New show: Is 'Pushing Daisies' the best new show this year?
Posted: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 6:00 AM by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
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TV
At the summer press tour, it's surprising how little personal time critics actually spend talking about the new fall shows. We're so buried in factoids about them all day long that when we get a chance, we want to discuss something -- anything -- else. But when shows are discussed, the question we ask each other most is "Which shows have you liked?" The same five or so shows almost always come up, and ABC's "Pushing Daisies" is almost always among them.
"Pushing Daisies" has been described as a "forensic fairy tale," and its plot is as outlandish as its charm is heartwarming. Ned (played by Lee Pace), is a piemaker with an unusual gift -- he can bring people back to life merely by touching them (he can also restore decaying fruit, which helps out in his business).
But Ned's gift has strings and rules. If he touches the resurrected person again after giving them life, they die. If he doesn't touch them, and they stay alive for more than a minute, another person must die.
Ned didn't discover the ins and outs of this as a child, and his mother and the father of his childhood sweetheart both are worse off for it. Later in life, he makes up to the childhood sweetie by bringing her back after she's murdered on a cruise ship, but when they start to fall in love, the problem becomes obvious -- they can never touch again.
The plot is fun, but what really sells "Pushing Daisies" is the look. Think "Edward Scissorhands" or other Tim Burton films. The colors are brighter, the scenes are more fantastical, and the wonderful narration by Jim Dale, the same reasoned, mellow voice who reads the U.S. versions of the Harry Potter audiobooks, adds a cozy feel to the show. "Pushing Daisies" does not seem to exist in the same world as "CSI" or "American Idol," but inside a storybook. And elements of the plot (twin synchronized swimmers, one with a jeweled eyepatch) are reminiscent of the goofy universe of Carl Hiaasen's books.
Bryan Fuller, who created "Dead Like Me" and "Wonderfalls," created the show, and Barry Sonnenfeld, of various Coen Brothers movies, among other films, is one of the producers. In fact, Fuller says the original idea came from a plan to create a spinoff of "Dead Like Me."
I'm not sure if "Pushing Daisies" is my absolute favorite new show -- I lean more towards the goofy slacker humor of "Reaper" on the CW -- but it's right up there in the top three.
GAEL'S GRADE: A rarely awarded A.
Here are some tidbits from the press tour panel with the cast and creators
• It goes up to 11: Barry Sonnenfeld was asked about the show's hyperbright color palette, and had this to say: "You know, a lot of people have commented on how colorful and rich this show is and the secret is -- is that at Laser Pacific, there's a dial that, if you turn to 11, instead of 10, just makes it that much more colorful. But Bryan -- I think Bryan and Dan and Bruce and I have always sort of embraced sort of a ... saturated palette for a lot of our work. And truly, I just turn the dial a little more on the machine."
• Giving away the ending? Here's a romantic couple who can never touch, let alone kiss. Creator Bryan Fuller won't let that stop him, though. He said: "Well, we're going to have a lot of fun with prophylactics, Saran wrap kisses. We're going to see them dancing in beekeeper suits. We're going to go a long way in doing everything we can to get them to touch each other that's not flesh to flesh. And I think if the show will end -- hopefully, it will never end -- but if it does end, it will probably end with a kiss."
• Sing, sing a song: Tony-Award winning Kristen Chenoweth (who reportedly inspired Harriet on the now-canceled "Studio 60") plays a waitress at Ned's pie shop. Will the show use her talents and produce a musical episode? Maybe. "We've been threatening it" since filming the pilot, said Fuller. Added Chenoweth: "You know, we in musical theater believe that we sing because we can't speak anymore. And I believe that this is a show that would be perfect to lend itself to something like that."
