The show: "Drop Dead Diva" on Lifetime
The social issue:
Can a skinny girl find happiness in a world that openly discriminates against fat people?
The set-up:
Deb (Brooke D'Orsay) is a blonde ditz-bomb of a spokesmodel wannabe. Jane (Brooke Elliott) is a dowdy lawyer who's got smarts to spare but is seriously lacking in the self-confidence and style department. On her way to an audition to be a "Price Is Right" model, Deb's too busy putting on lipgloss to notice an oncoming fruit truck, slams into it and is killed. Around the same time, a crazed husband shows up at Jane's law office brandishing a gun, wanting to kill Jane's boss who had an affair with his wife. Jane trips and takes the bullet.
Deb's trip to the hereafter (which owes a good bit to Albert Brooks' 1991 comedy "Defending Your Life") puts her in front of one of heaven's "gatekeepers," Fred (Ben Feldman), who tells her she's a total zero -- no good deeds or bad deeds to her credit. As he struggles to determine what to do with her, she hits a button on his computer and is zapped into Jane's just-dead body.
Skinny Deb wakes up size-16 Jane, with the knowledge of both in her brain.
