by John Mundazio with
additional writing by Beth E. Cochran
We're
not the sort of group to jump on the television critics' bandwagon,
in fact we primarily loathe and detest most of them... But... every once
in a great moon or so [much like Halley's Comet] a television pilot
comes along that completely shocks and surprises you with its dazzling
beauty, pitch perfect cast, and its casual ability to create a whole new
world that you never want to exit. In this case, that show happens to be
Pushing Daisies, which ABC recently ordered up for the fall season. From
the fertile mind of Bryan Fuller (Wonderfalls, Heroes), it's unlike
anything you've ever seen on television, a Burtonesque vision of
mortality, morality, and, er, pies that sucks you in from the very
opening scene and never lets go. Fuller, with tongue in cheek claims,
"We're going to bring mutual masturbation back." Now THAT is a statement
folks. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family), Pushing Daisies
has a super-saturated color palette that jars sharply (and
intentionally) with its life-and-death theme: Lee Pace (Wonderfalls)
plays Ned, a lonely pie maker who, as a child, discovers that he has the
ability to bring dead things back to life, a gift he uses to full
effect, when his beloved dog Dibney is hit by a truck in the pilot's
beautiful and brutal opening. But this new gift has a few caveats: he
can bring something back to life but if he ever touches them again, they
die instantly and can't be resurrected again; additionally, if he keeps
them alive for more than a minute, someone else in proximity will die.
Think of it as the universal law of balance: if someone lives, someone
else has to die.
Just that happens when his mother suffers a fatal aneurysm whilst
baking a pie one afternoon. As she falls to the floor, Ned revives her
and she pops back to life as though she had been taking a nap. But when
Ned keeps her alive, the father of his beloved girl-next-door Chuck
(a.k.a. Charlotte) drops dead watering the lawn. He also brings back his
childhood sweetheart (played by Anna Friel), but he obviously can't
touch her again, which indeed puts a major cramp in their ongoing
romance. "We're going to have a lot of fun with prophylactics [and]
Saran Wrap kisses," Fuller said in a news conference at the Television
Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, California.
"We're going to see them dancing in beekeeper suits. We're going to go a
long way in doing everything we can to get them to touch each other
that's not flesh to flesh." The actors really like the challenge this
presents. "It helps that we like each other a lot," Pace said. Friel
added, "I think it makes it more exciting not to be able to touch— the
longest foreplay ever in existence."
It's
an odd concept with more than a few inherent problems for Ned. For
one, he can't ever touch Dibney again (he pets his beloved pooch with a
hand on a stick) and it's made him reluctant to share any human contact
with anyone, especially wanton waitress Olive (Kristin Chenoweth). But
Ned doesn't have any qualms entering morally grey areas to exploit his
gift with his business partner, an ex-cop who goes by Emerson (Chi
McBride). Their business model? They follow the news for any suspicious
deaths, with reward money attached, then animate the corpse to learn who
killed them, pocket the cash, and go on their merry way. It's a plan
that's helped pay for Ned's true passion: baking pies (not too Freudian,
huh?) at his own little slice of heaven, The Pie Hole. And everything
would have been fine if the latest murder victim hadn't been his
loved-and-lost Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, now an adult (Our Mutual
Friend's Anna Friel) who has gotten herself murdered on a cruise. Ned
and Emerson head back to Ned's daisy-laden childhood home of Coeur d'
Coeur to revive Charlotte but Ned finds himself in a bit of a Sleeping
Beauty quandary and he can't bear to let Charlotte die again, especially
as she never saw who her killer was.
What happens next? You'll have to wait until this fall to find
out, but let me just say that it's incredibly worth the wait and
involves a Fuller favorite (monkeys), a murder mystery, a pair of
over-the-hill synchronized swimmers, and a shady travel boutique called,
well, Boutique Travel Travel Boutique. It's a mystery, a love story, a
quirky comedy, and a drama about morality rolled into one and lovingly
filled with a delicious cherry pie filling that's sweet but never
saccharine. The creators and director Barry Sonnenfeld don't know how
the show will be received, but they already have a way to end the
series. "I think if the show will end— hopefully it will never end— but
if it does end, it will probably end with a kiss," Fuller said. Pushing
Daisies will premiere October 3rd and air Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.
UB
John Mundazio works for one of the numerous publishing companies in the
New York metropolitan area which is currently planning a bold takeover
of the parallel universe in which he occasionally resides with several
of his imaginary friends and at least two of the strange voices in his
head. But he is confident it is not the one you're thinking of at this
very moment. Convinced that Susie-Q's are indeed a food group and that
no REAL list of fun toys is ever really complete without mentioning
"Log"— that quintessential Ren and Stimpy Show toy that boldly dared to
go where no toy ever could... "The Dazed-Meister" refuses to partake in
anything which requires him to dress up like Wonder Woman or sing the
theme song from The Partridge Family in its entirety. He also opposes
floatation devices of any sort.
We're
not the sort of group to jump on the television critics' bandwagon,
in fact we primarily loathe and detest most of them... But... every once
in a great moon or so [much like Halley's Comet] a television pilot
comes along that completely shocks and surprises you with its dazzling
beauty, pitch perfect cast, and its casual ability to create a whole new
world that you never want to exit. In this case, that show happens to be
Pushing Daisies, which ABC recently ordered up for the fall season. From
the fertile mind of Bryan Fuller (Wonderfalls, Heroes), it's unlike
anything you've ever seen on television, a Burtonesque vision of
mortality, morality, and, er, pies that sucks you in from the very
opening scene and never lets go. Fuller, with tongue in cheek claims,
"We're going to bring mutual masturbation back." Now THAT is a statement
folks. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family), Pushing Daisies
has a super-saturated color palette that jars sharply (and
intentionally) with its life-and-death theme: Lee Pace (Wonderfalls)
plays Ned, a lonely pie maker who, as a child, discovers that he has the
ability to bring dead things back to life, a gift he uses to full
effect, when his beloved dog Dibney is hit by a truck in the pilot's
beautiful and brutal opening. But this new gift has a few caveats: he
can bring something back to life but if he ever touches them again, they
die instantly and can't be resurrected again; additionally, if he keeps
them alive for more than a minute, someone else in proximity will die.
Think of it as the universal law of balance: if someone lives, someone
else has to die.
It's
an odd concept with more than a few inherent problems for Ned. For
one, he can't ever touch Dibney again (he pets his beloved pooch with a
hand on a stick) and it's made him reluctant to share any human contact
with anyone, especially wanton waitress Olive (Kristin Chenoweth). But
Ned doesn't have any qualms entering morally grey areas to exploit his
gift with his business partner, an ex-cop who goes by Emerson (Chi
McBride). Their business model? They follow the news for any suspicious
deaths, with reward money attached, then animate the corpse to learn who
killed them, pocket the cash, and go on their merry way. It's a plan
that's helped pay for Ned's true passion: baking pies (not too Freudian,
huh?) at his own little slice of heaven, The Pie Hole. And everything
would have been fine if the latest murder victim hadn't been his
loved-and-lost Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, now an adult (Our Mutual
Friend's Anna Friel) who has gotten herself murdered on a cruise. Ned
and Emerson head back to Ned's daisy-laden childhood home of Coeur d'
Coeur to revive Charlotte but Ned finds himself in a bit of a Sleeping
Beauty quandary and he can't bear to let Charlotte die again, especially
as she never saw who her killer was.
