Network: ABC; Genre: Fantasy, Crime/Mystery; Content Rating: TV-PG (some dark comedy and gruesome images); Available: DVD and Blu-ray; Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 -4);
Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (2 seasons)
Ned (Lee Pace, "Wonderfalls") has a unique ability. He can bring dead things back to life with his touch. This means as owner of The Pie Hole his pies are made with the freshest fruits. It also means that when his mother died as a child he was able to bring her back to life. But there's a catch: Ned can only bring something back to life for 60 seconds otherwise something of equal cosmic weight in the immediate vicinity will die. When his childhood love Chuck (Anna Friel) is murdered, Ned cannot resist bringing her back to life for good. The two of along with private detective Emerson Cod (Chi McBride, "Boston Public") and Pie Hole co-worker Oliver Snook (Kristen Chenoweth) use Ned's ability to solve murders, but unfortunately it's never as easy as just waking up the corpse for a minute and asking who killed them.
"Pushing Daisies" is another wildly imaginative series from the fertile mind of Bryan Fuller who previously gave us Showtime's "Dead Like Me" and Fox's short-lived "Wonderfalls". If there was any justice in the TV universe, Fuller would be a household name and certified hit-maker based on a track record of the most unique and satisfying shows ever to grace the small screen. If it's possible "Daisies" even has a more unique visual style than his previous works. Director Barry Sonnenfeld (who won an Emmy for the "Pie-lette" episode) establishes a surreal fairy tale universe unlike anything I've ever seen on TV. Just to give one example, if the show is about, say, honey bees, then everything in that episode will visually be in a bee theme. Rooms shaped like honeycombs, clothing with yellow and black strips and so on.
The irony is that despite being on a mainstream network like ABC, "Daisies" is Fuller's least easily accessible of the three. Fuller's dark humor is intact, though hardly for mainstream consumption (Chuck's murder weapon is a bag over her head with a smiley face on it). The characters are so off the wall whimsical in a distant cartoonish way that most viewers won't be able to relate. And the show thrice uses Chenoweth's singing voice to burst into a musical number. It's too soft and cutesy for the crime & mystery crowd (particularly in Chuck/Ned's syrupy sweet untouchable relationship) and it's too weird and at times gruesome for the love story crowd. We also have an ever-present third party narrator (Jim Dale) whose words are almost poetry punctuated with tongue-twisters and repeated phrases and trademarks like "the facts were these". I like the lyrical sound of the show. Others will just be annoyed.
Fuller has taken the network self contained crime series and remake it with his own vibrant, fantasy twist giving "Daisies" more life than CSI or "Cold Case" ever had. But in the name of originality, there are a few things about the show that don't jive. The characters, by design are not very expressive (save for Olive). Number one would be Ned who becomes so reactive and so dependent on Chuck's attention that he starts to become pathetic. As the show progresses it starts to flesh them out by using a recently developed little pet peeve of mine: by going into their tangled family history. We don't really get to know what makes them tick, but we get to know their parents, siblings and history. It's always struck me as creating the appearance of character depth instead of actually doing it, though thankfully "Daisies" never gets as soap operaish and improbable as "Heroes". That's a quibble for realism on a show that is about anything but.
The acting is solid all around, hard to quantify and perfectly in step with the tone. Pace is near perfectly deadpan as a man so traumatized by his own body he has cut off all social contact. Friel is the very picture of adorable. McBride welcomes to chance to get out of anguished drama. Chenoweth makes a star turn as well as Ellen Greene and Swoozie Kurtz in the showstopping roles of Chuck's aunts, retired synchronized swimmers now confined in fear to their house.
I appreciate that "Daisies" is a departure from Fuller's previous works. But I sorely miss the guy's on-the pulse writing of generation-Y girls. Though we get another female character with a male name, that sharp voice that made George Lass and Jaye Tyler such great characters is noticeable absent. "Daisies" establishes no equivalent to the disaffected, antisocial heroines that gave his previous shows such intellectual depth.
So sure, it's not the most substantive thing in the world and the show would rather work up the cuteness than actually attempt to be funny (is it a comedy?), and it's my least favorite Fuller series. There is an arm's length quality to it and all the characters that goes beyond the childhood trauma Ned suffered at the hands of his ability).
But Fuller succeeds in the most ambitious way, creating a new kind of fairy tale with the show. He sets it up with a strict universe of its own rules and by following and exploring them gives us one surprise and joyful twist after another. He dares to be so sugary sweet with Chuck/Ned's puppy dog love that it might cause a diabetic amputation. "Daisies" is a pure, uncompromised work of originality, that by design challenges the audience against every expectation of character and formula. Any attempt to compare it to something else would be false and shallow. What the show lacks in depth it makes up for in imagination. You'll have to choose.
* * * / 4
Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (2 seasons)
Ned (Lee Pace, "Wonderfalls") has a unique ability. He can bring dead things back to life with his touch. This means as owner of The Pie Hole his pies are made with the freshest fruits. It also means that when his mother died as a child he was able to bring her back to life. But there's a catch: Ned can only bring something back to life for 60 seconds otherwise something of equal cosmic weight in the immediate vicinity will die. When his childhood love Chuck (Anna Friel) is murdered, Ned cannot resist bringing her back to life for good. The two of along with private detective Emerson Cod (Chi McBride, "Boston Public") and Pie Hole co-worker Oliver Snook (Kristen Chenoweth) use Ned's ability to solve murders, but unfortunately it's never as easy as just waking up the corpse for a minute and asking who killed them.
"Pushing Daisies" is another wildly imaginative series from the fertile mind of Bryan Fuller who previously gave us Showtime's "Dead Like Me" and Fox's short-lived "Wonderfalls". If there was any justice in the TV universe, Fuller would be a household name and certified hit-maker based on a track record of the most unique and satisfying shows ever to grace the small screen. If it's possible "Daisies" even has a more unique visual style than his previous works. Director Barry Sonnenfeld (who won an Emmy for the "Pie-lette" episode) establishes a surreal fairy tale universe unlike anything I've ever seen on TV. Just to give one example, if the show is about, say, honey bees, then everything in that episode will visually be in a bee theme. Rooms shaped like honeycombs, clothing with yellow and black strips and so on.
The irony is that despite being on a mainstream network like ABC, "Daisies" is Fuller's least easily accessible of the three. Fuller's dark humor is intact, though hardly for mainstream consumption (Chuck's murder weapon is a bag over her head with a smiley face on it). The characters are so off the wall whimsical in a distant cartoonish way that most viewers won't be able to relate. And the show thrice uses Chenoweth's singing voice to burst into a musical number. It's too soft and cutesy for the crime & mystery crowd (particularly in Chuck/Ned's syrupy sweet untouchable relationship) and it's too weird and at times gruesome for the love story crowd. We also have an ever-present third party narrator (Jim Dale) whose words are almost poetry punctuated with tongue-twisters and repeated phrases and trademarks like "the facts were these". I like the lyrical sound of the show. Others will just be annoyed.
Fuller has taken the network self contained crime series and remake it with his own vibrant, fantasy twist giving "Daisies" more life than CSI or "Cold Case" ever had. But in the name of originality, there are a few things about the show that don't jive. The characters, by design are not very expressive (save for Olive). Number one would be Ned who becomes so reactive and so dependent on Chuck's attention that he starts to become pathetic. As the show progresses it starts to flesh them out by using a recently developed little pet peeve of mine: by going into their tangled family history. We don't really get to know what makes them tick, but we get to know their parents, siblings and history. It's always struck me as creating the appearance of character depth instead of actually doing it, though thankfully "Daisies" never gets as soap operaish and improbable as "Heroes". That's a quibble for realism on a show that is about anything but.
The acting is solid all around, hard to quantify and perfectly in step with the tone. Pace is near perfectly deadpan as a man so traumatized by his own body he has cut off all social contact. Friel is the very picture of adorable. McBride welcomes to chance to get out of anguished drama. Chenoweth makes a star turn as well as Ellen Greene and Swoozie Kurtz in the showstopping roles of Chuck's aunts, retired synchronized swimmers now confined in fear to their house.
I appreciate that "Daisies" is a departure from Fuller's previous works. But I sorely miss the guy's on-the pulse writing of generation-Y girls. Though we get another female character with a male name, that sharp voice that made George Lass and Jaye Tyler such great characters is noticeable absent. "Daisies" establishes no equivalent to the disaffected, antisocial heroines that gave his previous shows such intellectual depth.
So sure, it's not the most substantive thing in the world and the show would rather work up the cuteness than actually attempt to be funny (is it a comedy?), and it's my least favorite Fuller series. There is an arm's length quality to it and all the characters that goes beyond the childhood trauma Ned suffered at the hands of his ability).
But Fuller succeeds in the most ambitious way, creating a new kind of fairy tale with the show. He sets it up with a strict universe of its own rules and by following and exploring them gives us one surprise and joyful twist after another. He dares to be so sugary sweet with Chuck/Ned's puppy dog love that it might cause a diabetic amputation. "Daisies" is a pure, uncompromised work of originality, that by design challenges the audience against every expectation of character and formula. Any attempt to compare it to something else would be false and shallow. What the show lacks in depth it makes up for in imagination. You'll have to choose.
* * * / 4