A whimsical and fantastic series that I’m extremely surprised hasn’t been given the ax by ABC. Usually such critically and quirky series die out quickly but it would seem that Ned truly does have the magic touch (no thanks to the writer’s strike) and the show will live on. Until the new season starts we can watch the abbreviated first season until we drop dead.
Ned (Lee Pace) has the magic touch. Is it a green thumb or magic fingers in the kitchen at his pie shop, the Pie Hole? Well maybe a bit of the second thing, but his real magic is that by his merest touch he’s able to bring the dead back to life. He discovered this in his youth when he resurrected his dog Digby.
Bringing back the dead is not without consequences as he also discovered. His mother dropped dead and he touched her to also bring her back. If you let the revived stay for more than a minute then somebody else has to die. Young Ned (Field Tate) finds this out the hard way as his next-door neighbor’s father drops dead. He also finds that if he touches the revived again they permanently die. Again, he finds this out in the emotionally scarring event as his newly revived mother kisses him on the forehead at bedtime and keels over.
In adulthood, the pie maker’s touch came to the attention of private detective Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) and Emerson rightly deduces that murders would be better solved if the deceased could tell the investigators who done the deed. So the two make a team with Ned providing the revivification and Emerson the investigation, and collecting and splitting of rewards.
One of their cases leads them to revive Charlotte “Chuck” Charles (Anna Friel), Ned’s next-door neighbor all grown up. Since Ned always harbored a crush on Chuck he can’t bring himself to give her the second touch that will send her back to the land of the dead, with the usual consequences.
So now Ned has to explain his special powers to Chuck and she moves in with him, but no touching allowed. This gets up the hackles of Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth) the waitress at the Pie Hole who secretly loves Ned. Chuck has to lurk in the shadows to take care of her aunts Vivian (Ellen Greene) and Lillian (Swoosie Kurtz), the synchronized swimming pair the Darling Mermaid Darlings who have issues of their own.
Pushing Daisies was the most creative series of the last year and is quite the whimsical series. Not only that but a colorful design and fantastic acting made it the most critically appraised series of 2007 and the show has garnered twelve Emmy nominations. It’s won two at the Creative Arts Emmys at the time of this typing.
Unfortunately, season one would only consist of nine episodes because of the writer’s strike (instead of the usual twenty-ish) and one hopes that a full season keeps up the quirky fun.
Pushing Daisies is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (1.85:1). Disc three contains a feature called Pie Time that has a collection of featurettes with the cast (Lee Pace) and crew (producer/director Barry Sonnenfeld, creator Bryan Fuller, etc.) talking about the show, presented in standard definition.
A “play all” button would’ve been nice since you have to cruise through all the flavors of pie to see them all. With the abbreviated first season you might’ve expected much more to fill out the disc, such as commentaries or deleted scenes, but the featurettes is all you get.
What’s even worse is that the interviewees refer to things we’d like to see, like Chi McBride’s dallies takes of the “Vertigo” scene. We can’t have it all, but the series is so great that I’ll forgive them (but some more effort in season two’s release would be most appreciated).
A fantastic series with some fabulous performances only makes you anticipated season two premiering on October 1st. The Blu-ray offers some fantastic visuals as the color palate of the show is off the map, however, the special features are interesting but hard to get to and feel a bit light. The fantastic show more than makes up for the lack of special features though.
Pushing Daisies: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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