‘Pushing Daisies’ offers a unique take on traditional themes
By Liz Gartley
ABC’s new series Pushing Daisies has such a bizarre premise that even though I’ve been watching it faithfully for several weeks, I’m still not sure I have a complete handle on it.
But basically, Ned the Pie Maker can bring a dead person back to life for 60 seconds just by touching them, and then with a second touch they return to their previous cadaverous state, never to be reawakened – but any longer than one minute and someone else nearby will die.
While Ned makes his living making pies and running his bakery — the Pie Hole, Ned and local private investigator, Emerson Cod (Chi McBride of Boston Public), use his extraordinary ability to ask murder victims who killed them, solve the crimes, and cash in on any rewards. But things get a bit more complicated for Ned when he decides to revive his recently deceased childhood sweetheart – and keep her alive. And although Ned and Charlotte “Chuck” Charles become close, they can never touch.
Needless to say, the series is very surreal. But the characters are so funny and charming that the weirdness becomes natural. At the surface, Pushing Daisies is a premise-driven show, but the flawed-but-likeable characters give the show its humanity. Despite the apparent dark nature of the show – talking to dead people and all, it feels almost whimsical with its colorful costumes and outlandish sets.
And since the involved, intertwining storylines can become difficult to follow, a omnipresent narrator relates all those little details we might otherwise miss. Most critics abhor narrators, but I love an external narrator – if used well, of course (see: Sam Elliott in The Big Lebowski or Ron Howard’s narration in Arrested Development). The narrator, in these cases, becomes another character. For Pushing Daisies, a narrator seems totally natural with the otherworldly, Tim Burton-ish quality of the series.
The show also has a knack for shameless cliffhangers at the end of every episode. And while I don’t think it’s necessary to keep me coming back every week, somehow the melodramatic endings seem akin to the storybook, almost fairy tale, feel of the show.
Pushing Daisies manages to capture all those quintessential story themes: mystery, romance, suspense, fantasy – but remain totally different from anything else on television.
Pushing Daisies is on ABC Wednesdays at 8 p.m.
Elizabeth “Liz” Gartley, of Houlton, has a BA in media studies from Emerson College in Boston. She has studied abroad in the Netherlands and Australia, and most recently interned at a production company in Hollywood. She can be reached online at egartley@gmail.com or leave a message for her at your local newspaper office.
