Saturday, June 28, 2008

Dead Television Shows

Dead Like Me lasted only two seasons but it was fantastic. It was created by Bryan Fuller (think Wonderfalls, Heroes, Pushing Daisies, Star Trek: Voyager.)

George, the main character, having been killed in a freak accident, steps out of her body to find that she is, well, that she still IS. She has no choice but to live her dead-life as it becomes pretty ordinary but utterly fascinating.

I've noticed re-runs and you could probably catch an episode pretty easily. Otherwise, both seasons were released on DVD and they are well worth the purchase.

The humour is dry, biting; its timing is impeccable.

Fear and Folklore

Over the past year, until March, I was addicted to the first season of Ghost Whisperer though I hadn't seen an episode until after I'd stopped giving readings. Scully bought me the DVDs. My experiences do not match those of the main character, Melinda, and I think that is why I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the tone of the second season changed and it wasn't interesting to me at that point.

I haven't seen the other shows that involve the paranormal and don't really know their titles. I guess I've always been put off by the fact that televisionland perpetuates certain ideas of the supernatural that I simply have not experienced myself. Also, in the many hundreds of readings that I've done, not a single person had been hurt by a ghost nor knew of anyone who had been but almost everyone feared ghosts and believed that a "haunting" was something that had to be erradicated.

So, in my last post, when I spoke of "folklore-ish" aspects of ghost-filled movies, it is this to which I was referring. It's one thing to enjoy these movies (I loved Poltergeist) and television shows about the paranormal; it is quite another thing to be frightened of the paranormal because of such movies and shows.

Don't get me wrong: I still find some experiences unsettling but it is not due to a fear of harm. At night, when the toys start playing music and wake me up or when books defy gravity by falling and then resting on shelves at impossible angles, my heart starts racing until I've processed that something is happening. To me, the paranormal is very normal, just sometimes unexpected!

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