Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Obit subjects haunt writer each week in ‘Not Dead Yet’
While TV writers Casey Johnson and David Windsor were winding down the emotional rollercoaster series “This Is Us,” they had another project waiting to soar — one with ghosts.
Their new “Not Dead Yet,” about a newspaper obituary writer haunted by the subjects she is writing about, lands on ABC less than a year after viewers bid goodbye to “This Is Us” on NBC.
“With the end of that show, it was a lot about death. And here we were at the same time giving birth to this other baby,” said Windsor. “It was sort of a nice cycle of life.”
In “Not Dead Yet,” premiering Feb. 8, Gina Rodriguez plays Nell, a newly single reporter who returns to her California newspaper 10 years after she quit to follow a love interest to London. Things have changed for everyone.
She lands on the obituary desk — “Everyone has a story. It’s your job to find it,” she is told — and in the pilot is soon visited by the ghost of her first story.
The use of a new ghost each week allows Nell to explore other lives and experiences, and they, in turn, help advise a women who admits she’s a mess, someone who drinks a little too much and wears bathing suit bottoms when she runs out of clean underwear.
“There’s two things about the people who’ve passed away,” says Johnson. “What can they bring up in Nell’s life that she can explore and what can she learn from this person’s life that’s specific to them. So it’s just kind of this rich territory.”
Some of the ghosts Nell meets include a jingle writer who teaches Nell about one-hit wonders, a hard-charging success coach who reveals not all advice is useful and a social media influencer who brings up hurt memories of high school. It debuts while another spirit-filled comedy — CBS’ “Ghosts” — is in its second season.
“Not Dead Yet” co-stars Hannah Simone from “New Girl” as Nell’s best friend, “Superstore” alum Lauren Ash as her chilly boss, “Cleopatra Jones” star Angela Gibbs as a new friend, and “As We See It” star Rick Glassman as her roommate.
Guest-star ghosts over the first season include Martin Mull, Ed Begley Jr., Mo Collins, Deborah S. Craig, Telma Hopkins, Don Lake, Rhea Perlman, Paula Pell, Tony Plana and Julia Sweeney.
Johnson and Windsor, who created and executive produced “The Real O’Neals,” were coming off a three-year run as coexecutive producers of “This Is Us” and based their new series on a book by Alexandra Potter.
“Not Dead Yet” is also a workplace show, one that makes fun of co-workers who bring large salads to work and the cliques that form, like the adult jocks and the forever nerds.
Johnson notes that leading a TV show mirrors a lot of office culture and offers plenty to mine. “We’re in a writers’ room with bad fluorescent lights and dried up Sharpies and lunches out of plastic containers,” she said, laughing.
They said that when writing episodes there were times when the notion of the ghost came first and other times the idea for Nell to explore something in her life dictated the arrival of a certain ghost.
For the episode when Nell confronts a nemesis from high school — guest actor Brittany Snow plays her perfectly as a conceited adult social influencer — the writers started with a past bully.
“We knew we wanted to tell that story because we thought that was so unique and potentially funny,” said Johnson. “We didn’t yet know what story we wanted to tell for Nell. So the ghost came first. And then we found the story that we wanted to do.”
The writing duo have many more ghosts on tap. Windsor said the writers room has about 100 cards of potential dead people. “We just can’t wait to tell them all. Hopefully we get the second, third, fourth season to do it.”