Pushing Daisies: The Complete First Season

Review By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

The facts are these: Guy touches dead things and brings them back to life. With a second touch, they’re dead again forever. If he keeps a dead thing alive for more than a minute, something else has to die.

It’s a pie-in-the-sky idea and on Pushing Daisies it makes for an ingenious premise. This whimsical confection is part storybook fantasy, part crime-solving noir, part romantic comedy. And it was dubbed last season’s most original new show on TV for a reason--not only for the premise, but for the overall look of the show, too. The bright, Willy Wonka colors, the cartoon-y costumes, the over-the-top set pieces, the fast-talking, quirky dialogue and the kitschy narration have helped Daisies to bloom into something unlike anything else on TV.

Ned (Lee Pace) is a lonely pie-maker who uses his power of bringing back the dead to solve crimes with a no-nonsense, money-hungry private investigator named Emerson Cod (Chi McBride). Ned touches the dead people, they ask who killed them and then they split the reward money. This system works well enough, until the day when one of those dead people happens to be Ned’s childhood sweetheart Charlotte Charles (Anna Friel) a.k.a. Chuck. He brings her back to life to find out who killed her, but can’t bring himself to touch her again. He keeps her alive so they can be together, but here’s the kicker—they can never touch! How’s that for a romantic-comedy roadblock? It’s also a genius way of keeping up the sexual tension. The fun part is watching how Ned and Chuck find ways to get close. Saran wrap kisses and dancing in beekeeper suits are some ways they make it work! Though, if the show lasts, I do wonder how long they’ll be able to sustain the relationship.

Much to Emerson’s dismay, Chuck joins their murder-solving team. The show boasts some wacky cases. From the woman that dies from a scratch-‘n’-sniff book in the episode Smell of Success, to the murdered polygamist dog breeder whose four wives are among the suspects in the episode Bitches. The crimes are never what you expect, but always immensely entertaining.

The adorable Lee Pace is darling as Ned, who’s both traumatized by his ability and grateful that he was able to bring Chuck back to life and back into his life. He has the ultimate fear of intimacy—if he touches the girl he loves, she’ll die—and Pace plays Ned’s nervousness brilliantly. The British Anna Friel does an impeccable American accent as Chuck, a girl who cared for her eccentric, recluse aunts (Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene) her whole life. Ironically, she had to die in order to start living for herself.

Kristin Chenoweth is a hilarious little bundle of energy as Olive Snook, the pie waitress who pines for Ned. But it’s Chi McBride who has the absolute best line delivery on the entire show. When Ned tells Emerson that a random ...