Lighthearted Workplace Comedy Meets Funny, Imperfect Ghosts in ABC’s ‘Not Dead Yet’

© 2022 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Credit: Temma Hankin

From the team that brought you the hit drama This Is Us (David Windsor and Casey Johnson) comes a new lighthearted comedy about a writer in crisis, played by Jane the Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez, who returns to her California hometown to work at the newspaper she left years earlier to follow her ex to London.

Newly single and a self-described disaster, Nell gets the only job available, which is writing obituaries. The trouble is, however, that the people who she is assigned to write about begin to appear as ghosts and follow her around town, often to give her advice about her own life. With support from her best friend/coworker (Hannah Simone) and former-friend-turned-editor Dennis (Josh Banday), and the new friends she meets along the way, Nell navigates the curves life has thrown her way with humor and poise. 

Banday told us it’s his favorite role so far, because it feels so close to who he is in real life. “A lot of his story was just so real to me in a way that no other character has been. His worries about marriage and parenthood and relationships were all of my worries. There are times I would go to the writer’s room and just be like, ‘Who are you people? And what are you doing in my life?’ It just made him very easy to embody and to play and to make fun of and be funny in,” he says. “Dennis is a bisexual character. I’m bisexual. And I’m just honored to be able to play the role. I haven’t seen a lot of specifically bisexual stories on network television.”

©2022 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Credit: Scott Everett White

While the show is technically a comedy (Banday is especially funny, on the show and in reality), Banday says it still has very heartfelt moments, too. “You’re laughing, you’re laughing, you’re laughing. And then it ends and you’re like, ‘Wow. I felt something.’ It’s not just broad comedy for broad comedy’s sake, which is fun. The ghosts are as beautifully imperfect as some of the other characters. Nobody is giving perfect advice. There’s not a lot of sage wisdom. They’re all just these beautiful misfits that come into her life and say, ‘I think you’re messing this up, but I was also trash.’”

Based on the bestselling novel Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up by Alexandra Potter, Not Dead Yet (Wednesdays beginning Feb. 8 at 8:30pm ET/PT on ABC) promises to be delightful.

After all, ghosts are all the rage these days! 

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