TELEVISION: ‘Not Dead Yet’ combines comedy and drama

NEW YORK — While TV writers Casey Johnson and David Windsor were winding down the emotional roller coaster series "This Is Us," they had another project waiting to soar — one with ghosts.

Their new "Not Dead Yet," about a newspaper obituary writer haunted by the subjects she is writing about, landed on ABC Wednesday, less than a year after viewers bid goodbye to "This Is Us" characters Randall, Kate and Kevin.

"With the end of that show, it was a lot about death. And here we were at the same time giving birth to this other baby," Windsor says. "It was sort of a nice cycle of life."

In "Not Dead Yet," Gina Rodriguez plays Nell, a newly single reporter who returns to her California newspaper 10 years after she quit to follow a love interest to London.