Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies is one of my favorite shows. I could watch it over again and not grow bored of it. Bryan Fuller has this way of creating shows that I love. However, Pushing Daisies is different than Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, it is more fairytale and dreamy.

Ned is a pie maker who owns The Pie Hole. His own mother loved to make pies, after she died when Ned was 10 years old Ned was sent to a boarding school by his father. Ned would sneak into the kitchen at night to bake himself a pie to remind him of his mother, and so his love for pie making begins. However, pie making is only his day job, he works with a private investigator, Emerson Cod, solving murders.

Ned has a secret.

The reason his pies taste so good and the reason he is good at solving murders is because he can bring life to dead things. Bad fruit becomes ripe and murder victims come back to life when he touches them. Two conditions exist.
- The first is that first touch means life, second touch means dead again, forever.
- The second is that if Ned keeps someone alive for more than 60 seconds, someone else dies in his/her place.

Ned has only kept three living things alive longing than 60 seconds.
1) his dog, Digby. When Ned is 10, Digby is hit by a semi, and when Ned goes to see him he touches him and discovers he has brought his dog back to life.
2) his mother. After she died suddenly in their kitchen, Ned brings his mother back with his newly discovered ability. In her place, his neighbor dies. Later that day, Ned discovers the first condition when his mom kisses him good night only to be made dead again when she touches him.
3) Chuck, aka Charlotte Charles, Ned's childhood friend and sweetheart. After her father died the same day Ned's mother died (Chuck doesn't know Ned killed her father), they are torn apart when Ned is sent to boarding school. They are reunited as adults at a mortuary after Chuck is killed on a cruise. Ned can't bring himself to make her dead again because he selfishly wishes for her to be with him. So begins a story of two people who love each other but are unable to physically touch.

The series follows Ned, Emerson Cod, and Chuck as they investigate murders of bizarre proportions. Season 1 examples include death by crash test dummy and death by scratch 'n sniff. Additional characters include Olive Snook, played by Kristen Chenoweth, the waitress at The Pie Hole who is hopelessly in love with Ned. Lily and Vivian Charles, Chuck's hermit aunts who take her in when her father dies, in earlier days they were a popular synchronized swimming duo known as the Darling Mermaid Darlings.

The show is narrated by Jim Dale. Between his audiobook recordings of the Harry Potter series and this show I have basically fallen in love with this man's voice.

I also find Ned very dreamy. And I would like to have Chuck's closet.

One of my favorite quotes from the show, from episode Girth:
Olive: "How do you know I'm still single?"
Mamma Jacobs: "Well, you wouldn't need all that bait if your belly was full, dear."

Unfortunately, Pushing Daises only survived two half-length seasons on ABC. Since TGIF ended, well more like since Boy Meets World ended because ABC tried to make TGIF last after that but I can't remember any show from that line-up worth recalling. Anyways, since Boy Meets World ended I have not been a fan of ABC series. Pushing Daisies could have been the start of a wonderful round two for me and ABC, but then ABC went and destroyed the show I love. ABC, you and I may be through for good this time.
The only saving grace is that the episodes were sold to the WB and are available online for viewing here so I can recommend it to all of the people I love. I've already sucked AJ and Steph S. into the show...Have you watched it?