Pushing Daisies TV Show

Pushing Daisies is latest creation of Brian Fuller whose previous credits include Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me. His newest show is original, witty, and delightful. While being an incredibly fun show to watch, it is also extremely well done and earned 12 Emmy nominations for its inaugural season.

Pushing Daisies is the story of Ned (Lee Pace), a pie-maker who has a very special power; he can bring dead people back to life. While this may seem like a blessing, there are a few catches to his ability. When he reanimates someone for longer than one minute, someone else must die, and if he touches the reanimated person for a second time they die again, this time forever. Once Ned fully understands his gift, he decides to keep it a secret and to live a life of solitude. That is, until he meets Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), a private investigator who learns Ned’s secret and talks him into using his powers to solve crimes.

One day Ned discovers that his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte “Chuck” Charles (Anna Friel), has been murdered so he goes to find out who killed her, but when the minute is up, he can’t bring himself to kill her again. He explains everything to her and she understands that she now must now live in secret. This secret is especially hard to keep from the two aunts that raised her, Vivian (Ellen Greene) and Lily (Swoosie Kurtz), agoraphobic, retired synchronized swimmers. The cast of characters also includes Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth), Ned’s waitress at The Pie Hole, who also happens to be madly in love with him.

Due to the writer’s strike the first season was cut short, resulting in only nine episodes. All of the details of the show are very thoughtful, from The Narrator (Jim Dale) who helps to tell the story to the distinctive visual look and camera work, all of which help bring this imaginary world to life. The picture on the DVD looks amazing; the colors are bright and beautiful. The only bonus feature is “Pie Time – Time for Pie,” an extensive interactive featurette that serves up lots of great behind-the-scenes information about the series.

Pushing Daisies is a wonderful fairy tale with charming and quirky characters. Pace is dreamily handsome. He offers a sweet innocence and vulnerability that is endearing. Friel and Chenoweth are perfect as the women yearning for Ned’s affections for very different reasons, and Green and Kurtz are terrific as the kooky sisters.

I am happy to report that the show has been renewed for a second season, which starts on October 1st, and I can’t wait. Due to the shortened first season, they will be providing enough background to capture new viewers. However, there is no reason to wait for this tasty treat when you have the opportunity to dive right in to all that Season One has to offer right now.

THERE is something deliciously ironic about the premise of Pushing Daisies. It basically is a recipe for life with death as the main ingredient! That little game of contrasts is present throughout the show, and programme creator Bryan Fuller is the mastermind behind every move. First, he sets up a scary scenario – complete with crafty camera angles and attractive blonde (you know, the kind of scene that would make Alfred Hitchcock proud); then he’ll reveal something that will just make you want to laugh out loud. In one episode, we see a man getting stabbed with a sharp tool, over and over again … and the next scene he drops dead and the “weapon” ends up being the end of a dog brush. Wait, the joke does not end there … the man actually stabbed himself as he was tenaciously trying to stop himself from toppling over while standing on slippery ground.

Investigator Emerson (Chi McBride, centre) and Chuck (Anna Friel, left) wait in anticipation as Ned (Lee Pace) touches a dead person to tell them how he died, in Pushing Daisies.

With episodic titles like The Fun in Funeral and Corpsicle you get an impression of what the series is like.

Even as the tragedy occurs, Pushing Daisies fills our senses with a burst of colours, amazing props, quirky characters, narration and music. While the series largely features dead people – most of whom have died some gruesome death – Pushing Daisies is actually a touching love story about a Prince Charming who rescues a Sleeping Beauty with a single touch … a touch he can never repeat if he wants the said maiden to continue breathing. Too many metaphors? Well, there’s a lot of that going on in this series and it gets a bit contagious.

Pushing Daisies revolves around a pie maker named Ned (the fantastic Lee Pace) who has the ability to bring back the dead with a single touch. Like all reluctant heroes, he sees this ability to be both a curse and a gift. Well, it’s mostly a curse since as a child he accidentally “killed” his mother and his neighbour. However, it became a gift when it meant he could resuscitate his sweetheart, Chuck (the delightful Anna Friel) after she was murdered.

Also, he has been helping a detective, Emerson (Chi McBride) to solve cases involving murders, with his gift. As the very observant narrator (Jim Dale) tells the viewers at the beginning of each episode, Ned and Chuck can never ever touch even though they obviously have feelings for each other. A single touch from Ned would send Chuck to a permanent death. Then there’s the guilt that Ned secretly harbours because the neighbour that dropped dead because of him was actually Chuck’s dad.

What has happened is explained in the beginning of each episode with recaps and a look at Ned’s childhood so anyone arriving late to the series can still catch up. But that would mean you’d have missed all the wonderful set-ups and charming conversations. Not to mention the odd things that go on in the show, which features even stranger characters.

Take Chuck’s two aunts who are truly eccentric – the one-eyed Lily (Swoozie Kurtz) and Vivian (Ellen Greene) – who have retreated from the world and ultimately giving up their life as famed synchronised swimmers upon learning about Chuck’s death. Then there is the detective who knits to keep himself calm, or Ned who talks funny and makes funny faces when he’s ruffled; also a waitress (the pint-sized Kristin Chenowith who makes Pace look like a mini giant) pining for Ned’s love.

Like all those characters created by Fuller in his previous series – Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls – the bunch on this TV series only further prove that odd people are people, too. Admit it, all of us are quirky in our own way. In Fuller’s world, these people are presented in a much richer form upon an equally rich tapestry. Have you ever wondered how you’d handcuff a one-armed bandit? It’s questions like this that keep the show ever so peculiar.

Sadly, Fuller’s kind of world has never appealed to the big studio bosses, what with Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls killed off in their prime. But Pushing Daisies seems to have caught the public eye (yay!) allowing us viewers a chance to watch a show in which love is more than just physical, death is always present alongside life and everyone breaks into song ever so naturally. So for at least one hour a week, why not step into this bizarre and wonderful world … you might just come off craving for a piece of pie and wanting to live life to the fullest.