Pushing Daisies a Bright Light in Dull Fall TV Season

CanWest News Service
September 27, 2007

Pushing Daisies is to die for, if early word is to be believed. Bryan Fuller and Barry Sonnenfeld's gentle parable about a mild-mannered naif who can touch dead people and bring them back to life - only to have them die for good if he touches them a second time - has been hailed as one of the few bright lights in an otherwise colourless fall season.

Pushing Daisies, with its unique voice, bright look and vision of startling originality - Fuller also created 2005's oddball, much-beloved series Wonderfalls - is being talked about in TV circles in the same breath as Heroes, Lost, Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty, and small wonder: Fuller was a consulting writer last season on Heroes.

With its rich, Edward Scissorhands-like colour palette, its quirky names - it's set in a bucolic, fictional town called Couer de Couer, complete with family-run businesses with names like The Pie Hole and Boutique Travel Travel Boutique - and its optimistic take on human nature, Pushing Daisies is poised to become one of the most talked-about TV series of the season. Provided people find it, that is.

In an already crowded TV landscape - Pushing Daisies premieres Tuesday on CTV, and Wednesday on ABC, a week after most other returning and new series have already aired - it could be easy to overlook, despite the kind of advance buzz that's increasingly rare in today's world of splintered audience and short attention spans.

Sonnenfeld, a feature-film director with numerous mainstream successes behind him - he directed Men in Black and the Addams Family feature films - has had a trickier time of it in TV, where his live-action adaptation of The Tick and his Elmore Leonard adaptation Maximum Bob both earned glowing reviews but lacklustre ratings.

Sonnenfeld is gratified by Pushing Daisies's early buzz. But he's also bemused. The early notices have been so strong that it may have raised viewers' expectations unrealistically high, he fears.

"I'm a big believer in flying under the radar," Sonnenfeld said. "And we're not doing that with this show."

Sonnenfeld would rather viewers watch with unrealistically high expectations than not know it was on and miss it completely, however.

"My 14-year-old daughter's friends all love it," Sonnenfeld said, "because of the romance and the look. And all my adult friends love it because it's smart and funny. It reminds me of the Men in Black audience - all the way from eight to 80."

Fuller, who cites the French film Amelie as one of his inspirations for Pushing Daisies, took care to choose the right cast. The lead character, Ned, is played by New York stage actor Lee Pace. The supporting cast includes Broadway veterans Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz, a 2007 Tony nominee for Heartbreak House; The West Wing's Kristin Chenoweth; and British actress Anna Friel, who was nominated for a Genie for her performance in The War Bride.

"At its heart, this is a fairy tale," Fuller explained. "We're using the style of a fairy tale to tell these thematic, metaphoric stories."

If the narration sounds familiar - Pushing Daisies makes frequent use of voice-over - that's because it's the voice of Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter audio books.

The background music, a deliberate homage to Danny Elfman, is by feature-film composer Marc Shaiman.

The biggest challenge in Pushing Daisies is finding the right balance between light and dark, Fuller acknowledges.

"The tone is everything," Fuller said. "It's meant to be a fun show. So we need to find that tricky balance between sweetness and a little bit of darkness, but not dark in any way that is morbid or depressing."

In the opening hour, Ned learns that the girl he fell for as a small boy has suddenly died. He revives her with a Prince Charming kiss - but they can never, ever touch again. They manage to stay deeply in love, just the same.

"Pushing Daisies is about intimacy," Fuller said, "and how sometimes physicality gets in the way of true intimacy."

For her part, Friel said she thinks not being able to touch makes the romance that much more exciting.

"It's the longest foreplay ever in existence," she said, laughing.

Pushing Daisies premieres Tuesday Oct. 2 on CTV and Oct. 3 on ABC. Check local listings for times.