Viewing Delights

Delicious Viewing – Pushing Daisies

Being the film and television geek that I am (as you will come to learn if you didn’t already know) Through My Looking Glass will inevitably feature – from time to time – some of my favourite viewing delights. In these early blogging days, I had a number of other things planned for “blog number two” but Pushing Daisies kept creeping up in my thoughts and I thought, who am I to argue?

Pushing Daisies follows Ned (Lee Pace), a pie maker with an immediately apparent gift for waking the dead (with some fairly serious conditions attached to it). He uses his ability to help a local P.I, Emerson Cod (played by the hilarious Chi McBride), solve murders and this leads him to his childhood neighbour and sweetheart, the not-quite-alive-anymore Charlotte ‘Chuck’ Charles (Anna Friel), and thus begins a rather unconventional love story. Along with an assortment of other quirky characters including Kristen Chenoweth as Olive and Chuck’s crazy aunts Lily and Vivien (played by Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz) Ned, Chuck, and Emerson Cod solve some wacky murders and eat a lot of pie.

Ned and Chuck

Bryan Fuller’s romantic comedy-murder mystery-forensic fairy tale is a delight for all the senses. The technicolour world and costumes and pies are like a visual mind explosion, the characters are fast talking, quick witted and utterly loveable, and Jim Dale and Jim Dooley provide the comforting storybook narration and heart-warming soundtrack respectively.

Pushing Daisies brings me a level of happiness that I didn’t even know a TV show could bring a person! If you don’t fall totally in love with Lee Pace in the first episode, then you need help – he’s like one of those cute puppies that you feel instantly compelled to take home with you and love forever, especially when he’s spouting lines like ‘I just thought my world would be a better place if you were in it.’ Swoon. Anna Friel is just gorgeous and I spent the entire two seasons green with envy over Chuck’s adorable wardrobe.

Charlotte 'Chuck' Charles

A show centred around mouth-watering pies – how could that be bad? Digby! Oh and Pigby! (you’ll see what I mean). And the way the use of alliteration and repetition for names and places makes even the dialogue visual in their colourful world. Look, I could wax eloquent all day over my love for the characters, the clever writing, and the uniqueness of the concept in a world of repetitive cop and crime shows, bad writing, and sloppy comedy with overpaid drop kick actors, but instead I will just insist that you watch it and let me know what you think!

[On that note, I must warn you of one thing – despite 57 award nominations, including 17 Emmy noms, wide critical acclaim, and a significant fan base – Pushing Daisies had a pretty terrible run of luck and was taken from its fans long before it should have been. Even with prior knowledge of this, you may find yourself wanting more when the climactic story arc of the two (very short) seasons is suddenly wrapped up at the end of the last episode. Don’t let this deter you though; the minor heartbreak is worth the 22 episodes of pure elation that comes from knowing the Pie Maker and his world.]