Dead Heat

With Dead to Me, Liz Feldman has created the best “traumedy” on television.

- By Fred Schruers

THREE YEARS AGO, THE seasoned writer Liz Feldman (2 Broke Girls) was sitting in a pitch meeting with potential producers, bereft of ideas and motivation. She had recently turned 40, was four years into an ultimately unsuccessful quest to get pregnant and had just lost a beloved cousin to a heart attack.

And then, suddenly, inspiration came to her: A recently widowed woman becomes friends with someone she meets in a grief group. They bond over their shared pain until the recent widow learns that—well, let’s not spoil that. “Forgive me for being woo-woo,” says Feldman, “but that particular idea, it was like I’d channeled it.”