Warm up to death
ByTHERE 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.
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