Pushing Daisies

Do you know Pushing Daisies? It's a TV series that I've been following on 2nd Avenue. I saw the very first episode last year, and was instantly hooked. It's funny, quirky, colorful and refreshing. It's a romantic comedy, murder mystery, sometimes a musical. The visuals are almost cartoonish and there's always play on words. It's unlike anything I've seen on TV.

The plot: Ned the piemaker and owner of The Pie Hole has the ability to bring dead people and things back to life with his touch, but a second touch will kill them for good. He can only keep them alive for one minute, otherwise the closest living person or thing has to die in its place. Interesting concept, no?

Ned's ability was discovered by private detective Emerson Cod and they become partners in a crime-solving enterprise. Ned wakes up the dead for one minute, Emerson asks questions, they solve the murder and claim the reward. In oe of these expeditions, Ned came face-to-face with his childhood sweetheart Chuck (girl!) lying in the coffin. He wakes her up, but couldn't bear to let her die. One minute passed. She lives and the owner of the funeral parlor died in her place. It's a case for another day. Ned and Chuck are in love but they could never touch so they invent ways to show affection.

To complicate things, Olive the waitress (my favorite character - Kristin Chenoweth is good!) is also in love with Ned. There are more surprises/mysteries throughout the two seasons like the disappearance of Ned's father, his discovery of two magician brothers, Chuck's aunts who are retired synchronized swimmers not knowing she's alive again, Emerson's missing daughter, ETC.

The formula that kept me watching this show is that they are solving new murders every week which keeps it interesting, and the characters' stories also unfold (the CSI formula). Season 2 ending just aired last Tuesday. There are still a lot of hanging storylines that will never get resolved because ABC has cancelled the show. Based on what I've read, the producers were told of this decision late and did not even get an extra episode to wrap things up. They had to change the last few minutes Season 2 to wrap things up. It was really rushed and some major questions were left out. I guess that was all they could do given the constraints.

I will miss Pushing Daisies.


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Push Up Daisies
Be dead and buried, as in "There is a cemetery full of heroes pushing up daisies." This slangy expression, alluding to flowers growing over a grave, was first recorded about 1918, in one of Wilfred Owen's poems about World War I.