If the barometer of an interesting TV awards show is the number of fresh faces invited to the party, then the Golden Globe nominations (announced Thursday morning) passes the test. Not with a perfect score, mind you. Any institution that so completely ignores NBC's wonderful Friday Night Lights deserves some spirited jeering.And the Globes' addiction to sexy sizzle and hype can lead to some puzzling choices: Big Love, fun as it is, over The Sopranos' final season? Bill Paxton over James Gandolfini? (And if the Globes is going to shower love on Big Love, how could the women who play Bill's wives go unheralded, especially Ginnifer Goodwin?) Californication over Weeds?But let's look at the bright side. The Hollywood Foreign Press clearly spent some time checking out the TV landscape during last summer's remarkable season of cable breakthroughs. My own pick for No. 1 show of the year, AMC's Mad Men, is nominated for best drama, along with its dashing leading man, Jon Hamm. FX's Damages,...
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Written by guest blogger Katie BottnerChuck and Ned fans, I can hear you breathing a sigh of relief that the Olive/Ned kiss was just a dream sequence. Though for a moment I thought that was real Chuck that tripped and was going to fall on Ned — I got scared for a second there. But alas it was all in Ned’s head as he became conflicted over being able to touch Olive but being in love with Chuck. And lucky for us, poor Emerson got to once again be the soundboard for this dilemma. Kudos go to Olive for coming clean to Chuck about the kiss, which Ned did not mention, but I feel sad for Olive — and my sadness for her deepened throughout this episode.The facts of the case are these: One Harold Hundin (Joel McHale), president of a local kennel and breeder of the perfect dog, Bubblegum, is found dead. As we know, "where there is a reward, there is Emerson Cod," who with Ned and Chuck found out at the morgue that Harold was murdered by his wife. Simple? Not so much — he ha...
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Question: Is Pushing Daisies going to submit itself in the comedy category or drama category at the upcoming Golden Globes? I only ask because I want to start placing my bets now on Kristin Chenoweth, Chi McBride and Lee Pace!
Answer: Pushing Daisies rightfully considers itself a comedy, and that's where it will be competing in all of the many awards ceremonies awaiting us in the new year. Let's just hope it gets the love it deserves ...
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Kristin Chenoweth, Pushing Daisies
Question: Recently I overhead a coworker saying how awful they thought Pushing Daisies was. I, of course, interjected that I love it, while sadly consigning myself to the fact that this is going to be a love-it-or-hate-it show (and that chatter may unfortunately turn away viewers who would potentially enjoy it). Perhaps I'm a child at heart, but I can't help but cherish Chuck's enthusiasm, the whimsical effects, the expressions Chi McBride uses and storyline twists such as sword-fighting with an Asian confederate's descendant. I then decided to try out Viva Laughlin, despite the warnings of you and other critics. I thought if nothing else, it could be a guilty pleasure, "so bad it's good." I was wrong. It was mind-numbingly awful, with no pleasure of any kind. My biggest fear, though, is that this will discourage networks from taking chances on musical shows in the future. Though I don't think there will ever be a musical on the level of CSI or Desperate Housewives in popularity, I do ...
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Anna Friel and Lee Pace in Pushing Daisies by Ron Tom/ABC
Nearly five months passed between the time I got my first look at the miraculous Pushing Daisies pilot and the second episode. It was worth the wait. I am officially in love.Flashback (I wish I could count back the days, hours, minutes and seconds as precisely as Jim Dale does in his spot-on narration): It’s the week before the network upfronts in May, and I’m in Los Angeles working on the TV Guide Network’s America’s Next Producer show when a studio exec not even associated with Pushing Daisies leaks me a copy of the pilot, which I’d heard was good but had no idea was THIS good. From the moment I saw it, I was enchanted and could only hope that fellow critics and viewers with open minds and open hearts would share my enthusiasm. I was also so satisfied by what I’d seen that I couldn’t help wondering if they’d be able to pull it off on a weekly basis.Flash to the second week of October, and in brilliant high definition, I watch the second epis...
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I’m thoroughly charmed by this show. I was a little afraid all the great things I’ve been hearing would lead to disappointment, but I must admit I loved the episode.The rules:• Ned’s first touch to something dead brings life, the second brings death forever.• If the person he brings back stays alive for more than one minute, someone else in close proximity will die.Ever since Ned (Lee Pace) was able to bring his trusty golden retriever Digby back from the dead, he has known he has the gift of reanimation. He was 9 when he found out. Unfortunately he didn’t realize his gift came with a price until he revived his mother only to watch his next-door neighbor and best friend Charlotte, aka Chuck (Anna Friel), Charles’ father die as a result. Soon after, Ned is shipped off to boarding school, and Chuck goes to live with her aunts, also known as the Darling Mermaid Darlings because of their synchronized-swimming careers. But before they are parted, they s...
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Question: I know that you and every other critic seems to be in love with Pushing Daisies. I just watched the pilot, and while I was thoroughly entertained, there are three problems that I think could become much bigger over the long run. Firstly (in order of escalating seriousness), I imagine that the extensive narration, though helpful in the pilot's exposition, will become very grating after a few episodes. In the pilot, I think the narrator had more lines than any individual character, including Ned. The second is the weakness of the supporting cast. Lee Pace does such an amazing job portraying the whimsical and fast-talking Ned, and Chi McBride plays a great strait man to his oddball. But Kristin Chenoweth and Anna Friel absolutely cannot keep up with him and his fast-paced dialogue. I feel like every scene where he talks to either one of them slows the whole thing down. Was Alexis Bledel not available? Chenoweth is so distractingly short that she can't properly interact with ...
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Lee Pace in Pushing Daisies by Bob D'Amico/ABC
Could the third time be the charm? Being an eternal optimist when it comes to TV shows I love, I certainly hope so. For the third season in a row, the show I’ve picked as my favorite pilot of the fall season is on ABC, and once again, after two consecutive seasons of my pick failing to make the grade, this show’s projected success is far from a slam dunk. But let me tell you why I believe, despite all logical skepticism to the contrary, that the dazzling “forensic fairy tale” called Pushing Daisies has a shot at making it.First, here’s why my earlier picks didn’t pan out. For one thing, both shows — Invasion in 2005, The Nine in 2006 — had the mixed fortune of being scheduled directly after Lost. (As we’ve learned, the Lost viewing experience is so intense and its fan base so obsessed that it’s pure folly to put any show, especially a demanding one, after Lost.) Both shows were also exceedingly dark in tone, whereas Pushing Daisies...
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Some goodies in today's pilot-casting news!• Former SNL funny lady Molly Shannon (as in, from back when SNL was funny) has been tapped to play Natasha Richardson's sister (and a possible murderess) in NBC's comedy soap, The Mastersons of Manhattan.• Big-screen bruiser Ving Rhames has joined the cast of ABC's Americanized version of Footballers Wives, called Football Wives, as the team's general manager.• O.C. cutie Samaire Armstrong has been tapped to play, in essence, Paris Hilton in ABC's Dirty Money drama, with Peter Krause.• Boston Public principal Chi McBride can expect a bouquet from ABC for joining its drama, Pushing Daisies; in it, he plays a private dick who goes into business with a guy who can make Lazarus of anyone.• And finally, someday-star (trust me on this) Jennifer Esposito has been signed to ABC's amnesiac comedy, Sam I Am, though unfortunately not as the amnesiac.
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Today's big news: I woke up to find a zit the size of a Vespa parked on my face. Good times....EXECUTIVE SESSION9:04 am: ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson is wearing blue jeans that scream "rock-star network executive!"9:06 am: McPherson announces that he's going to pressure the TV Academy to let us, the nation's top TV critics, decide next year's Emmy nominees. Hey, that was my idea! (And not to split hairs, but it's only supposed to be Matt Roush and me.)9:08 am: McPherson admits if he had to do Commander in Chief over again, he wouldn't have impeached Rod Lurie and replaced him with Steven Bochco. "We would probably bring it on later in the season and let Rod prep for it a lot longer than he had a chance to. He was the voice of that show." 9:08 am: I ask McPherson what he's doing behind the scenes at Desperate Housewives to address last season's "creative collapse." Although he disagrees with the "creative collapse" part — I was going to say implosion — he c...
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