DVD REVIEW: DROP DEAD DIVA SEASON 1

    * Deleted Scenes
    * Previews
    * Dreamisodes
    * Rosie’s Rap
    * Cho and Tell

THE PITCH

Your friend’s annoying girlfriend dies and takes over the body of a much smarter woman. She’s rewarded with brownies and crying.

THE HUMANS

Brooke Elliott, Margaret Cho, April Bowlby, Kate Levering, Jackson Hurst, Josh Stamberg, Ben Feldman

THE NUTSHELL

If you enjoy Beyoncé, vanilla ice cream, and a good mystery this is a life affirming journey for your soul and your heart. You’ll laugh as you watch a larger than life woman conquer the courtroom. You’ll cry because the music tells you too. You’ll try to match her intake of chocolate.

But honestly, It’s a Lifetime Original Series. You shouldn’t even have that channel.

THE LOWDOWN

Drop Dead Diva is basically Sex and The City for Christian conservative shutins. That may be a simplifiction, but to me Justin Bieber is Hannah Montana with a penis. This show is in no way marketed to me. It’s a far fetched fairy tale for the menopause set. It airs on Lifetime and the characters have long fantasies about chocolate. Rosie O’Donnell and Margaret Cho show up, and even share a few scenes. It’s the stuff of my nightmares and of your creepy aunt’s dreams.

The premise should have been a throwaway gag on a bad episode of The Simpsons. A caricature of a self absorbed twenty something (Brooke D’Orsay) dies in car accident, goes to heaven, hits a button on a computer, and returns to earth in a new body(Brooke Elliot). But oh no! It’s not the same slim beautiful body she had. Her soul returned in the body of an older woman. And she’s a lawyer! A fat lawyer! How will she cope with her new body and sudden job as the key component in America’s legal system? With heart warming mistakes and lessons learned.

The whole heaven to earth journey, and the death of two characters, happens in the first five minutes of the pilot. The diva dies in a car accident entirely the fault of her careless driving and the lawyer takes a bullet meant for her boss. The diva is the one who goes to heaven and comes back in the body of a martyr. And then she spends most of the series complaining about her new fat body. Questionable morals aside, isn’t Lifetime the channel for overweight middle aged women? This show starts off with the murder and possession of their core audience. Ballsy move Lifetime. But also, you should probably hire someone who doesn’t read scripts about rape and the inspiring stories of homeless soccer moms all day. Might not miss that next time.

I’m guessing Lifetime just cared about the life affirming stories that cram themselves into every episode. The Lifetime money shot is all over this show. You know the shot; crane up, someone reveals an obvious truth about themselves, the score to Simon Birch swells, slow fade, and then the crying. It’s why people watch Lifetime and they have it down in Drop Dead Diva. Like any good pornography, the show has three or four scenes building up to the money shot. An episode doesn’t just have a woman dying of cancer. No, we get that and an angry dad trying to stop his rebellious daughter from being in Girls Gone Wild. Their tease is a brief teary eyed remark and then the real dirty stuff comes with the yelling. Also, A break for a brownie somewhere in there. But it’s all just build for the plots money shot. Our chubby possessed lawyer, named Jane of course, conveniently figures out the perfect solution and sets it in motion. At this point, the audience holds one of their fifteen cats tight and squeezes. They have to, cause this show shoots a few loads and all at once. Our heroine talks to the son of the dying mother and she cries, she talks to her assistant and they cry, she cries by herself eating cake, and by now your cats are crying. It’s structured like a Busby Berkeley musical or your Best of Jenna Haze tape. All love and pops with none of the fluff.

The lawyer play is all Lifetime Original Movie. The firm wins a case to get size fourteen dresses on Rodeo Drive. That’s a victory worthy of a good cry. Girls Gone Wild exploiting your daughter? They’ll put the entire company out of business. The firm literally does not lose a case. Jane finds evidence the police never found after months of investigating, in every single case she takes. Of course she solves cases in her own quirky fashion model in the body of a fat girl way. Who knew lipstick could solve a case? And by looking at a photo for four seconds? This is simply the best firm in existence. And they have a killer selection of pastries in the kitchen. I’m guessing the reveal in the second season is that it’s a branch of Wolfram and Heart. They bankrupt a lame Pfizer standin in two court days. That takes a deal with the Devil.

Like all Lifetime programming I came out with lessons learned. I learned that even if I’m someones guardian angel, that sometimes they have to be my guardian angel too. I learned that if a guy wants to date you just because he likes a lot of meat on the bones, you should should date him because you’re fat and no one else wants you. I learned good deeds are often rewarded with cake. Which is kind of nice. I learned sometimes love is a lot like the law. I don’t really get that one, but they said it a bunch. But I think most of all, I learned Margaret Cho really is Aids with an annoying voice.

THE PACKAGE

The episodes have 1:85.1 transfers and 5.1 audio. You can hear and see them. Which is more than enough.  Extras include deleted scenes, a short making of, Rosie O’Donnell rapping, and Margaret Cho talking about something for six minutes. Rosie O’Donnell rapping is as terrifying as you think. I misread the box as Rosie O’Donnell Raping and was actually more horrified by the truth. The rest of the extras are far less intrusive and thankfully very brief. I didn’t watch the Margaret Cho pieces. I figured I owed my testicles something after watching Rosie O’Donnell bust some flow.