TVSquad

FOX has ordered the script for a new comedic drama from Josh Berman, creator of previous FOX series Vanished and Killer Instinct, a story editor on Bones and a consulting producer for CSI.

The series, Drop Dead Diva, is about a gorgeous model who dies and whose soul is transplanted into the body of another female: an overweight, and therefore not as attractive, attorney.

You can probably fill in the blanks from there: everyone, including the viewers, learns that beauty comes from within, and I, much like the diva in this story, am also killed (with boredom).

Before I sink my claws too deep into a series that doesn't even exist yet, I'll step back and say the show, like any other show, deserves a chance to prove itself. But here's my beef with this type of storyline: in trying to rise above the "beauty myth," plots like this often become condescending. I don't want to see a series about a woman who is beautiful in spite of being fat, I want to see a series about a fat person who is beautiful, you dig? In other words, someone come up with a version of The Ugly Duckling in which the duckling says, "screw all of you, I'm happy with who I am." And instead of growing up to become a swan, the duckling grows up to be a fat, happy duck who doesn't care what anyone else thinks.

I guess what I'm saying is that all the human characters in Drop Dead Diva should be replaced with ducks.