There are two series I constantly look back at as having been canceled too soon without any suitable conclusion. The first is Dead Like Me.

Dead Like Me, created by Bryan Fuller, is about George Lass (Ellen Muth), a college drop-out who is forced by her mother to take a temp job instead of being a slump at home. Unfortunately for her, the job sucks. Even worse, she is hit by the flaming toilet seat from the deorbiting Mir space station during lunch, killing her instantly. Thankfully, she doesn’t completely die. Reaped by the hot dog salesman who has now met his quota and can pass on, George takes his responsibility and becomes a Grim Reaper herself. 

Based on assignments from her boss, Rube (Mandy Patinkin), she and her fellow reapers follow their reaps based on a death time and date written on a post-it note based on information Rube received in his book from an unknown source. The job doesn’t pay though, so George winds up back in the hiring office of Happy Time Temp Services, the very office she worked in before dying. This time she has a new face, new identity, and is appreciated more by her coworkers, despite her cynical attitude—one I relate to even more as I age.

Meanwhile, her family’s lives fall apart with each day. Her parents’ (Cynthia Stevenson and Greg Kean) relationship begins to crumble shortly after George’s death, her sister Reggie (Britt McKillip) starts having an affinity for toilet seats and dead animals, and even the dog that mysteriously arrives at their door wanders away.

The Showtime series ended after season 2, with a follow-up TV movie that replaced several characters and actors. This did not fare as well as the show, replacing Patinkin’s character, and exchanging Laura Harris with Sarah Wynter as Daisy. The movie also introduced a much more confident George, changing the tone of the story completely.

The second show is Pushing Daisies. Also created by Bryan Fuller, this show was originally meant as a spin-off to Dead Like Me. Ned (Lee Pace), the pie maker, makes pies. He can also bring people back from the dead just by touching them. If he touches them again, the person dies. If he doesn’t touch them within a minute however, another person dies also. He learned this early in life when he accidentally poked his mother after she died of an aneurysm, only to result in his neighbor Chuck’s father falling over dead. To claim reward money, Ned works with private detective Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), talking to dead people at the morgue to find their killers. This is how he comes face to face with Charlotte Charles, “Chuck,” (Anna Friel), his first love, having been murdered on a cruise ship. Not having the will to kill her again, Ned doesn’t touch her, instead hiding her in his apartment, away from her agoraphobic Aunts Viviane and Lily (Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz).

As the series progresses we learn more about the history of these characters, including Olive (Kristin Chenoweth), Ned’s waitress at “The Pie Hole” restaurant. Each character’s story includes a comical look at their intricacies, all with the fabulous voice of Jim Dale, famous for the Harry Potter audiobooks, narrating the show. Dale’s voice also adds a comical take on the exact times and facts he reads for every dead person Ned awakens.

Unfortunately, like most Bryan Fuller shows, Pushing Daisies met its cruel end. Starting its second season in the wake of the writers’ strike of 2008, fewer episodes aired in regular time, ending the season late with several episodes quickly airing to provide fans with a conclusion to the series.

Originally the show was meant to be part of an episode of Dead Like Me, with George attempting to reap souls, only to arrive at the planned time to find that Ned had already brought them back from the dead. While this is not a strange story, it is obvious by the several DLM references in Pushing Daisies that the two worlds exist together. For this reason, I am still waiting for the Pushing Daisies graphic novel sequel that Bryan Fuller promised in 2009, also hoping it will include George and Rube. While I doubt this will happen, I can only hope that all of these characters will be resurrected in some way as shows from the 90s have been.