Chances are good you’ve never even heard of Drop Dead Diva, because you probably don’t watch reruns of Frasier on Lifetime and thus didn’t see teaser ads for DDD for months leading up to its summer premier. Your loss on both counts. DDD is a dramedy (what a word!) about Deb, a barely-twenties model killed in a car crash and somehow redeposited into the body of Jane, a plus-sized thirtysomething lawyer. Brooke Elliott plays Jane.

Oh, holy cow, I can’t even tell you how much I like this show and look forward to it every week. The legal side is the same old ridiculous TV nonsense (frivolous lawsuits much?), but Jane and her colleagues and friends are made of compelling stuff. One of the show’s most poignant early moments came when Deb-cum-Jane realized she had lost a decade of her life in the switch, and for the first time something made her more upset than the idea that she was now a size 16. Because of the character’s natural straightforwardness and warm personality, she admits openly that as Deb she could get by on vegetables but as Jane she wants a bear claw. She is busy and intellectually rigorous, which Deb learns is as exhausting as her best friend’s booty-sculpting elliptical habit.

Tara Parker Pope praises the show in today’s Well — deservedly. Yes, the show portrays a very realistic, interesting, brilliant woman who happens to be a size or two larger than average, but its appeal goes way beyond that. Deb’s personality as it shines through Jane is admirable. She is no skinny blond mean girl and never was, and she quickly realizes the advantages she was handed in her previous life. Deb’s best friend is a ditzy blond but knows herself and her situation well and is equally warm and lovely. Really, there are almost too many genuinely likable characters on the show to keep track of (what I like to think of as House syndrome).

A recent episode dealt with Jane’s disappointment upon learning — because why would she need to know this before? — that a favorite boutique only carries up to size 10. Jane appeals to one of her colleagues to represent her in a lawsuit, and the shrill, thin woman tells Jane to stop whining or go on a diet. Ironically, this is an idea thought often but stated rarely by all kinds of people, and it is ballsy of the show to put it in the mouth of a character who has the intellectual prowess to be a driven, successful attorney.

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