Pushing Daisies - A Garden of Colorful Characters

Standard network television is no place to showcase brilliance, not these days anyway. There are a handful of television shows that could be described as pure genius captured on video - Pushing Daisies is one of those shows. While it ran only about 2 and a half seasons on ABC from 2007 to 2009, it is still a joy to go back and watch. One can only imagine the heights it might have soared to if the network had allowed the plot to mature over several more seasons. 

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Another short-lived yet brilliant piece of television

Pushing Daisies is a modern American fairy tale, complete with mythical characters and a surreal vision of the world splashed with brilliant colors. Mythical they may be, but all this show's characters are real on a level that is both intimate and sublime. The premise of the show is unusual, but then again most fairy tales are - there is a man named Ned or the "Pie-maker." He has the ability to bring back things from the dead by touch but only for 60 seconds or else something else similar will die to take its place. Also, if he allows the dead thing he touched to remain alive he cannot ever touch it again else it will fall dead instantly. 

Needless to say Ned falls in love with a girl he's revived from the dead, so he can never touch her again. Their relationship presents a number of challenges, but their love endures nonetheless. In the meantime he uses his unique talents to salvage rotten fruit for making pies at his bakery (called the Pie Hole) and for solving crimes by reviving the dead for 60 seconds or less to ask them how they expired.

Pushing Daisies was like the Wizard of Oz of contemporary television

The entire cast of Pushing Daisies is nothing short of phenomenal. Lee Pace and Anna Friel bring the Fairy Tale to life and a host of other fascinating characters pile on many layers of depth and surprises to the already mesmerizing presentation. Of particular note is Kristin Chenoweth as the tiny, love struck third wheel at the Pie Hole whose voice belies her petite frame (we've included two of her songs on the post). Then there's The Darling Mermaid Darlings, a distraught pair of former synchronized swimmers who are now afraid to leave the house. Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Green are the dynamic duo who represent what's left of Dead Girl's (Friel) family.  They may be two of the most enduring and charismatic characters in modern television. 

Perhaps the greatest joy of this movie is the mastery and pure joy of the English language that is infused into every episode. Clever or intelligent writing is so rare these days - so much of what comes out our end of the the flat-screen is formula-driven drivel. Not so here. Then again, Bryan Fuller is not your ordinary producer / director. He was involved with Star Trek Deep Space Nine and also created Dead Like Me, and Wonderfalls. So far he's batting a 1000. He's got two new series coming out soon so we'll see if he can maintain this streak of brilliance. In the meantime, it seems as though there is at least a glimmer of a chance that Pushing Daisies may end up on Starz as a new mini-series - hopefully someday soon. 

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

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Dead Like Me Comes Alive

Sometimes we may sound overly critical but we do in fact have a great number of things that we actually enjoy. We've decided to focus the next few posts on some of our favorite TV series - some of which we discovered years after they left the air through Netflix.

Dead Like Me is an example of one of our recent finds. We completely missed the series while it was on Showtime (we were either too busy at the time to watch much television or in a Cable Rejection phase) but we found it this year while browsing through Netflix. It turns out the show's creator Bryan Fuller, had also developed one of our all time favorite shows "Pushing Daisies." He had also worked on Star Trek Voyager. That's some resume.

It also seems somehow appropriate to review a show called Dead Like Me which features the lives of Grim Reapers on the eve of the Apocalypse.

The Season 1 Trailer of "Dead Like Me"

The premise of the show is unusual - it also somewhat presages what you'll see if you decide to watch Pushing Daisies. The main character dies in the pilot episode but that's OK because she doesn't really go anywhere - death is the beginning of her story. Georgia, the main character rediscovers life through her new role as a grim reaper and through a proxy life she establishes as an undead girl trying to make ends meet. Needless to say, the premise alone was intriguing - but what really grabbed us was character development and the offbeat humor present in most of the episodes.

The show also sports one of the most original opening credits sequence and musical score that we've ever experienced - the music by the way was composed by Stewart Copeland - former member of the Police.

How could anyone resist this title sequence?

Each of the characters in the show represent seemingly real people - albeit somewhat quirky but real. Oddly enough the least interesting character is Georgia but that's because she's acting as a bit of foil or straight man through most of the series while observing the world around her. Mandy Patinkin plays a bit of a foil himself but often devolves into his own quirky directions on many occasions. The cast assembled for the show is very talented with standout performances coming from Mandy, from Callum Blue, from Laura Harris and from all the actors portraying Georgia's family. Georgia's co-workers at her new found office career are pretty fascinating as well - it's a large ensemble effort.

Callum Blue launched his career on Dead Like Me

We suppose that the somewhat dark humor on the show may not be to everyone's tastes - or perhaps it may be an acquired taste. We do believe that most of you will enjoy it though. There is something altogether therapeutic in being able to laugh at death or the circumstances revolving it and of course we're seeing another way to view life as well in most of the plot-lines. We give Dead Like Me our highest rating and we weren't the only ones who thought so - fans of the show helped to bring most of the cast back for a movie version of the show in 2009. And if you check out the ratings on most of the movie review sites you'll see Dead Like Me coming close to the highest ratings possible.

Someone asked us a fairly interesting question the other day - they said "why do studios & TV networks always cancel the best shows after one or two seasons and then run the crap like Two & Half Men for decades?" That's a good question - perhaps we need grim reapers to help us weed out the wretched programming and make room for more shows like this.


Copyright 2011, Raving Reviews™

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