Pushing Daisies: Storybook Love

The fact that this show has taken off continues to perplex me. When I first saw the TV spots for the show, I thought it looked interesting, but it could never last as a series. But then, the love story element was revealed, and being the sucker for tragic love stories that I am, I had found the new show of the season to check out. But I was still afraid that I was going to once again fall for a critical darling that would gain a very small (but very loyal, but very small) fanbase, which would die an early death. Instead, Pushing Daisies gained a sizable audience. The reviews are glowing, and were probably a factor in the early full-season pickup (the ratings are good, but it's not like they are LOST-sized), and I found a new show that is able to make me run the gamut emotionally almost every week, which is a feat very few shows are able to do.

I realize that my tastes aren't exactly the tastes of the average American, and the things about Pushing Daisies that make me smile every week may not be appealing to everyone. Some of you may think that I am about to sound like a crazy person when I talk about how the bright colors and silly puns can enthrall me. But if you're willing to set aside conventional ideas about what drama "should be", you will find a true gem of a television show.

Bryan Fuller has said that his goal for the show was to make it resemble a child's storybook, and along with Barry Sonnenfeld (who did visual work on the Men In Black films and the Addams Family films), he succeeds. An omniscient narrator, bright colors, seemingly innocent characters and clever wordplay (including alliteration and puns) create the sense that we are once again young children being fascinated by a whimsical picture book. But these childlike attributes cover up a much darker side of the world of Pushing Daisies. The world is brightly colored; even the morgue is painted with candy stripes. The narrator is omniscient, and he points out the dark nature of many of the characters. And those who don't hold dark secrets tend to have tortured pasts. Ned's childhood was fraught with despair; after his mom died (twice), his unloving father sent him away to a boarding school run by a cold staff and populated by cruel students. Olive hides her sadness with an overly enthusiastic personality, while Emerson has a painful family life that has yet to be fully explored. Oh, and the wordplay? There are many times when euphemisms for sex or violence are hidden behind more benign language.

Speaking of the visuals, you may have noticed that these posts contain many more pictures than I normally use. I love the promotional stills from Pushing Daisies; the sets and costumes are deliciously quirky, and the actors are very beautiful people, and I just can't get enough of seeing how the production designers put them all together.

But there is substance in addition to style (if there weren't, this would be nothing more than a very guilty pleasure). Watching these characters interact is incredibly fun to watch, even when the interactions break your heart. We know that, unless there is some big change to the rules, Ned and Chuck will never truly be a couple; intimacy is part of the package, and that is a luxury that they can never achieve. So it's fun watching them come up with ways to get around this handicap, such as using saran wrap to put between themselves when they kiss, or when they each held a monkey statuette and pressed the lips of the monkeys against each other's statue. But at the same time, it breaks the heart, because we as the audience know how futile their attempts truly are. Olive never fails to amuse; Kristen Chenoweth is a gifted actress who knows how to use herself to make great physical comedy. She is a very short actress and Lee Pace is very tall, and there is a scene where she stands up on a table to be eye-to-eye with him, only to realize that she's STILL shorter than him. She also is very adept at excess cheeriness (she wasn't the original G(a)linda in Wicked for nothing), which is funny until we remember that it is nothing but a front.

The show also uses musical theater as a way to set it apart from most other series on television. This isn't a musical show (not every episode features a song), but every now and then, characters will randomly burst into song:



These songs serve as a way to both express the emotions of the character singing (don't make a Whedon reference, don't make a Whedon reference... shit) and remind us that anything can happen on Pushing Daisies. And I do mean anything. Conventional logic is thrown out the window. This is a show that has featured a redneck Chinese man who is a descendant of a Confederate war hero ("I wanted to be a Jedi!"), a carrier pigeon has its wing replaced with that of a stuffed parrot's, and a scratch-and-sniff book proves to be a deadly weapon. If these examples aren't crazy enough (and you are caught up with the show), check out this preview for the new season:



By popular (enough) demand, here is a great crash course for those of you who haven't seen the first season:



I wish that I could have watched Buffy (and the other four seasons of Angel) when it was actually on television, so that I could talk about plot developments with other fans and speculate about what was to come. I am very happy to have found a show that makes me feel the same way and will allow me to do the aforementioned activities... wow I'm a nerd.

Up next: Holding out for some Heroes...