“Pushing Daisies” — Pilot
I would give my left ear to be a pie-maker.
Last night’s premiere of Pushing Daisies on ABC has been almost universally praised as the best new series of the year. You won’t hear an argument about that from me, though the show does have one extremely problematic element in its presentation: we have absolutely no idea what episode two is going to be like. More after the jump…
The pilot is so tight and so well plotted and despite having a premise that requires a flow-chart to explain it is presented so incredibly efficient and in such a charming way it becomes almost a perfect hour of television. So perfect, in fact it resembles a self-contained movie far more than a weekly narrative. By the end of the first hour you’re pretty content with what you just saw, possibly to the detriment of needing to go any further with these characters. Why ruin a good thing, right?
Because of this, I feel it’s necessary to withhold the lavish praise until at least next week. Can they really produce that kind of magic week in and week out (on what one has to assume is a much smaller budget). Still, there is a lot going for the series. For starters, it looks like nothing else on television, and hopefully will be given the resources to continue this look in episodes to come. In fact, it has to. Backing off on the aesthetic in any way would seriously damage the series credibility as art (not like that’s the biggest concern amongst network executives).
Dramatically, the idea of having two lovers who can never get together is brilliant and should work well for the duration (though I can already see a fictional season finale a few years in promising “a way for Ned and Chuck to finally touch!”). Mix that was an amusing cast of characters (specifically the one-eyed aunt) and a leading lady that is perhaps too desirable (she reminds me of Zooey Daschenell’s character from Weeds last season only without the mania, alcoholism and missing-toe fetish).
I like this show. I want it to succeed, but the pilot really gives us little insight into where this show is going. What did everyone else think?
October 5th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Ever watch that James Cameron-produced Sci-Fi show Dark Angel with Jessica Alba (before she was JESSICA ALBA)? Great show. Anyway, in the second season she was injected with a virus coded to someone’s specific DNA, her boyfriend’s. SO, whenever she touched him the virus would activate and he’d die, thus creating a situation where the two lovers were unable to touch each other.