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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Color me charmed, again. If you don’t like quirky this is definitely not the show for you. I think at least one, if not a few of you, expressed concerns about the procedural element of the show. If Ned can touch someone and ask who killed them, their cases are going to be pretty cut and dried. But as we saw in this episode, they were given what Chuck called a clue but Emerson called evidence to help them solve the case. New things we learned:• Emerson is a closet knitter. That knitting needle definitely came in handy when they were trapped in those body bags. And he makes a mean gun cozy.• Chuck knows Japanese. Living with her shut-in Aunts, Chuck developed a curiosity about the world. She learned quite a few languages before her untimely demise.• The narrator will never lie to us. I know some of you aren’t big fans, but I still love how Jim Dale is the voice of reason. Even when every single person is spouting nothing but lies, Jim tells the truth.Let’...
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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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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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