TV Shows That Got A Movie To Wrap Up The Ending

Bryan Fuller has carved out a niche as a master of acclaimed, extremely original television shows that attract a small legion of fans ... and that wind up canceled because they're too quirky to land huge viewerships. Among Fuller's lamented, short-run gems, we've got Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Hannibal, and Dead Like Me. 

Running for only 29 episodes in 2003 and 2004, the touching, darkly funny, supernatural Showtime drama concerned a just-graduated Seattle woman named George Lass (Ellen Muth), who, after being struck and killed by a toilet seat that fell off the Mir space station, is trapped in limbo and must work (for a while) as a soul-collecting reaper. While dealing with being dead and her new cosmic duties — and also inhabiting a corporeal form, necessitating she do young adult stuff like find a job and a place to live — she falls in with a group of other reapers that become her family, including leader Rube (Mandy Patinkin), British drug addict Mason (Callum Blue), traffic cop Roxy (Jasmine Guy), and old-time movie actress Daisy (Laura Harris).

In 2007, producer MGM announced a slate of made-for-DVD movies based on some of its properties, including Dead Like Me, which had built up a following after its cancellation. Dead Like Me: Life After Death became available in 2009, and it updated viewers on whether or not those reapers had crossed over to the afterlife yet. Rube had, George hadn't, and Daisy was played by a new actress (Sarah Wynter).