Drop Dead Diva: Legally Fabulous

First off, I can't tell you how fabulous Brooke Elliott is, who plays the lead character Jane Bingum on Lifetime's Drop Dead Diva. She's gorgeous, funny, strong, and smart all wrapped up into a character who essentially plays two roles simultaneously. Former actress and model Deb Dobkins died and her soul went into the body of 'plain Jane' lawyer Bingum upon a flatline due to a gunshot wound. Elliott plays Bingum with an intellectual sassyness, courtroom runway walk, and hair flip that creates a charming sensation onscreen. Drop Dead Diva is one of my favorite shows, but with it's timeslot conflicting with True Blood in the past, I often missed episodes and would try to catch up via DVR. However, with the lackluster appeal of True Blood recently, DDD is getting top tier of my viewing choice. 

While I love Elliott and the cases and plots of the show, season four of Drop Dead Diva has been especially frustrating for me solely based on the recurring characters intertwined in plot lines.Ummm, firstly, Kim Kardashian has the acting range of a waffle so her appearance on the show as the love guru named Nikki coaxing Stacey over to the dark side on the allure of cookies, while actually planning on stealing all of her money was difficult and very annoying to watch. While comically alluding to real life aspects of Kardashian's life, I was waiting patiently for Jane to slap the makeup off of Nikki who was clearly her archnemesis. Brandy's character Elisa had a prior relationship with Parker, then seeks his legal assistance eight years later, accepts his offer for a job when she faces legal troubles and, oops, decides not to reveal that they have a son together. However, this season, when their son, Eric, ventures to spend quality time with Parker it isn't too long before Elisa comes to take Eric away to Canada for a new job. She continues to refer to Eric as "her son" and how "they did just fine without him [Parker]" I was quickly tired of Brandy's character for using Parker when it was beneficial for her, but not allowing him to form a real relationship with his son.

Luke. There are a quite a few words that come to mind when I think of Luke but for the purpose of this blog, I'll leave most of them out. Rather than a guardian angel, Luke seems like some type of slickster who doesn't have Jane's best interest at heart, as Fred once did, as much as striving to eliminate Deb's spiritual presence altogether. He has gone out of his way, physically and magically, to keep Jane and Grayson apart, but when it came to keeping Jane from experiencing the heartbreak of Owen leaving her in last Sunday's episode, he was no where in sight. WTH? I'm ready for Fred to come back, or a new guardian angel to be assigned to Jane.

UPDATE: July 15, 2012 Drop Dead Diva A very emotional episode which brought an end to a few storylines. Or are they? Time will tell where the characters go from here. Rosi Golan's "Can't Go Back" playing at the end of the episode put a cap on my tear fest.

Photo courtesy of http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1280822/