to earn his money through theft and scrounging, while the others hold down jobs on the side (except for Rube, who seems to be independently wealthy). Usually, his stupidity and crimes don't affect the others, but one occasion stands out where, after previously giving away all of his possessions when he incorrectly assumed he was finally going to the afterlife, he was caught stealing tips left on tables at Der Waffle House, where the gang ''always'' meets and hangs out, and is immediately kicked out and barred from coming back to the diner by the group's usual waitress Kiffany.
* SupernaturalSoapOpera
* TalkingToTheDead: Part of the premise.
* TeamDad: Rube. George even identifies him as this.
* TeamMom: Roxy. Kiffany, a waitress at Der Waffle Haus, identifies her role as this in the Reapers' group.
* TheTell: Joy makes blueberry pancakes when she feels guilty.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Ted from Happy Time (usually).
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: George's last words in life ("Aw, shit.") evoke this as she sees the toilet seat flying towards her.
* ThrowItIn: One episode has George jokingly make a motion to eat her pet frog. It retaliates by biting her on the mouth. According to the commentary on the first episode, this was not scripted.
* TitleDrop: Done in the last episode of both seasons -
-->"I guess it's not so bad, being dead like me."
* TomboyishName: Georgia "George" Lass (and her little sister Regina "Reggie" Lass). Creator BryanFuller seems to like this trope; his other series (''{{Wonderfalls}}'' and ''PushingDaisies'') also have female leads with "boy" nicknames.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Roxy and Daisy, respectively. Lampshaded in the last episode of season 2 where they dress up as a princess and a cop, respectively.
* TrueCompanions: The External Influence division.
* {{Tsundere}}: Roxy.
* UnCancelled: TheMovie.
* UndeathAlwaysEnds: Death is a transient... I mean, transitory thing. Or both, if you count Mason.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: At one point, Roxy shoots Mason ''right inside Der Waffle Haus''. Nobody in the restaurant seems to notice or care.
** Subverted the time Rube substituted for Angus the recently deceased fry cook of Der Waffle Haus. One of the waitresses sees them talking but to her it looks like Rube's talking to himself.
* VisitByDivorcedDad: [[spoiler:Clancy, to Reggie on occasion.]]
* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: Somewhat. George tries to avoid a reap but the person dies anyway, and [[AndIMustScream had to experience his autopsy]] before she reaps him at the Morgue.
* WhamEpisode: Three in season 2. Two showed George could see gravelings when she was a kid and the third showed [[spoiler:she can kill them]].
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: What happened to Betty is purposely left up in the air. Interestingly, when a different character named Betty shows up later, George remarks "Who's Betty?" as if she wasn't familiar with anyone by that name.
** Betty was supposed to return in season two. Bryan Fuller, the show's creator, left early in season one, which left the plot in the hands of studio execs. Since they hadn't wanted the actress who had played Betty to portray her in the first place, they wrote Betty out of season two.
* {{Whatever}}
* WhiteHairedPrettyGirl: Daisy.
* WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou
* YankTheDogsChain: In the thirteenth episode of the second season, we see that [[spoiler: Reggie's dog J.D. has managed to run away from home because a previously visiting neighbour didn't close the gates. When Reggie is out looking for J.D., we spot Charlie, the animal reaper and also a car that has pulled over. George, who is visiting home once again, realizes that Charlie has been there to reap J.D.'s soul and panicks, but then we suddenly see J.D. running happily towards Reggie who's looking at the car... just for him to run through her and up to Charlie. Cue many [[{{TearJerker}} tears]], especially for dog lovers]].
** In TheMovie, we find that Delores's chronically health-challenged cat Murray has survived the past five years. [[spoiler:And almost immediately afterwords we find that he's got a terminal kidney disease. Talk about BackForTheDead.]]
* YouCantGoHomeAgain: George. That doesn't stop her from doing it anyway.
----
-->I'm going to tell you a story. Not my story, that's later...This is just a story...ready?
-->Once upon a time, (or more specifically at the dawn of time), god--lower case "g"--was getting busy with creation, as the kids these days are saying. He gave Toad a clay jar and said,
-->"Be careful with this. It's got death inside."
-->Pleased as punch and oblivious to the fact that he was about to become god's fall guy on the whole death issue, Toad promised to guard the jar. Then one day Toad met Frog.
-->"Let me hold the jar of death, or whatever you call it," Frog begged. With a nod to Nancy Reagan's pearls of wisdom, Toad just said 'no'. But Frog was determined, and after much whining, Toad finally gave in.
-->"You can hold it, but only for a second," he said.
-->In his excitement, Frog began to hop around and juggle the death jar from one foot to the other.
-->Frog... was an ''asshole.''
''Dead Like Me'' was a MundaneFantastic BlackComedy television series created by BryanFuller. It aired on {{Showtime}} from 2003 to 2004.
Georgia ("George") Lass is an unmotivated eighteen-year-old slacker; a college dropout, she's returned to live with her unhappily-married parents (Joy and Clancy) and withdrawn younger sister (Reggie) in her family's Seattle home. To make her miserable existence even ''worse'', her father is cheating on his wife with one of his students, and her mother is so uptight that she thinks the word 'moist' sounds pornographic. (Her mother [[CharacterDevelopment later got over it]].)
On George's first day at the Happy Time Temp Agency, she loses an important file down an elevator shaft, unwittingly insults the boss, and to top it all off, is killed on her lunch break by a toilet seat that detached from the deorbiting space station Mir.
Instead of going off to the afterlife, however, George is drafted to serve as a [[{{Psychopomp}} "grim reaper"]] (not ''the'' Grim Reaper, ''a'' Grim Reaper; it's a team effort, with a supervisor and assignments handed out via Post-It Notes), in the 'External Influences' division -- which handles suicides, homicides and fatal accidents like George's own. A ''perfect'' job for a depressed teenage reaper.
[[AC:On her team:]]
* '''Rube Sofer ''' (d. 1926), was the boss who affectionately calls George 'Peanut' and is constantly trying to manage his ''very'' unorthodox employees.
* '''Roxy Harvey''' (d. 1982), tough-as-nails meter maid (and, later, cop) strangled to death by a jealous roommate for inventing legwarmers
* '''Mason''' (d. 1966) a 60s druggie who trepanated himself (ie, drilled a hole in his head) to try and reach the Ultimate High.
* '''Betty Rhomer''' (d. 1926), a cheerful mostly-adjusted reaper who keeps photos of her reaps in shopping bags which she organizes by category. She died after diving off a cliff into a river for a thrill. Early in Season 1, [[spoiler:she [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascended To A Higher Plane of Existence]]...maybe.]].
* '''Daisy Adair''' (d. 1938), a Hollywood starlet who may (or may not) have slept with ClarkGable and nearly all of 1930s Hollywood. Died in a terrible fire on the set of GoneWithTheWind. [[spoiler:She replaced Betty.]]
In the other corner: Gravelings. Dark, mysterious, and (apparently) unwilling or unable to harm George for reasons never explained, they're responsible for ''causing'' the deaths that the reapers have to clean up.
Oh, and did we mention that reaping is a 'public service', and reapers don't get paid? That's right, George pays the bills by holding down a 9-to-5 job, under a different name, at the Happy Time Temp Agency.
Because it was TooGoodToLast (and, at least according to WordOfGod, due to ExecutiveMeddling) it was canceled after the second season with much of the side-story and back-plot unresolved.
[[DirectToVideo A DVD movie came out in February of '09.]] It aired in Canada on January 1st. Fan response to it [[BrokenBase was mixed]], but it did well enough to renew interest in networks considering to pick up the series again, especially after the cult success of Bryan Fuller's other (and then recently canceled) series ''PushingDaisies''.
----
!!Provides examples of:
* AbortedArc: According to WordOfGod, George's Dad was originally going to be gay, as evident in the Pilot, and this would have led to a storyline where George learned to appreciate her existence because she "wasn't meant to be". After Bryan Fuller departed the show the college student her father was said to be having an affair with was changed to a female.
* AbusiveParents: Emotionally, Joy; reasonable adults don't look at their daughter struggling to cope with her sister's sudden, violent, untimely death and think that banning all forms of talking about it, calling her insane, forcing her to go to therapy, and generally belittling her at every turn is the best way to handle it. Not to mention that most of the things she says to either of her daughters are mean-spirited and judgmental.
* {{Adorkable}}: Mason. Oh, Mason.
* AgeAppropriateAngst: George died at just 18, after all.
* [[AloofBigBrother Aloof Big Sister]]: Generally, what George was to Reggie in life. And after.
* AndIMustScream: Not getting reaped before you die will trap the soul in their corpse conscious but completely helpless.
* AnimalMotifs: Frogs generally symbolize "death" or "moving on". (A [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_American_horned_frog South American horned frog]] appeared as the main one.)
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Reggie, in George's eyes.
* AntiHero: George, Type I. (The other regular Reapers fall into one category of AntiHero, too.)
* ArtisticLicenseGeography: For a series that takes place in Seattle, it rarely rains, and seems to be sunny and warm year-round. This is made even weirder by the show having been filmed in Vancouver, where it rains as much as or more so than Seattle. Numerous recognizable Vancouver landmarks, skylines and street names, as well as a Canadian flag, also show up in the background. However, the show's location has never really been an important factor other than an incidental fact, so that may have been why they let it slide.
** It did rain in episode 3.
** Although the geography is never specific it is occasionally referred to as "the north west", and the name Seattle does appear once on a sign that a graffiti artist is painting over.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: The "Lights" spirits (and Reapers) go into.
** Also happens to reapers when they reach their quota of souls.
* AskAStupidQuestion:
--> '''Ed Barphin:''' Can I ask you a question?
--> '''George:''' That ''is'' a question. Would you like to ask me ''another'' one?
* AssShove: Mason once tried to smuggle drugs in a condom stuck up his ass. HilarityEnsues.
** In another episode, an exhausted Roxy gives us this gem:
-->'''Roxy''': The next Post-It that man gives me, I'm shoving it up his butt."
* AttendingYourOwnFuneral: George does this after dying, but this is a privilege extended only to reapers. In a later episode, an old man wants to do this and has to be dissuaded by Mason and Rube.
* {{Backstory}}: We learn how Mason, Betty, and Roxy died in the first season, with Rube's gradually being revealed over season two.
* BananaPeel: "Pilot". [[spoiler:During a bank reap, George suspects a banana peel on the floor will be the cause of death when two people start waving guns around and the entire second floor collapses. The death occurs when someone slips on the banana peel on their way out of the bank and gets their head lodged in the revolving door as the police and firemen start charging in.]]
-->'''Mason:''' Well, what do you know? It really ''was'' the banana peel!
* BaitAndSwitch: Almost all of the deaths. Incredibly dangerous situations are set up only for the death to be caused by something almost completely random.
** Happens so much, even the Reapers [[GenreSavvy begin to notice.]] Some have even made a game of picking out just what's going to happen. And, since this is the norm, when everything happens as predicted (see the banana peel above) it actually ends up going full circle and becoming a surprise.
* BigEater: Rube.
* BlackComedy: It's a show about grim reapers. What did you expect?
* BloodyHilarious: Most of the deaths and George's antics with [[spoiler:her own severed finger, which gets cut off at one point. (With her Reaper powers, that merely inconveniences her.)]]
* BookEnds: Season 1 began and ended with a shot of earth from space.
* BreadEggsBreadedEggs: Daisy describing George to George's (Millie's) co-workers:
-->'''Daisy:''' I'm looking for a girl. She's about yay big, brown eyes, pretty... angry... pretty angry, actual—Oh! That's her.
* BreakTheCutie: Daisy and Reggie both suffer from this.
* BrokenPedestal: Mason had to reap one of his favorite rock stars who had become a sad drug addict of a has-been.
* ButtMonkey: Mason.
** George, as well.
** The Reapers and mortals in general as far as the Gravelings are concerned.
* CaliforniaDoubling: Anyone in the northwest could tell you that Seattle is rarely that sunny and bright for more than a week per year, much less all year round. Reggie and her mom sleeping in casual spring clothes outside in the middle of fall would have more likely given them frost bite.
* CameBackWrong: [[BastardBoyfriend RAY]]. [[CrazyJealousGuy RAYRAYRAY]]. [[CompleteMonster OHGODRAY.]]
* {{Cancellation}}.
* CatchPhrase: "Delores Herbig, as in, her big brown eyes."
* CelestialBureaucracy: Implied to exist. Most of the reapers are on the bottom rung, Rube is one level up, and whoever supplies Rube with names and dates is a level above that. No one knows how many levels there are in total.
** Deleted scenes in the pilot, which are also included in the Sci-Fi airings, show reapers standing in a DMV-like office building and filling out lots of paper work to get new identifications.
*** Not just "DMV-like", it was the DMV. The clerk providing George with new ID was another reaper, using earthbound facilities to help other reapers with the transition to unlife. He used his breaks to do his reaps in the hospital around the corner.
* CharacterDevelopment.: Plenty, especially George, Daisy and (surprisingly enough) Rube.
** In a behind the scenes DVD interview the actor playing Mason revealed that he demanded that his character ''never'' be allowed to develop [[RuleOfFunny because it was funnier]] to let him remain a lovable idiot.
*** Mason didn't just not develop. He regressed. In the pilot he seemed calm and competent at his job. He got thoroughly Flanderized over the course of the series.
* TheChosenOne: George seemed to be picked by the Gravelings to be important somehow, revealed in a flashback to an early near-death experience in a swimming pool.
** And in another flashback (second season's finale), she seems to be able to see the gravelings in the house of her neighbor, at least on Halloween.
** The next to last episode showed [[spoiler:she can reap them]].
* ChronicPetKiller: George and Reggie.
* ClipShow: "Nighthawks", due to budgetary reasons and that episode's plot running short. On that note, it does get bonus points for having a plot, even if the clips are irrelevant.
* CloudCuckooLander: Mason, quite often. According to him, college is a plot by bacteria to transmit themselves more effectively.
** And then there was Ronnie, a clinical schizophrenic who could see the gravelings.
* ClusterFBomb: Mason, who probably swears more than actually speaking.
** Lampshaded by George in one episode.
--->'''Mason:''' Crazy fucking fuck.
--->'''George:''' I wish the words just rolled off my tongue like they do yours.
** Everybody swears quite a bit.
* ComedicSociopathy: Indulged in frequently by Mason and sometimes by George (until she has a change of heart).
* ConspicuousCG: Mostly averted with the gravelings and the lights, but a little to obvious on things like the train derailing in season one and other causes of death.
* CoolBigSis: Reggie looks up to George, despite the lack of affection she gave back.
** Also, though non-biological, Betty assumes the role for George.
* CoolOldLady: "Grandma Phyl," Mother of Joy and George and Reggie's grandmother. Joy was always at odds with her, but the latter two liked her.
* CreepyChild:
** Reggie's way of coping with her sister's death was a bit disturbing.
** Charlie, the animal reaper.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Again, most of the deaths.
** [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]; George and the other main cast members are a unit assigned to accidents, murders, suicide, etc.
* CurseCutShort: "Oh shi....", but only in the broadcast edit.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Ms. Herbig, the extremely GenkiGirl boss of the temp agency who casually mentions things she did in her youth like participating in lesbian orgies, doing coke in a public restroom and picking up random homeless men for sex...
** Rube. [[spoiler: It's strongly implied that he was a criminal in life who robbed at least one bank.]]
* DawsonCasting: George, initially unobtrusive since she's the only teen character we regularly see. Becomes inconvenient since undead characters are not supposed to age. Increasingly obvious makeup is HandWaved as office-worker glam. [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with Reggie, who gets to grow up on screen.
* DaydreamSurprise
* DeadpanSnarker: George and boy does she deliver some gems.
-->'''George''': ''licks finger and holds it up'' You feel that? That's the IQ falling.
* DeathByFallingOver: Many of the deaths on the show seem like something most people would walk away from.
** Well of course. If someone ''had'' just walked away, there wouldn't really be a reason to call in the grim reapers.
** TruthInTelevision too. For every "I can't believe he walked away from that" you have someone who, say, gets sucker punched in just the right spot, and dies from it.
* DeathByIrony: Almost OnceAnEpisode.
** Also, the name of the space station Mir means "peace" in many Slavic languages, including Russian. Rest in PEACE, anyone?
* DeathByLookingUp: George.
* DeathByOriginStory: George and all the other Reapers, of course.
* DeathTakesAHoliday: Literally, in one episode.
* DeathsHourglass: A central theme to the series.
* TheDitherer: George becomes this when she's called to interview three applicants to a job and choose one. [[spoiler: She takes such a long time deciding, that it proved to be the final straw for the mentally unstable boss of the firm that was hiring; he snaps and murders several people in a shootout, including the person George selected.]]
* DirectToVideo: ''Life After Death'', a much-delayed continuation finally released in 2009.
* DontFearTheReaper: The first several episodes revolve around George learning that Reapers don't actually kill anybody; they make death easier for people to handle. They pop souls out of their bodies so they don't have to experience the moment itself, nor carry the scars and emotional trauma into the afterlife. Reapers also provide a comforting presence to help the recently deceased understand their fates and move on. Most early episodes include a key scene wherein Rube berates George for her well-intention efforts that ultimately make things harder for the dead.
** Betty herself was tired of the image of the grim reaper being "black hooded skeleton with a scythe". So she wanted to help change the stereotype to being "fashionably dressed pretty lady holding a camera saying 'happy thoughts!' " instead.
* DysfunctionalFamily: The Lasses.
* EditedForSyndication: The SciFiChannel took out the curses.
* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: George's death can be this for the Lasses on occasion.
* EpisodeOnAPlane: Where Mason and Roxy were about to go to Mexico but the deaths of the two they reaped cancelled the flight.
* ExecutiveMeddling: The Behind the Scenes reason for [[spoiler:Betty's disappearance]]. Creator Bryan Fuller recounts numerous problems with them. (Note that TropesAreNotBad. Some of the things Fuller ''wanted'' to do with the show sound like WriterOnBoard. If George's father was gay, in a sham marriage, would that mean that spiritually George should ''[[MindScrew never have existed]]?'' This would also [[UnfortunateImplications apply to millions of real people]].)
* EverythingIsWorseWithBears: Episode 3.
* FaceHeelTurn: George's childhood friend Beth Anne Miller who pushed her into the public pool to gain the approval of the popular kids, an act George herself refused to do. [[spoiler:It was at the bottom of the pool that George first saw gravelings]].
* FanService: Of all the characters, Mason is the one seen naked or in his underwear the most. Fans are now well aware that his favorite pair is his Union Jack briefs.
* FanDisservice: One episode has a shameless old man die wearing nothing but a towel. His ghost promptly frolics around naked, much to the displeasure of all Reapers present.
* AFatherToHisMen: Rube. A brusque, eccentric father, but like a father nonetheless. (A critical revelation later in the show leads Rube to consciously abandon this role.)
* FauxlosophicNarration: George's narration can sometimes become this if she's feeling angsty enough.
* FirstEpisodeResurrection: George
* FirstPersonSnarker: George, in her narration.
* FiveManBand:
** TheLeader: Rube. He tells everyone what to do, up to and including, their daily reaps. George refers to him as 'middle management'.
** TheLancer: Betty. A veteran like Rube but perkier and, of course, female. George steps into this role after she leaves, being somewhat idealistic and a rookie
** TheBigGuy: Roxy. She's a cop and very aggressive.
** TheSmartGuy: Mason (in the "trickster" sense)
** TheChick: Daisy. Flaunts her sex appeal and manipulates others, like George and Mason.
* FiveStagesOfGrief: Everyone, at some point or another, but primarily George and her family.
* FourLinesAllWaiting: The main gang usually split into two groups, each having its own plot. Besides, most episodes have a plot for Georgia's family, for Happy Time and for some flashback of Georgia's childhood.
* {{Flanderization}}: Daisy in TheMovie.
* FreakyFashionMildMind
* FrenchJerk: Roxy reaped a French woman at the airport. She was crushed by her own luggage.
* FridgeLogic: Shouldn't the Lasses have received compensation from the Russian government for their daughter being killed by MIR?
** Do space stations even have toilet seats?
*** They can. Space toilets need to use suction devices to collect waste, but that doesn't preclude the existence of a toilet-like housing apparatus. Having said that, the "seat" would probably not be raisable--or, indeed, a separate item at all. [[RuleOfFunny But who cares]]?
* FrogsAndToads: Throughout the series, frogs are used as a recurring symbol for life, death, and change. George herself has a pet frog that belonged to her first reap that apparently followed her home, and a frog-shaped pendant given to her by her [[CoolOldLady grandmother]].
* FunWithAcronyms: '''T'''hieves '''H'''arm '''E'''veryone's '''F'''un '''T'''ime, '''R'''eport '''I'''dentify '''P'''unish '''O'''stracize '''F'''ire (slogans George learned at work) and '''T'''rans-'''N'''ational '''A'''irways.
** At one point Delores tells George "'''GFY'''". George is nonplussed until Delores explains that she means '''G'''ood '''F'''or '''Y'''ou.
* GarageSale: Joy holds one after George dies, much to George's horror as a good chunk of the stuff for sale is George's. Mason also holds one ([[WhatAnIdiot on somebody else's lawn]]) when he thinks he's about to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascend]]; [[ContinuityCavalcade pretty much all the items present are things he picked up in previous episodes.]]
* GoIntoTheLight: The souls all see glowing visions (usually tinted blue), called lights, which they walk into to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence.
* GodGuise: Three times (Roxy, Mason and Daisy) were mistaken for God.
* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Most of the reapers.
** At one point in Der Waffle Haus, the manager is killed by the big neon sign falling down on him, while George is sitting at the counter. As she gets over that shock, she notices a two foot long piece of neon tube stuck in her chest. She pulls it out, bloody but apparently otherwise undamaged, then later that evening she coughs up a mounting bracket in bed.
--> "That is not right."
** On another occasion, George's middle finger comes off in a paper shredder at work. She puts it back on, but needs a band-aid so no one will suspect anything and because it hasn't quite stuck yet.
** When the condom full of heroin bursts while inside Mason's rectum, he has to experience a lethal overdose without actually dying from it.
*** Mason later drinks from a glass of steaming liquid, not realizing it's a Halloween prop filled with dry ice solution. He promptly turns blue and vents steam from various facial orifices but soon recovers.
* GoOutWithASmile: Mason died with a big dopey grin on his face. [[DrugsAreBad Probably literally dopey]].
* GogglesDoNothing: Literally: Mason's death. He fails safety forever. Of course, why he thought they would do any good when he was [[spoiler:drilling a hole in his own head]] is anyone's guess.
** Presumably, the goggles would keep [[spoiler:blood and bits of bone]] out of his eyes.
* GoryDiscretionShot: For particularly violent deaths. Sometimes knowing what's happening is enough.
* {{Goth}}: A couple show up, presented in various degrees of accuracy. Reggie hangs out with a goth crowd and experimented with this style in one episode. Another famous goth musician goes by the ridiculous name of "Bandar" and looks nearly as silly as the name implies.
* GratuitousGerman: Der Waffle Haus.
* GreasySpoon: Der Waffle Haus, where the Reapers meet and eat. Famously re-used in ''StargateSG1''as a higher plane of existence.
* {{The Grim Reaper}}s: Duh.
* HalloweenEpisode: The final one.
* HealingFactor: one of the perks of being a Reaper.
* HistoricalInJoke
** Mormon founder Joseph Smith had his religious awakening after a reaper encounter.
** Rube reaped AmeliaEarhart.
** Daisy claims she reaped JamesDean.
** Mason reaped former RollingStones member Brian Jones.
* {{Homage}}: to HillStreetBlues, down to use of theme music when the meter maids roll out onto the streets.
* ISeeDeadPeople: The schizophrenic boy who can see the Gravelings, and the Reapers as they really look.
* [[IWasToldThereWouldBeCake I Was Told There Would Be Cookies]]: Reggie says this to her psychiatrist.
* ImagineSpot: Every now and then.
* ImmortalImmaturity: Mason. Oh, Mason...
** Charlie, who's been--ten? eleven?--since 1993, also qualifies.
* InnerMonologue: George.
* JacobMarleyApparel: Only for regular ol' dead folk; Reapers can (and do, and should) change their clothes.
* JerkassFacade: George tries to develop one, believing that [[{{Jerkass}} jerks]] are in general liked better...but quickly realizes it's just not for her.
* KilledMidSentence: "Oh Shi...." again. Also, only in the broadcast edit.
* LastDayToLive: Mason gets a purple post-it and becomes convinced his time as a reaper is up, but it then turns out [[spoiler:they were just out of yellow ones]].
** [[spoiler:This is also a case of FridgeLogic, since in an earlier episode Rube was shown to keep a huge supply of yellow post-its in his apartment.]]
* LifeWillKillYou: Common in this series.
* LikesOlderWomen: Deleted scenes indicate that the guy whose apartment George takes was very much this, if his octogenarian PornStash and appearance of an older girlfriend were anything to go by.
* MeaningfulName: Gee, I wonder who [[RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts Rube]] was named for...
** Then there's Joy. Seems like an ironic name at first, until we add Lass to the end of it.
** Ned from a company called ''[=LunaTeca=] goes on a shooting spree.
** Possible [[InSeriesNickname meaningful nickname]] (to the nicknamer, at least): "Georgy Girl," Mason's nickname for George, was the title of a hit film that was released in 1966 - the year of his death. It's a [[PunnyName punny nickname]] as well: George Lass = Georgy Girl.
* MediumBlending: The opening recap of the movie is done in a comic book form.
* MisplacedKindergartenTeacher: Ms. Herbig, of that particular variety that thinks children are happy little elf-things rather than real people with the capacity to actually think. And she tries to talk to her employees like they're children. You see where I'm going with this. It gets hard to tell if she's being passive-aggressive or if she really thinks offering up "her big brown eyes" as a mnemonic to remember her name is a perfectly acceptable way to address adults.
* MoodWhiplash: The show regularly shifts between black comedy, drama, office comedy and UrbanFantasy. [[TropesAreNotBad It does it well though.]]
* MundaneAfterlife: At least for Reapers, life after death continues on more or less as normal.
* TheNameIsBondJamesBond: "Daisy; Daisy Adair."
** Played straight in the speed dating scene, even if that isn't his name.
* NecroNonSequitur: Very, ''very'' often.
* NeverGotToSayGoodbye: George. Subverted with [[spoiler:Rube]], who does eventually.
* [[NeverLiveItDown Never "Live" It Down]]: In Reaper circles, George will always be known as "Toilet Seat Girl."
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Early in the series, George attempted to prevent her mark from dying by making sure he wouldn't show up for his "appointment" on time. It worked, but had a domino effect that ended up getting even ''more'' people killed.
* NightmareFetishist: Reggie's tastes are a little...macabre. At one point, she even expressed interest at the sight of a disembodied heart.
* NoSympathy: None of the Reapers are all that inclined to show that much support for George after she dies.
* NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat: Mason trips over himself during the reap of a gay couple.
-->'''Mason:''' So... which one of you is the woman?
-->'''Josh:''' Neither of us. We're two gay men.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Ghosts exist, but they're the result of a sloppy reaping where the soul is allowed to wander off instead of getting its lights, instead of emotional trauma or unfinished business or any of the other usual causes.
* OurSoulsAreDifferent: If a person's soul isn't reaped and they continue living it eventually goes rotten.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Despite the fact that they are extremely human like, the reapers themselves are in a way zombies(Type O i suppose) based on the fact that they are technically reanimated dead people. The show even uses the term Undead to refer to their state of being
* OutWithABang: A newlywed husband cheats in an Airplane Bathroom, and has an allergic reaction to the peanuts the stewardess he was making out with had eaten.
* ParentsAsPeople
* PluckyGirl: Betty.
* PornStash: The previous owner of George's apartment in the first few episodes had a collection of octogenarian porn.
* TheProblemWithFightingDeath: Or rather, the problem with trying to [[DeathTakesAHoliday holiday]], use your powers irresponsibly or for self gain, kill people who aren't supposed to die, not allow people who are supposed to die to die, and in the movie, [[spoiler:[[{{Immortality}} trying to kill a Reaper]].]]
* {{Psychopomp}}: The premise of the show.
* PullingThemselvesTogether: George reattaches her finger after an accident with a shredder.
* QuickNip: Mason, when he's OffTheWagon.
* QuitYourWhining: Rube has this attitude toward George.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Again, the External Influence Division.
* RasputinianDeath: [[spoiler:Cameron]] in TheMovie. It's ''really'' difficult to kill [[spoiler:a reaper]].
** Specifically, [[spoiler:after drowning, suffocation, and shooting in the head all fail, Mason makes use of a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]] to slice him apart, and they proceed to throw his body into a fireplace. He may or may not have actually died from this, but just to make sure they cremate him, switch his ashes and that of Delores' cat, and launch them into space.]]
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Reapers stay the age they were when they died, and all but George have been dead for at least a few decades.
* RetCon: A few details were added in and taken out between the pilot and the second episode. And, for the most part, in the second season and in the movie, the detail of the Reapers looking different to living people seemed to be more or less dropped. (Though the last episode of Season 2 alluded to it.)
* RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts: All of the deaths involve this to some degree. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and justified in that the Gravelings exist to ensure that the improbable coincidences occur resulting in the death of the right person at the proper time.
* RunningGag: One of many is George making up bizarre excuses to escape certain situations, such as spending more time than she has to with Delores. In the pilot episode she says she can't talk with a man because she is praying, she avoids scrapbooking with Delores by saying she is having a "heavy flow day" and avoids going to a stationary store (that apparently has to be "seen to be believed") with Delores by saying she has been alcohol-free for a year and her AA sponsor is taking her to the park to fly kites.
* {{Scotireland}}: in "Reaping Havoc", an Irish-American saw Ireland's Cliffs of [[CriticalResearchFailure Dover]] waiting for him in the afterlife... while the soundtrack played "Scotland the Brave".
** Even worse, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover Cliffs of Dover]] aren't in Ireland at all, but in England.
** Furthermore, the actual image they showed was of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffs_of_Moher Cliffs of Moher]], which ''are'' in Ireland. Which means ''someone'' in post-production caught this and didn't bother to tell anyone.
*** Hey, maybe the poor guy was going to hell. An Irishman's version of hell, that is...
*** You're right about them showing [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w7NOi9sQz0 Moher]]; however, compositors aren't given the soundtrack when special effects are handed off to them. It wouldn't have been caught until the finished effects and the soundtrack were put together, which most likely would have been too late for a change to be made due to either deadlines or budget, or both.
* ShaggyDogStory: The story of the man who rode through a swamp to get back to the woman he loves whom with he had quarreled. He met a boy and asked him if the bottom was hard. As he sank, he told the boy that the swamp does not have a hard bottom. The boy replied, "It's bottom is hard, [[DownerEnding you just haven't reached it yet]].
* ShesAllGrownUp: Reggie, in the movie. Her hair let loose, her glasses gone, and wearing make up and pretty dresses causes her to become nigh unrecognizable to fans expecting her to still look the same five years later.
* ShipTease: Mason gives George a quick peck on the lips when he thinks his time as a reaper is over. [[spoiler:It's not.]]
** Not to mention "I really love you, Georgie."
* ShrineToTheFallen: Reggie makes one out of toilet seats for George.
* TheSnarkKnight: George
* SoftWater: Averted by Betty's death, jumping off a cliff into water that was too far down.
* SpontaneousHumanCombustion: One episode sees an untalented stand-up comedian, literally, die on stage by inexplicably exploding after one of his bad jokes.
** Also happened to an arm wrestler the night they met Ray.
* StealingFromTheTill: something that comes up both at Happy Time and amongst the reapers taking art, jewelry, houses, cars, drugs, etc. from those they just reaped. The morality of the stealing from the dead appears to be pretty gray, sometimes a character will be scolded and punished for stealing from bodies, others times they treat it like a normal thing. Then again, as it has been noted many times, the reaper job is completely unpaid.
** But don't EVER steal from Der Waffle Haus.
* StepfordSmiler: Daisy initially appears to be a ditzy starlet who is as promiscuous as it gets, who is selfish and full of it. But as George notes, she seems to simply be putting on an act. And her final thoughts when she died in a fire was [[spoiler: Why has no one ever loved me?]]. Combined with her psychological problems with seeing women being attacked by men and she seems to be a pretty troubled character.
** George's mother is this in a huge way. Absolutely everything in her life must be perfect, fitting every single stereotype of suburban life exactly. No variation allowed. This makes it hard for George's sister to actually come to terms with her sister's death.
** Dolores Herbig. She puts on a happy, cheery demeanor, but it's strongly implied that she's a sad and desperately lonely individual with a DarkAndTroubledPast.
* StrangeGirl: George, pre-death, as well as her little sister Reggie.
* StupidCrooks: In the pilot episode one of George's first experiences with the reapers is with Mason at a bank, where we meet Bret, the hapless bank robber. Bret stumbles through a prepared announcement he wrote up before entering the bank and gets upstaged by one jealous wife of the bankers. However, he [[SubvertedTrope miraculously manages to get away with the bank's money.]]
** Meanwhile, Mason is oftentimes the dumbest of the team of reapers and is the only one who looks to earn his money through theft and scrounging, while the others hold down jobs on the side (except for Rube, who seems to be independently wealthy). Usually, his stupidity and crimes don't affect the others, but one occasion stands out where, after previously giving away all of his possessions when he incorrectly assumed he was finally going to the afterlife, he was caught stealing tips left on tables at Der Waffle House, where the gang ''always'' meets and hangs out, and is immediately kicked out and barred from coming back to the diner by the group's usual waitress Kiffany.
* SupernaturalSoapOpera
* TalkingToTheDead: Part of the premise.
* TeamDad: Rube. George even identifies him as this.
* TeamMom: Roxy. Kiffany, a waitress at Der Waffle Haus, identifies her role as this in the Reapers' group.
* TheTell: Joy makes blueberry pancakes when she feels guilty.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Ted from Happy Time (usually).
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: George's last words in life ("Aw, shit.") evoke this as she sees the toilet seat flying towards her.
* ThrowItIn: One episode has George jokingly make a motion to eat her pet frog. It retaliates by biting her on the mouth. According to the commentary on the first episode, this was not scripted.
* TitleDrop: Done in the last episode of both seasons -
-->"I guess it's not so bad, being dead like me."
* TomboyishName: Georgia "George" Lass (and her little sister Regina "Reggie" Lass). Creator BryanFuller seems to like this trope; his other series (''{{Wonderfalls}}'' and ''PushingDaisies'') also have female leads with "boy" nicknames.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Roxy and Daisy, respectively. Lampshaded in the last episode of season 2 where they dress up as a princess and a cop, respectively.
* TrueCompanions: The External Influence division.
* {{Tsundere}}: Roxy.
* UnCancelled: TheMovie.
* UndeathAlwaysEnds: Death is a transient... I mean, transitory thing. Or both, if you count Mason.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: At one point, Roxy shoots Mason ''right inside Der Waffle Haus''. Nobody in the restaurant seems to notice or care.
** Subverted the time Rube substituted for Angus the recently deceased fry cook of Der Waffle Haus. One of the waitresses sees them talking but to her it looks like Rube's talking to himself.
* VisitByDivorcedDad: [[spoiler:Clancy, to Reggie on occasion.]]
* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: Somewhat. George tries to avoid a reap but the person dies anyway, and [[AndIMustScream had to experience his autopsy]] before she reaps him at the Morgue.
* WhamEpisode: Three in season 2. Two showed George could see gravelings when she was a kid and the third showed [[spoiler:she can kill them]].
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: What happened to Betty is purposely left up in the air. Interestingly, when a different character named Betty shows up later, George remarks "Who's Betty?" as if she wasn't familiar with anyone by that name.
** Betty was supposed to return in season two. Bryan Fuller, the show's creator, left early in season one, which left the plot in the hands of studio execs. Since they hadn't wanted the actress who had played Betty to portray her in the first place, they wrote Betty out of season two.
* {{Whatever}}
* WhiteHairedPrettyGirl: Daisy.
* WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou
* YankTheDogsChain: In the thirteenth episode of the second season, we see that [[spoiler: Reggie's dog J.D. has managed to run away from home because a previously visiting neighbour didn't close the gates. When Reggie is out looking for J.D., we spot Charlie, the animal reaper and also a car that has pulled over. George, who is visiting home once again, realizes that Charlie has been there to reap J.D.'s soul and panicks, but then we suddenly see J.D. running happily towards Reggie who's looking at the car... just for him to run through her and up to Charlie. Cue many [[{{TearJerker}} tears]], especially for dog lovers]].
** In TheMovie, we find that Delores's chronically health-challenged cat Murray has survived the past five years. [[spoiler:And almost immediately afterwords we find that he's got a terminal kidney disease. Talk about BackForTheDead.]]
* YouCantGoHomeAgain: George. That doesn't stop her from doing it anyway.
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