Premiere Date: Wednesday, October 3rd, on ABC at 8:00 PM
By Alexander B. Huls
Sprung from the creative, original, and inventive mind of Bryan Fuller (Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Heroes), Pushing Daisies centers on Ned (Lee Pace), who has a very unique ability. If he touches a dead person once, he brings them to life. If he touches them again or is himself touched by them, he returns them to death. Further, if he brings back someone for longer than a minute, somebody else in the immediate area dies in their place. Ned learns of the “rules” of his gift through unfortunate circumstances, and ends up using his gift in a peculiar yet practical (and financially beneficial) way: aiding a private investigator (Chi McBride) in solving murders — for rewards — by resurrecting and speaking directly to the victims, while using the money to finance his pie store (called The Pie Hole).
Despite perhaps eliciting comparisons to the recently defunct Raines and the hit The Ghost Whisperer, Pushing Daisies recalls the wondrous charm and infections warmth and humor of Big Fish, Amelie, and, of course, Wonderfalls. Despite the greatness of both Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, it does seem like Bryan Fuller finally realized what would make the basic idea behind both most accessible to broader audiences, instead of alienating them, as was the case most notably and unfortunately with Wonderfalls. As a result, we have a show that, despite being entirely centered on death (usually murder), is ultimately an uplifting fairy tale about life. It’s about second chances, about breaking out of the shell of one’s habitual existence and truly living. Exactly like Big Fish and Amelie, it’s about truly experiencing what life is like when one crosses the threshold of hesitation and wanders into a place of infinite discovery and realization.
The show does everything it can to create an appropriate environment for that message, and it accomplishes that through its colorful and highly stylized environments, narration, editing style, cinematography, and its lively and sweet characters — and the actors playing them. Most impressively, everyone on the show — from the leads to the minors — seems to perfectly “get” the show they are on, which is very important for creating the seamless tone a unique show like this requires. Even Chi McBride, whose character provides the only counter-point to the tone with his “I can’t believe I’m living in this world” attitude, fits in seamlessly because he is — in the end — still the grump with the heart of gold. However, the people who make the show are Lee Pace and Anna Friel. I readily confess that the interactions between Ned and Chuck are so adorable, their characters’ love so assured by the show, that I couldn’t help but grin a goofy smile and feel my belly fill with the warmth of happiness anytime they shared the screen. 
As for where the show will go in the future, it seems it is setting itself up with a structure similar to Wonderfalls. Each episode will presumably feature a murder mystery the trio will tackle, though there is also room for mythological explorations of the nature and origin of Ned’s gift, and other character relationship explorations. I’m not without some concerns, however. Though the case-a-week formula can work well, it can also lead to monotony and lack of development. In particular with such a small (initial) group of characters, there is only so much room to move them. As for Ned and Chuck’s romance, though numerous shows have proven the will-they-or-won’t-they love story can be successfully prolonged (the most recent example being Jim and Pam on The Office, though even they caved after three seasons), those romances were actually possible in the universes of those shows. In Pushing Daisies, if Ned and Chuck realize their romance in any other way than emotionally, it would mean Chuck’s death. ABC has currently ordered thirteen episodes of Pushing Daisies, so as long as ABC doesn’t do what Fox did to Wonderfalls, hopefully we will have plenty of time to see these concerns overcome. Bryan Fuller has had two prematurely canceled but great shows. Let’s hope the third time is the charm and this one sticks. Because in the TV land of cutthroat cancellations, even Ned’s magic touch won’t be able to save Pushing Daisies from its own death.
