WARNING! The following contains minor spoilers about tonight’s episode.

A Hands-Off Attitude Lifts ‘Daisies’ Duo
by Bill Keveny, USA Today

It could be fall’s most touching TV romance, except it can’t be. In ABC’s fantastical Pushing Daisies (tonight, 8 ET/PT), a touch from Ned (Lee Pace, Soldier’s Girl) brings first love Chuck (Anna Friel, The Jury) back to life, but a second touch will send her to the great beyond permanently. Oklahoma native Pace, 28, and Friel, 31, who hails from England, talk to USA TODAY about the first-year critical hit and time-slot winner (10.7 million viewers).

Q: From your banter, you seem to get along great. Could you engage in this romantic pairing if you didn’t?
Pace: I don’t know if you could get the specific thing that Chuck and Ned have if you didn’t like each other as much as we do.
Friel: I’d be surprised. I’ve seen really great love stories and then heard through the grapevine that they actually despised each other. I don’t think I could do that, if you’re working 16-17 hours a day, five days a week. … I see more of Lee than I do my daughter (2-year-old Gracie), my partner (actor David Thewlis) and my family.

Q: What do you think of the central conceit — one touch, life; second touch, death?
Pace: It’s sensible for Chuck to move as far away from Ned as possible. They shouldn’t be in the same room together. But they can’t live without each other.

Q: To avoid contact, pie-maker Ned and Chuck have touched through beekeeper suits, plastic casings, rubber gloves and kitchen wrap. How does it feel to kiss through plastic?
Friel: It’s so hot. I highly recommend it. One of the most sexual experiences of my life (she says, laughing). The same with the plastic sacks in the car. That was thicker. Each time we do it, the plastic is getting thinner and thinner. We started with industrial strength and now it’s going to super fine.

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TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello is reporting that PUSHING DAISIES creator Bryan Fuller informed him that “the show’s ninth episode — the last one for which a script is written — can function as a season finale in the event the strike extends into the new year and beyond.”

“As we were scrambling to rewrite [Episode 9],” he reveals, “we added several elements that will put many balls into the air and hopefully encourage the audience to come back and see how they land.”

Fuller confirms that production on the potential season finale got under way today, which means “our crew will now be able to work through Thanksgiving.”

Good news of course for the cast and crew but sad news to think that this amazing show might only see nine of its intended 22 episodes during its first season.