"Drop Dead Diva" (2009) TV series 2009-????

Creator:

Josh Berman

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

November 2009 (Hungary)

Plot:

A vapid aspiring model killed in a car crash gets brought back to life as an intelligent, overweight lawyer, hoping to find the meaning of inner beauty.

Plot Keywords:

Inner Beauty | Car Crash | Blonde | Law Firm | Heaven

Cast

Brooke Elliott	...	Jane Bingum (13 episodes, 2009)
Margaret Cho	...	Teri Lee (13 episodes, 2009)
Jackson Hurst	...	Grayson Kent (13 episodes, 2009)
Kate Levering	...	Kim Kaswell (13 episodes, 2009)
April Bowlby	...	Stacy Barrett (13 episodes, 2009)
Josh Stamberg	...	J. Parker (13 episodes, 2009)
Ben Feldman	...	Fred (9 episodes, 2009)

Runtime:

USA:60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Company:

Storyline Entertainment

Trivia:

The pilot was originally set up at Fox. When Fox passed on the project, Lifetime picked up the project and put the show into production.

Quotes:

Fred: I've heard about physical attraction before, chemically I understand it but I've never experienced it.
Jane Bingum: What, you've never had a crush?
Fred: Up there all I meet are dead people.
Jane Bingum: Well, forget it, okay? Stacey's out of your league. You'll be setting yourself up for a world of hurt.
Fred: No no no, you don't understand! I look at this Stacey, and I, and I can't help it. I wanna, I wanna do her grocery shopping, wanna, wanna re-roof her house. I wanna... hunt animals and bring her the MEAT.

Legal background is missing

Love the series, but there are problems with the "legal" writing. If you are going to write about lawyers in a law office, someone should advise the director on legal facts aspects. While considerable license is often appropriate in writing for a fictional show, isn't some relationship to reality to be expected. "Do Over" broadcast on Sunday July 27, 2009, had a bunch of errors --

1. The Judge in the medical malpractice trial against a psychiatrist who cured a client's husband of multiple personality disorder, but apparently cured the "wrong identity", therefore Plaintiff's attorneys made a motion to amend the complaint include "wrongful death", which though silly, it was ingenious and entertaining.

However, my objection comes not from that, but from a remark by the Judge about being frustrated with his calendar of recent cases when he says he's been handling "BANKRUPTCY cases", which is clearly FALSE since only federal Bankruptcy Judges hear Bankruptcy cases. No state civil court judge ever hears "bankruptcy cases". Hey, it's okay to be "silly", but please, don't write "stupid". Any lawyer knows this.

2. "HOS" (Hours of Services) for truck Drivers are regulated specifically by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) under federal regulations at 49 CFR Part 395, which is admittedly part of the USDOT. It would have been better to be a little more factual.

3. When STACY supposedly got a Manager to accept a "rush" shipment of rotting cantaloupes on the Long Beach dock and truck them to Chicago in breach of HOS regulations, there was an obvious "out" -- team drivers, who would each have 11 hours to drive, and after the first driver had finished, he or she could refresh the 11 hours by spending 10 hours sleeping in an over-the-road tractor's sleeper bunk. Drivers are paid by the mile, so a Team could legally drive the 1,746 miles straight through to Chicago on time. The HOS problem arises when a Trucking Company expects a "solo" driver to drive more than 11 hours without spending 10 hours straight resting in the sleeper before legally driving another 11 hours again. The minimum hours for this trip would be 29.1, which is 3 shifts for a solo plus two 10-hour refresh shifts in the bunk sleeping. A team can do it in 30 hours, but legally a solo driver would have to take about 50 total hours.

A good line in the script would be for management to say they have "no Teams available, only solo Drivers", and that it would ordinarily take a solo driver averaging 60 mph a total of 50 hours or 2 days (at 24 hours each) because of HOS regulations.

Then Stacy would have to offer a "bribe" to the manager to expedite her "perishable melons" or she would lose a lot of money, so instead of $3,400 fare, she'd be willing to pay $5,000 cash if management guarantees to get the melons there within "40" hours. The writers missed the opportunity to point out that Driver being paid by the mile would not benefit from violating the HOS, which is why they were pressured to do so in order to keep their jobs. Such a breach of Federal regulations would bring criminal charges against both the Trucking Company and the Driver who violated HOS regs.

4. The 2nd legal error was when the other female attorney asked the psychiatrist about which "identity" wrote her checks in payment of services and signed a "consent" form, and when it turned out to be the plaintiff's named husband, the lawyer accused the doctor of committing "fraud". Interesting, but very much BACKWARDS. The doctor could accept payment from whomever, if anyone committed "fraud" it was the Patient, the plaintiff's HUSBAND, and NOT the doctor. This is taking "poetic license" a little too far. It is, however, rather ingenious from a writing standpoint, but it is still backwards and wrong. It would have been more interesting to point out that since the Wife had PAID for the treatment, and the Husband had signed a RELEASE or CONSENT for the Doctor to talk to Wife about progress of Treatment, that the Doctor had a DUTY to tell the wife about the problem with the double identity and that she had married a Fictitious person, and the Real person was someone else - the 2nd identity, and... that if she cured the Man, she would lose her Husband. What a Twist that would be. AND, the fact that the Doctor slept with the Man to whom the Plaintiff was married -- was in fact actionable Medical Malpractice and Adultery (different identities, "they share a penis"--cute, very cute).

5. Even a brand new lawyer would know how to handle a witness who changes testimony that is previously on the record. Now here is a place where stretching the law by writers can hardly be avoided since the purpose is to get JANE to fly off the handle at the witness who "DEB" feels is obviously lying. While "silly, it works and should be allowed.

Otherwise, some of the written legal predicaments though silly are rather ingenious as a story line. But, hey, let's try to be more factual. In fact, in both cases, each judge could have called a recess and encouraged "settlement" negotiations in light of "surprise testimony". Judges have been known to encourage settlement by saying "why don't you try to settle this case, because I don't think either side is going to like what could happen if I have to decide the issues."

Interestingly, there are real world things that writers could have used about trucking and law that they simply missed because they have no expertise as an Attorney or as a Driver (trucker). In a show about Lawyers or Drivers, hire some experts to help your writers. The writing is already excellent, but it could be way better.