The 411 Pushing Daisies Review:
Posted by Brendan Newton on 10.11.2007
The Awesome Continues...
After last week's excellent pilot episode, Pushing Daisies seems to be acquiring a fair contingent of viewers; certainly everyone that I've spoken to that watched the pilot were impressed with the shows' dark whimsicality. The only concern that I've heard is whether or not the show's premise can be stretched into a long-term series, as the series doesn't seem to have much of an arc thus far as many of today's successful series (Heroes, and Lost, for example) do outside of Ned and Chuck's relationship, and the “resurrect the dead to solve mysteries” premise could run thin if no new twists are thrown in. To an extent, I agree with this; there's nothing I hate more than formulaic TV series. Meaning that I hate most TV series. It tends to be a formulaic genre that falls back on comfortable premises week after week; think of The Simpsons parody series “Knightboat: The Crime-Solving Boat” (“Every week there's a fjord! Or an inlet!”). Some of these formulaic series survive for longer than they should (Home Improvement), most don't. Pushing Daisies might well be one of those shows, but judging by the excellent writing, off-the-wall premise and unconventional elements such as the use of the Narrator, I think it can break the mold and be a stand-out series. The fact that it has a really nice official website (http://abc.go.com/primetime/pushingdaisies/index), which includes a great little “comic book” that gives a further idea of the stories the series can tell is a good sign; it's a little obnoxious, as are pretty much all official series sites (blathering network promos in the background), but it's entertaining and innovative and goes a long way towards promoting the show. A quality official website went a long way to the success of Heroes last year, and hopefully it will do the same for Pushing Daisies.
Anyways, this week's installment, entitled “Dummy”, was fun from start to finish and got in some decent character and relationship development along the way. Here are the highlights and my observations, although really this episode was the kind of thing where I'm tempted to just find a copy of the script and paste it. It's hard to pick out just the highlights of an episode where pretty much every line was a winner, but here goes:
-If there was any lingering doubt after the pilot, the first ten minutes of this episode firmly established that I love this series; in rapid succession, we get the “Cheesebox” gag (I might have to start driving my family crazy by referring to the fridge as the “Cheesebox” from now on), Olive's (literally) off-the-wall “stalking” of Ned and Chuck, and the revelation of Emerson's therapeutic knitting. Of gun holsters. I don't know if I've ever been hit by three such funny, and yet such different gags before, it's like having all of my funny bones worked in turn, if I may use a fruity-sounding simile. Emerson's knitting is my favourite of the three because while the gags with Chuck and Olive only further the eccentricities of characters that we already know to be eccentric, the knitting is the first time we see any of straight man Emerson's quirks. Taking a completely ordinary “straight” human being and then “bending” him/her just far enough is one of the keys to good comedy, and that's in abundance here.
-Liked the opening scene in the morgue and was delighted to see the return of the skeptical-yet-clueless doctor from last week, always letting our heroes view the bodies despite his grumbling when they give him this week's cover story. Great little recurring gag/character.
-Not since the Buffy musical episode have I been so entertained by a musical performance on TV than I was by Olive's song, and those who know me know that the comparison to Buffy's high praise indeed. Given Kristin Chenoweth's musical background, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that there'd be musical elements, and it also makes sense when one considers that the Musical is really another form of the Magical Realism that I discussed last week; usually set in a universe similar to ours, but with bizarre “all singing, all dancing” elements that cast and audience are forced to accept. Maybe that explains why Musicals are such a guilty pleasure of mine, it's all about the Magical Realism. Loved the jolt back to reality when that cleaner boy (who is, we get the sense, as into Olive as Olive is into Ned) shyly asking Olive if she'd said anything after she'd been singing her heart and lungs out! The song tonight was Grease's “Hopelessly Devoted to You”, but it would be fantastic if subsequent episodes see some original musical numbers. Original or covers, more songs would be welcome.
-Pushing Daisies' disturbing side was on display tonight along with the hilarity, though; I've always found those Crash Test Dummies to be kinda creepy (the dummies used to test cars, I mean, not the band, although come to think of it there was always something a bit off about that lead singer guy...), and this episode with the shot of the Dummy bodies piled up Belsen-style (a daring visual allusion for such a frothy series) didn't do a whole lot to dispel that. More disturbing still were the human bodies hung up in place of the dummies, although it did provide use with the funny literal-figurative “Skeletons in the Closet” gag, another great use of Emerson as straight man. Somehow the shots of the corpses and the subsequent conversations with the dead test subjects creeped me out more so than do any of the other conversations with corpses on this show. I guess it's the sight of human bodies hung up like slabs of beef in a butcher's shop. This show can give you nightmares and keep you up at night laughing all at the same time.
-Speaking of the show's dark side, we also saw the ludicrously tragic love story between murder victim Bernard and “Flower Girl” Jeanine. Amazing to take two such comical characters, make their love seem real and believable with little touches like his being “lonely” and coming alive when discussing his hobbies, and then to make us feel something for his death. Their love provides a nice counterpoint to Ned and Chuck's. Both relationships concern real, eccentric people, in real, eccentric love, and both relationships are broken up by death and the threat of death. The absurdity of Chuck and Bernard's deaths (murdered over Tahitian Plaster Monkeys and by a Crash Test Dummy respectively) is outdone only by the absurdity of the love that they find. This, I think, is the show's overarching theme, that the only thing more absurd, abrupt, and random in life than death is love. Olive's love for Ned, Ned's love for Chuck, Chuck's love for her crazy aunts, and now Bernard and Jeanine's love. A love that transcends even an addiction to stimulant laxatives, I loved how they subverted the whole eating disorder issue. It reminded the audience that the show's just about set in our world with real-life problems, but just skewed enough not to have to take too seriously, in the way that we would have if Jeanine's problem was bulimia as expected.
-The one flaw that I found with this episode was the pacing; it seemed strangely off at times, with the villain of the piece being revealed at a very late point in the episode and the final chase scene and conclusion to the episode seeming strangely rushed. The murderer could have been a bit more developed, especially since he turned out to be a memorable character in his own right, and more time could have been spent on the struggle with him. This is actually one case where perhaps it would have been better to devote more time to the Case of the Week rather than to the main characters' personal relationship; you have one week to tell the CotW story but (hopefully) many more to tell the main characters' story, so it makes sense to try to tell the best CotW you can while you can. As it was, it was a bit on the rush side. This was a shame, because what we did get of the maniacal murder CEO was great. I loved how the guy built smart cars (speaking of which, loved Ned's little comment about how future cars were supposed to fly, which is a point I'm going to have to bring up whenever smart cars come up from now on) yet chose to chase our heroes in the biggest SUV available; sure the irony was obvious, but still funny. Actor Patrick Fabian's performance as the killer was fabulously over-the-top, too, his histrionics were great. They even came up with a new spin on the heavily cliched “bad guy delivers monologue about his plans and why the heroes have to die, instead of getting on with the job of killing said heroes”, as killer CEO Chase did just that...unaware that our heroes couldn't hear a word he was saying! If there's one scene that I think should be retired from Movies & TV, it's that Talking Villain cliche, but leave it to Pushing Daisies to make shameless use of the trope and then subvert it hilariously!
-As stated, I would have preferred this week's case to have been a bit more drawn-out and less rushed in favour of less of the character arc stuff, but it's still hard to complain given the quality of this week's character and relationship development. While I would have preferred this week to focus on the case, the character stuff was quality. Cute revelations about Emerson; in addition to the knitting, we find out that before becoming a strait-laced Private Dick, he attended...art school? Whether it's an offhand gag or part of the character's backstory that will be built upon in weeks to come (hoping for the latter), it was funny. Chi McBride continues to do a great job of expressing Emerson's smoldering resentment of Chuck's presence; as I mentioned, he's the straight man of the piece, out to objectively solve cases as tidily as possible. He's the kind of person that hates complications, and Chuck is very much a complication. He's willing to supress this resentment in order to retain Ned's lucrative partnership, but for how long? This week there were hints that he'll get closer to Olive; for very different reasons, these two want Chuck gone, and they might make an interesting, unlikely partnership in order to achieve that end. Olive's paranoid, obsessive love of Ned is great fun; any creepiness is erased by her diminutive size and sweet bearing. I love the way her infatuation is for the most part realistic (c'mon, we've all had strong feelings for someone who didn't share said feelings) but at times really goes over-the-top, as when she hangs out of a window in order to spy on Ned and Chuck. It will be interesting to see if they have her learn Ned's secret at some stage as she's the only main character who doesn't know it, and whether or not that will change her feelings about him. Ned and Chuck's relationship continues with plenty of “awww” moments such as them realizing that the plastic bags in which they're trapped can be used to get around the “no touching” issue (was anyone else reminded of Naked Gun's “safe sex” gag?), and their way of holding hands at the end. I also liked the more realistic touches, such as Chuck's pointing out that having been apart since they were children, they really didn't know all that much about each other. Sure, the series is at heart a fairy tale (love that Narrator!) but it's one with at least one foot in our world, and the idea of two childhood “sweethearts” meeting and falling back in love without any fuss is a stretch by our world's standards. No matter how much we (and Ned) might idealize the past, things tend to be a lot more awkward between childhood friends, and it's nice to see that awkwardness reflected on TV. I was a bit concerned that Pushing Daisies doesn't seem to have much of an overall mythology/arc to it as many successful programs do these days, but it's not an arc-based show; rather, it's character-based, and there are so many ways that the creators can take these characters and their relationships that the show doesn't need a big arc outside of their relationships.
Pushing Daisies continues to roll; this week's offering was well up to the standard set by “Pie-lette.” As I mentioned , a bit more time could have been spent on the interesting, fun Case of the Week and less on developing the main characters-whole episodes could really be devoted to that sort of development down the road-but this was overall a great episode, very funny throughout and with some really disturbing visuals and themes. The jury may still be out on the show's long-term survival, subject to ratings and network politics, but any concerns about how it can last as a series should be laid to rest. They have plenty of interesting character-based stuff to do, and countless variations on the Mystery Death of the Week. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do in coming weeks.
The 411: Still the best show of the new TV season, the Case of the Week was a little rushed in execution which is a shame because it was a lot of creepy fun with a great baddie, but some solid character development and really sharp dialogue keep Pushing Daisies flying high.
