Adam & Amber’s Blog

When I first read the pitch on Pushing Daisies I thought to myself, “what a stupid concept for a show”. The basic plot that I read then was that the show was based around a guy that for some completely unknown reason can bring people back to life by touching them, but if he touches them again they die and he cannot bring them back. However, if he doesn’t touch them again (killing them, …keep up) within 60 seconds someone else dies in their place. I am sure by this point you can understand why I would think that the concept for the show was stupid. Even writing it now I can’t imagine wanting to watch that show, and I wouldn’t have even given it a shot if it weren’t for a recommendation of a friend.

What you don’t get from the plot synopsis is that Pushing Daisies is a truly original television program. The cinematography has the feel of Big Fish or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (which it also shares a similar narration) and the basic plot premise is so absurd that once you buy into it (which is surprisingly easy to do) the show has the freedom to do whatever they want with you, and they do. From cast members breaking out in musical numbers to cars that run on dandelions, nothing is to far fetched and that is refreshing.

The show is basically a crime show, every episode has a death (usually a few) and the main characters go about solving why the person died. You can probably see why being able to bring people back, even only for a minute, would be useful in this line of work. The plot is made more interesting by a cross-episode story arc, that involves the main character bringing back a recently killed estranged childhood sweetheart and not being able to bring himself to put her back under. They of course fall in love, which is complicated seeing as how if he touches her again she will die. The cool thing is that with as complicated and absurd as that sounds (and trust me that is just the surface, it gets much more complicated and absurd) the fact that the show revels in both it’s complexness and absurdity makes it incredibly smart and entertaining.

I won’t say this is a show that will stay on the air forever (I can’t imagine it having a broad enough appeal to be a mutli-season hit) or that original won’t turn into hokey after 20+ episodes, but for now it is definitely a show worth watching and catching up on. I have to applaud ABC for taking a chance on a show that I am sure needed to be explained multiple times before anyone even remotely understood what it was about.

P.S. If you want to catch-up ABC has some of the episodes online, a trend shared by all the major networks. It is getting to the point you don’t even need a tv anymore because they give the shows away, with fewer commercials, online. I’m not sure the angle the networks are using with putting all their shows online, but I like it.