An alternate title for the ABC comedy “Not Dead Yet” could have been “I See Dead People.” Such is the case for Nell (Gina Rodriguez), a young obit writer at a Los Angeles newspaper who is visited — tailed might be more accurate, and frequently annoyed — by the very people about whom she is writing. They are forever commenting on her sad state of affairs, giving her a nudge here and there to improve things. But once the obit is filed, poof, they’re on their way to the next dimension and Nell is on her way to the next episode.
As tropes go, a character interacting with apparitions who are invisible to everyone else is a solid enough premise that never really seems to die (sorry), and over on CBS “Ghosts” has proved that there is life in this idea yet (listen, the puns are right there).
The issue for “Not Dead Yet,” from creators David Windsor and Casey Johnson (whose credits include “This is Us”), is that it also wants to be a hangout workplace comedy. In the end, it’s neither fish nor fowl. You can see the glimmers of potential here — Rodriguez is amusingly frazzled as she bumbles through the strangeness of her new normal — but there’s an inherent challenge the series cannot seem to solve: Relaxing into the rhythms of hangout comedy when the main character has a secret life that’s anything but relaxed.
