But she’s also Gina Rodriguez so she brims with warmth and charm, only occasionally displaying an edge. And this is her show, where the principal conflict is the relationship that she has with herself. In each episode, a guest star, playing the ghost of whomever she’s writing an obit about, helps her heal her bruised psyche.
The setup—Nell sees and hears the ghosts but no one else does—allows Rodriguez to use her talent for physical humor. I was practically guffawing at one flashback sequence retold from an outsider’s perspective without the ghosts’ presence.
Part of the fun of a show like this is seeing who they get to appear and “Not Dead Yet” doesn’t disappoint on that front. Martin Mull is the first to haunt Nell and he gives a warm performance as a man whose professional success was the footnote, rather than the full story of his life. In the five episodes made available to critics, each of the ghosts is played with fervor by actors of various amounts of clout, all imparting an important lesson to Nell, whether they mean to or not.
“Not Dead Yet” also features a delightful cast of recurring characters, including “New Girl” alum Hannah Simone as Sam, who matches Rodriguez’s internal glow as Nell’s best friend. Lauren Ash has a lot of fun as the imperious and out-of-touch boss while Jimmy Bellinger also seems to be having a great time as the unpaid intern and Nell’s presumptuous rival.
Most of the workplace drama reads like a writer’s fantasy of what it is to work at a paper—there are the occasional lobster lunches for inspiration for one. The good people putting together the SoCal Independent may worry about numbers, but no one gets laid off, everyone makes a living wage, and Nell appears to write just one column a week.
Adding to the fantasy of it all, the characters inhabit a cheerful Los Angeles where Nell walks around her neighborhood, everyone she meets lives close by in a city famous for its spaced-out neighborhoods, and the general vibe is bright and airy.