My Mother the Diva
Drop Dead Diva (Mondays 9.30pm, Channel Nine), is the story of shallow model Deb Dobkins (Brooke D’Orsay) who dies in a car accident, goes to heaven and is returned to earth in the body of recently deceased high-flying chumpy lawyer Jane Bingum. Then throw in a guardian angel, who explains that memories remain with souls, so that Deb now has the brains of a lawyer, but the selfishness of a model; she’s a bimbo in the body of a braniac. It’s an old-fashioned premise for a show that continues the great tradition of female possession roles, from The Exorcist to My Mother the Car.
Brooke Elliot attacks with relish the role of Deb in the body of Jane. The cutesy turns of a self-centred model, acted out by the frumpy and funny Brooke, highlight the ridiculousness of the coy eyelid-batting antics of pretty women who get what they want by flirting. At one point, a client asks Jane if she is whining, which may have been cute in her former life, but is incongruous coming from a lawyer. Now that flirting is taken from her arsenal, Deb has to find empathy for Jane’s clients and, in turn, learn to be a considerate human being.
Along for the ride is her guardian angel, Fred (Ben Feldman), who explains that his role is really no more than that of a glorified babysitter, and her best friend, Stacy (April Bowlby), who trades meaningless fluff with her reborn best buddy. Stacy’s horror at Deb’s portly body is what makes the show really kick into gear, as when she declares, ‘Fat things should not happen to skinny people.’ Deb’s hunky blue-eyed ex-boyfriend gets a job at the same law firm and I’ll go ‘He’ if the scene is not set to show how sensitive he is and that Deb will eventually learn that he loved her for her inner beauty. Rounding out the cast is Teri (Margaret Cho), who, as Jane’s assistant, provides the necessary précis of cases that Jane can win by embracing selflessness.
The show begins with zooming shots and fast cutting that is of the Boston Legal ilk. It can also take a walk on the sentimental side, making it hard to get through the syrup, but Drop Dead Diva’s intentions seem honourable. The show explores inner beauty versus external beauty, but its message seems mixed when Deb is granted Jane’s knowledge, essentially to enable her to become a lawyer without all that annoying study and work. The other fun to be had, though, is the former model discovering the delights of eating food for pleasure, after a life of subsisting on salads.
So, it isn’t always clear in its intent, with the lesson often appearing to be that big girls can get their hair done and learn to shop for clothes, but it is an enjoyable distraction. Drop Dead Diva is lightweight froth, like that on a cappuccino; it won’t satisfy your hunger for top-quality television, but it may keep you happy until you get a decent meal.
This piece originally appeared in ‘The Big Issue’.
Matt Quartermaine is a Melbourne-based writer and comedian. With Matt Parkinson, Tim Smith and Andrew Goodone, he produces ‘The Chat’, a weekly podcast in which four grown men in comfortable chairs spill their guts. Click here to download it for free at iTunes.
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