(TV) Pushing Daisies: SEASON 1 (2008)

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE

On the surface, Pushing Daises looks like any other ‘high-concept’ show that lasts a handful of episodes before disappearing into the bottomless hole of cancellation. Conceptually it would fit comfortably in the company of such masterworks as “Handicapable: The Armless Detective who only solves Paraplegic Mysteries” or “DogWow: The dogs are the new masters!” The basic one line bullet head of Pushing Daises: “A man named Ned (Lee Pace) can bring the dead back to life to solve their murders” That’s all right on its own, but it’s the little details that make it work: He brings the dead back to life by touch, if the pre-dead-now-alive stay alive longer than a minute, something else in the general area has to die (of equal value) and if the man touches the original dead thing (now alive) again it will die again, this time of permanently. Confusing? Only when I explain it. It’ll make more sense after the first corpse springs to life.

Ned runs a pie shop (Named ‘The Pie Hole’) and spends his free time with freelance detective Emerson Cod (Chi Mcbride) getting the dead to tell them how they died and then collecting reward money for catching the murderer/explaining it to the deceased’s relatives. During one of their routine ‘re-awakenings’ Ned brings back to life a murdered girl named Chuck (Anna Friel) and it turns out that Chuck was Ned’s childhood sweetheart. He’s so shocked that he lets a minute go by (and an innocent kicks the bucket as a result) so now he’s stuck with the love of his life, but now can never touch. Oh, and everyone still solves quirky murder mysteries.

Pushing Daisies goes the extra mile by an creating an entire universe to call its own. It looks like the real world, but you never get the sense that you’ve actually been there. It’s fashioned without shame on the the work of Jean Pierre Jeunet (Director of the romantic French comedy “Amelie”). The visual design in Pushing Daises oozes quirkiness. Everything is slightly more colorful, a little bit more exaggerated and touches more real then we’re all used to in everyday life. The fluffy mood is a startling contrast to the more gruesome aspects. (The dead don’t always die pretty) but it all works because everyone’s in on the joke. The characters may be dealing with life shattering revelations about existence itself, but they aren’t too worried about it at all. Blame it on the completely naturalistic report between all the leads. Lee Pace is puppy dog innocent as the man with the powers and his struggles to live with them. Chi Mcbride plays his narcissistic detective sidekick. The girl-that-can-never-be-touched-by-our-hero, Chuck (Anna Friel) is a peppy ray of light that’s naïve without ever being annoyingly innocent. For a show that relies so heavily on eye-catching visuals, the fact that all characters are just as engaging should be a lesson for every suck-tacular high gloss FOX show.

There’s no show on the air like Pushing Daises. It adopts a ballsy cinematic direction that fits together its mood, its characters and even the stories (as lightweight as they may be) in a direction that would have most common audiences call it “Hmmm…That’s weird”. Rest assured, that even though the first season only has a nine episodes, that was due to the writer’s strike and not the dreaded cancellation chop. It’s actually been picked up for a second season (13 episodes as of this writing) so the world can only open up that much more. More people with odd powers?