"My Dead Ex Boyfriend", aka "I Was a Teenage Zombie"

 

My Dead Ex-Boyfriend, on Netflix, sounds like one of those classic 1960s "my secret" sitcoms, where a "normal" has to hide a magical being -- genie, ghost, witch, or Martian -- from the outside world.  So I tune in.

Turns out that:

1. This is set in high school.  Ben (Ryan Lee) has asked out Charley (Katherine Hughes) a bazillion times, but she finds him repugnant.  Her lesbian friend Wren (Medalion Rahimi) calls him "shit on your shoe."  I don't know why -- he's cute, he seems nice, and when she finally agrees ("just coffee, and then you never ask me out again"), the date turns out to be gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches by candlelight.  Fun!

It's harassment to continually to importune someone who has made their rejection clear, but it's not Ben's fault: back in fourth grade, when they were dating, an old woman gave them two pendants guaranteed to make them "fall in love."  Ben is still wearing his, but Charley put hers away in a box.

The pendant has more magical powers: when Ben is killed during an attempt to take a selfie, it brings him back to life.

2. But Ben has no ghostly powers.  He can't  turn invisible or walk through walls.  He eats, sleeps, and goes to the bathroom.  Presumably he can't be killed, since he's already dead, and he won't get any older, but in every other way he is fully human.  

The problem: he has to stay within 30 feet of Charley at all times, for the rest of her life.  If he stays away for more than an hour or two, his body will start to decay.  

3. And it's not a secret: they tell the world.  Reporters clamor to interview the Boy Who Lived. The parents negotiate about where Charlie and Ben will be staying.  The school hires an escort to defend the students if Ben turns into a Walking Dead-type zombie.

I fast-forwarded through a few episodes.  Most of the plotlines seem to be about Ben adjusting to being undead and Charley trying to continue her ordinary high school life.  Ryan Malaty (top photo) plays her crush, Luke.   Of course you know who she is going to end up with.

 Lesbian friend gets a plot arc about her crush on a conservative Republican girl. 

There don't seem to be any gay male characters.  At the school dance, the  cop hired to be Ben's escort (Sarkis Ninos) seems to be flirting with the Principal: "Are you single?  Me, too.  Do you live in a...house?  I love houses."  But I think he is just being annoying.

Some big surprises in the last episode.

My grade: C.  I wanted Ben to have magical powers.