Farewell, Drop Dead Diva

 

Last night we bid goodbye to a really delightful series, Drop Dead Diva, which aired on Lifetime for six seasons.

DDD had actually been cancelled early last year but response from fans drove the cable net to bring the show back for a shortened last season, giving it the chance to wrap things up.

I wish I could say I loved the finale, but it felt too much like a regular run-of-the-mill episode rather than a goodbye.  Plus I was still wrestling with a decision the writers made a few weeks ago that didn't really have the time to play out, given there were just a few episodes left in the series run.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The premise of DDD is that a beautiful model, Deb, was killed in a car accident, but when she gets to heaven, she hits a "return" button on her welcoming angel's computer keyboard and gets sent back into the body of a lawyer, Jane, who had just died after being shot.  Deb went on to live Jane's life, maintaining her own soul and personality but meshing with Jane's intelligence and law know-how. 

The star, Brooke Elliott, pulled this duality brilliantly and was so likeable in the role.  Her on-screen love was Grayson (Jackson Hurst), who happened to be Deb's fiancee and worked in Jane's law firm.  During the course of the series, Grayson fell in love with Jane, and this last season finally learned that Jane was in fact Deb.

Then a few weeks ago Grayson, who was planning to propose to Jane, was shot outside the courthouse and eventually died, which was a dark turn for this rather light-toned show.  Grayson went to heaven and himself pushed the "return" button and came back into the body of a man, Ian, who had just been executed on death row, having been convicted of murder.  He calls Jane and lets her know that he - Grayson - is back.  Jane comes to his defense and in a whirlwind, proves that Ian was in fact innocent of the crime, gets him freed and jumps right back into her relationship with him.

Of course, no one can understand how Jane could be with someone just weeks after supposedly losing the love of her life (except her best friend Stacy (April Bowlby), who has known all along that Jane is the reincarnated Deb).  But again, we only have three episodes left at this point, so, in order to have a happy ending which this kind of show demands, Jane's friends and coworkers have to come around to accept Jane and Ian together.  It was rather forced and leaves us kind of hanging, which I'm not happy with.  The finale gave us a little montage of Deb/Jane and Grayson/Ian's love story at the end, and then it was over.

So that's it.  Again, I really loved this show and its quirky, likeable characters andthe  twists-and-turns its law cases (the fastest resolved in judicial history, but hey, suspension of disbelief) took in each episode.  I just wish we'd gotten a better, more fulfilled sendoff.

Catch up with past seasons of Drop Dead Diva now on Netflix.