Ned has an incredible ability — he can reanimate dead things. However, the gift is bittersweet because if he happens to touch the reanimate once again, it goes back to being dead… forever. Worse still, if he reanimates something for longer than a minute, it stays alive, but something else nearby dies. Lonely and afraid of his power, Ned finds comfort in baking pies — after all he can take dead fruit and freshen it up, right? — and opens his own restaurant. It isn’t long after that a Private Investigator learns about Ned’s surreal ability and convinces Ned to work with him to solve murder mysteries, and subsequently share the cash reward. All is well and good until Ned is confronted with the corpse of his long-lost childhood love, and first kiss. Unable to bring himself to put her back to rest, he keeps her alive, and thus sets into motion the most complicated and perilous relationship that’s ever been. Together, they’ll have to work to keep her reanimation quiet — lest Ned’s secret gets out — and solve a slew of murders along the way.
With a show like “Pushing Daisies” it’s easy to see how its greatest strengths could very easily double as its weaknesses. That is the unfortunate price everyone pays in the creative community for making something bold, daring and wholly original — you invariably polarize your target audience. In the case of this particular broadcast-TV diamond-in-the-rough, audiences were not only polarized, but many viewers — like myself — simply never got around to watching the show during its premiere run. To make matters worse, the writer’s strike came along and mucked everything up, capping its first season at a mere nine episodes. Worse still, when the show returned for its second season, the viewership simply wasn’t there — at least not like before. It seemed like there was no way the show could catch a break despite its resounding critical acclaim and hopelessly devoted fan-base. Then, confirming the fears of the cast, crew and fans everywhere, the plug was pulled forever, a fate which no lonely pie maker could possibly reverse.
While I’ve only seen the first season of the show, I can honestly say that I’m going to miss the show a lot. The little romantic-comedy/murder investigation procedural had a tone and a vision all its own, unmatched on TV or film. It wasn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread, mind you, but it certainly represented a welcome respite from the hyper-realistic and documentary-style television series that seem to be everywhere on TV. Where shows like CSI and Law & Order are more concerned with justice and doing things “by the books” this show was interested in the surreal, and oftentimes hilarious consequences of reanimating the deceased in order to solve a murder case. You’d have to be dense not to see the potential in such a novel concept, and thanks to its original core, the show deftly set itself apart from everything on TV.
However, as I said before, it’s easy to see how the show’s strength also became its weakness. Because of the show’s irreverent and humorous approach to death it scared off a lot of mainstream viewers for one reason or another. Many people don’t like to give death any thought at all, and despite the show’s earnest attempts to make light of death, that’s still not good enough for those people. Even still, I imagine there were others that took opposition the moral ambiguity of Ned and his willingness to reanimate the dead for profit, irrespective of the fact that their killers were being brought to justice. I for one don’t get offended by much, and certainly not the reanimation of fictional characters — real people, now that’s another story — but by the end of the first season, I must admit that I was getting a little tired of the formulaic nature of the murder-investigation-solution narrative device. Granted, the show was conceived as a procedural show, wrapped around a romantic-comedy core, so I suppose there’s little point in debating the components of the show, but even still, I just feel like the creative team was selling the show short. I would have liked to see a couple episodes that didn’t revolve around a murder case. Also, I wasn’t a huge fan of the little-Ned introductions once I was familiar with Ned’s abilities and limitations. I realize that it was a choice to use the parallel narratives, and for the most part it works well, but I can see this narrative technique growing tired in the second season — assuming they continued to utilize it.
Minor criticisms aside, I can’t recommend this series enough to everyone. It’s terrible that the show has been canceled — especially when there are so many uninspired shows that need to be cut anyway — but it doesn’t change the fact that this first season is a sight-to-be-seen sensory overload, and a wondrous fairytale murder-mystery show that never fails to delight and entertain.
I can only hope that the second season maintains the same light-hearted, irreverent tone that made me fall head-over-heels for this season. If so, I can’t wait to get my hands on the inevitable Blu-ray release.
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