Nov 09 2007
PUSHING DAISIES in The New Yorker
The New Yorker (and its fresh cartoons) have decided to talk about PUSHING DAISIES this week. With Ned and Chuck on hiatus this week and the strike scaring the bejesus out of me, it’s wonderful to see some Daisies information out there for people to devour.
I’m going to let you all read the article and then talk about it. One thing that is brought up is whether Daisies can sustain more than one season or should it just be 22 episodes of greatness that live on forever on DVD.
“Pushing Daisies” is the third TV series created by Bryan Fuller, and, like the others, it has a title that’s tailor-made for Variety headline writers in the event of the show’s cancellation, the other two being “Dead Like Me,” which ran for two seasons on Showtime (2003 and 2004), and “Wonderfalls,” which Fuller created with Todd Holland, and which was pulled by Fox after only four episodes, in 2004. (Fuller, who made his bones as a writer and producer of “Star Trek: Voyager,” was also the co-executive producer of NBC’s popular drama “Heroes” in its first season.) At the moment, “Pushing Daisies” isn’t in any danger of cancellation. It’s one of the few distinctive shows of the fall season, and it currently anchors ABC’s successful Wednesday-night lineup of new series, preceding “Private Practice”—the idiotic and unwatchable spinoff of the idiotic and watchable “Grey’s Anatomy”—and “Dirty Sexy Money,” a not quite delicious but passably cheesy drama about a rich family’s secrets and lies, starring the imposing, white-maned Donald Sutherland (imposing even while playing a ridiculously stereotypical TV patriarch) and Peter Krause, resting from the hard work of “Six Feet Under” in the role of the family’s hand-holder and scandal-cleaner-upper.
Fuller’s shows are often called quirky, and with good reason—they’re a mash-up of the existential and the quotidian, and you can’t predict the beats of the action or the tonal shifts. “Dead Like Me,” a comedy and a drama, was about a sullen, unmotivated eighteen-year-old girl named George who is killed one sunny day by a falling toilet seat, dislodged from a space station, and is immediately conscripted into a team of grim reapers. It turns out that—at least, in the universe Fuller constructed—being dead is no easier than being alive: the reapers are expected to find apartments for themselves, do their own laundry, and get paying jobs. And conducting souls to the afterlife is a drag; there’s so much to learn and so much to get wrong. But, in “Dead Like Me,” Fuller didn’t lazily equate life and death for easy comedy; the harshness of finality wasn’t glossed over, though there were perhaps a few too many ghoulish one-liners.
“Wonderfalls” (which is available on DVD, in a set that includes the thirteen episodes that had been filmed when the show was cancelled) is a little more whimsical, in that it takes place amid the camp tackiness of Niagara Falls and involves animal tchotchkes talking to a young woman, Jaye, who, though she’s an Ivy League graduate with a degree in philosophy, is working in a souvenir shop and living in a trailer. Like George, Jaye is sullen and unmotivated, but she is also witty, which makes her pleasant company for the viewer. The tchotchkes give her instructions on how to help people—but the instructions are often cryptic or counterintuitive and lead to trouble. The show has a screwball feel, because Jaye’s family is crazy, and there’s also a romance. It’s a rich mixture.
“Pushing Daisies” is as peculiar a creation as you’re going to see this year. It’s not like anything else, though as you watch it you can’t help making a checklist of influences and progenitors: the Tim Burton of “Edward Scissorhands” and “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks,” “Amelie,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Fractured Fairy Tales,” real fairy tales, Roald Dahl, and Greek mythology. Every pixel in your TV screen has been accounted for in the show’s obsessively imaginative production design, and the sound has the nutty specificity of the old Warner Bros. cartoons, where each stealthy footstep and shifty glance was denoted musically. It’s a fast-moving tale, about a boy named Ned (Lee Pace), who discovers when he’s nine that he can bring the dead back to life with his touch. But, as the narrator (Jim Dale) tells us portentously, that gift “came with a caveat or two.” If Ned touches the newly alive person a second time, that person will die again, this time for good. And if he doesn’t touch the person again within a minute, someone nearby will die. One of Ned’s secrets is that as a child he—unwittingly—caused the father of the little girl next door to die; he loved the little girl, whose name was Chuck (Anna Friel), and twenty years later she resurfaces—he has brought her back to life—making his secret even more agonizing. Worse, he cannot touch her. He loves her, she loves him, and never the twain shall meet, except for the occasional kiss through a sheet of plastic wrap or an embrace while wearing beekeepers’ suits. “Pushing Daisies,” like “Dead Like Me” (and its rough coeval “Six Feet Under”), is poker-faced about the arbitrariness of life and death. In the first three minutes of the series, Ned’s golden retriever gets killed by a truck and his mother keels over from a burst blood vessel in her brain while baking pies; both events are handled coolly, with no tears. You’re more likely to be taking note of the art direction—the mother’s pale-green apron against the pale-green-and-beige checked linoleum, and the boy in his pale-green striped shirt—than you are to be feeling anything about the fact that a nine-year-old boy’s mother just died in front of him.
I think that Fuller wants to be more than clever in this show—it’s a serious comedy about life and romance. And there are payoffs, though few of them materialize as quickly as you want them to. It wasn’t until the fifth episode that I believed that the characters’ feelings came from them instead of being imposed on them. Luckily, the structure of the show keeps it moving. Ned works with a private investigator, Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), on the side, solving murders. Cod is all about getting the job done. Chuck and Ned have eyes only for each other; Cod has his eye on the prize—the payday when they solve a case. McBride provides some much needed normal humor amid all the mannered wackiness of the show. A travel agency, for example, is called the Boutique Travel Travel Boutique—that kind of thing wears a viewer out.
“Pushing Daisies” probably shouldn’t last longer than a season; fairy tales aren’t supposed to go on forever. It will then take its place proudly beside other worthy efforts that lived fast, died young, and left behind a beautiful DVD.
All right gang, let’s discuss…
*Thanks to Mikey for the tip.
Hmm. That’s a very interesting article - thanks for posting! While I don’t always agree with people about their views on a show, I find it entertaining to hear what they have to say. Should Daisies last only one season? The fangirl in me says no, because I would like to see Ned, Chuck, Emerson, Olive, and the Aunts (oh yes … and Digby too!) light up my television screen for years to come. But that’s the selfish part of me.
The non-selfish part of me wonders if that’s actually a novel idea. In collecting DVDs of my favourite series’ of the past, I’ve come to realize that sometimes shows will have only one really great season. And often it’s the first. Some shows get quirkier as the seasons go on, some change their characters’ personalities, and some try to “advance” the storyline in odd ways. I think that, as much as I’d love to see these people on my TV forever, if it only did last one season it would be a great season indeed.
I love so much about the show right now. Ned and Chuck being so in love, but unable to touch flesh-on-flesh, Olive pining over Ned and befriending the Aunts, the Aunts not knowing about Chuck’s “alive again” status. I’m almost afraid that another season could ruin this. What if something comes along that enables Ned and Chuck to actually touch? Sure, that first lips-on-lips kiss would be amazing, but what after that? And what if the Aunts discover that Chuck isn’t dead? It seems that if this show hopes to advance the plot at all, it will change it to some degree. And sometimes I can be like a 5 year old and not want anything to change at all.
That’s just my opinion, of course, and as usual it’s not one-sided. I think truly that, if the writers are able to keep the show going at the same pace, and advance it only where necessary - while still keeping the same charm and wit it has now - then I believe there can be a few more seasons for us to enjoy, and I’d like that very, very much.
I am usually the kind of loyal viewer who sticks with a show no matter what. I didn’t give up on Prison Break because Sarah died and I’m still watching ER in its 14th season. Do I necessarily think that’s a good thing? No. Sometimes I would much rather a good quality show be more like an exteded length movie or a mini-series. That way shows don’t stay around long after they’re good and we as tv lovers don’t get up in arms about a shows being cancelled before they’re bad. Maybe studios would be much more likely to give a show a full run if there was a definite end date. So while I will watch and love Pushing Daisies as long as it’s on tv, I don’t disagree with the article above.
I agree with some of the article. I think that PD will be renewed for a second season and here is why. One there are so few good original tv shows anymore that when one finally comes along like this one, studios tend to be a little more forgiving. Second , award season. Trust me when I say this , that this show will be nominated for EVERYTHING this yr. Gloden Globes , Emmy’s, you name it. With that will come alot of exposure at a critical time. I believe that the award boost when be a big catalyst for a renewal. And finally, it is number 1 in the most important demographic(18-49). Go piemaker!!
I find myself wondering as I watch the show if they’ll be able to keep it up. Eventually, we’ll grow tired of Ned and Chuck not being able to touch each other, or of Olive’s obsession with Ned. (or if we, the public don’t, the “powers that be” will) What then? I really think that if the writers can keep it up, without losing the show’s unique quirkiness, great! they should keep it up. If not, then I’d rather this show goes out with its head held high then have it continue and sacrifice those parts of it we’ve come to love.
As far as the article, I mostly disagree with the characters’ feelings seeming imposed on them until the fifth episode — I have to wonder if the author was really watching or just glancing up at the screen from time to time. I believed the feelings from the moment Ned woke Chuck up at the funeral home.
About how long the show should run, that will completely depend on the quality of the writing, the art design, production, etc. I could see them exploring lots more issues and continuing to develop the characters, maybe introducing new characters, but all in all, this show is about so much more than Ned and Chuck not being able to touch. That’s a fun aspect, for sure, but there are so many quirks of human nature and morality and humor that they could keep going for a long time. I look forward to this show every week (and how sad that we can’t see the pilot online along with the other episodes!) and would be devastated to lose it. Then again, I’m curious to see what Fuller creates next… hard to believe anything could click like PD or have anywhere near its level of magic.
“Pushing Daisies” probably shouldn’t last longer than a season; fairy tales aren’t supposed to go on forever. It will then take its place proudly beside other worthy efforts that lived fast, died young, and left behind a beautiful DVD.
I instantly became depressed when I read this last section of the article. I actually had never thought of that. I hope more than anything that Fuller has some ideas up his sleeve. It’s just sad with everything that’s going on: the strike, the uncertainty of the show, and the fact that I love it so much and would just die to see it crumble.
“Pushing Daisies” probably shouldn’t last longer than a season; fairy tales aren’t supposed to go on forever. It will then take its place proudly beside other worthy efforts that lived fast, died young, and left behind a beautiful DVD.
This last paragraph depresses me. I mean Pushing Daisies is an amazing show. And I dont think that it deserves to be cancelled. Its one of my favorite shows ever. It just has this certain thing about the show that catches my attention. I find myself addicted to it. I have heard that if the show does get cancelled that they are only going to episode 13 in season 2… and that that paritcular episode is going to be ended on a cliffhanger… hopefully that is not what will happen… i dont want to wonder about how Ned, Chuck, Emerson, Olive, and all the other characters end up… i want to see what happens. I have also heard that if they do end up cancelling the “Pushing Daisies” that they may make a movie to wrap up the story so it doesnt leave the fans wondering and disappointed… I really hope that this is what they do. I don’t think i could stand it if they ended the show on a cliffhanger and just left the fans hanging… that would depress me even more. So maybe the closing of the show will be on the big screen… who knows.. anything is possible.