Season 2, Episode 1. "Bzzzzzzz!" Strong case-of-the-week? Check! Endearing character moments? Check! Unique visual style? Hmm, looks like critical-darling Pushing Daisies has weathered the long break very well and returns to the airwaves without missing a beat. Yes! To be honest, I wasn't worried. Once they got from the pilot to the regular series and sustained the vision, I was confident. So, what to say about this episode? It was cool and very funny. And Kristin Chenoweth stole the show. With Chi McBride coming a close second.
Season 2, Episode 2. "Circus Circus" Chi McBride gets all the best lines and his character is more pivotal to the story than usual because there is a parallel between the case he has taken and his own missing daughter. No dead body to kick start the story this time, which makes you wonder why he bothers to bring The Pie Maker along. But, with PD, it's best to stay away from questions. I mean, why exactly is Olive hiding in a convent? Best to just sit back and enjoy the spectacle as the PD gang head to a circus. It turns out to be a quirky circus and - before long - there are dead bodies piling up. Clown dead bodies, by the way!
I'm not really enjoying the whole Chuck has moved out storyline, but I like the bits where she dives over the counter every time an aunt walks into Ned's place. Goofy fun.
Season 2, Episode 3. "Bad Habits" Bees, clowns and now nuns! All getting the Pushing Daisies treatment. Olive gets lots of screentime (to make up for leaving her out of the first two episodes, I guess) and the ending (where Ned tells Chuck who her mother is) is unexpected and wonderful.
Season 2, Episode 4. "Frescorts" Another wonderful episode. All the stories have something to do with friends and friendship and it's quite a rewarding episode. The fight between Chuck and Olive (while locked in the locker) is probably the funniest/best part, but Ned's speech to his new friend at the very end is almost as good. The guest cast are fantastic, but Dana Davis really stood out for me as the fast-taking receptionist at the place that rents friends. A company that rents friends? I love it! Only on Pushing Daisies
Season 2, Episode 5. "Dim Sum Lose Some" Another wonderful case for Emerson Cod (one of TV's coolest detectives). Chi McBride is so funny. He's got the comic timing of Oliver Hardy and pairing him with Christine Adams makes for some great comedy. McBride and Kristin Chenoweth are the reason I watch this show. If Cod or Olive were written out the show would suffer, but you could nix Ned and Chuck and you'd still have a cool show. Funny how things work out. I'd never have predicted that at the start.
Season 2, Episode 6. "Oh Oh Oh...It's Magic" Delightful from start to finish. Ned is rather grumpy for the duration of this episode and Lee Pace has a field day with the role. He's hilarious. Anna Friel gets to shine, too, when Chuck tries out various accents and constantly bombards her real mother with phone calls from 'strangers'. With a storyline closely tied to Ned's family background this episode feels less like a case-of-the-week and is all the better for it.
Season 2, Episode 7. "Robbing Hood" Another delightful visit to the fairy tale world of Pushing Daisies. For the second week in a row, there is a balance between the case-of-the-week and the backstory of all the characters. And the result is fantastic.
Why, oh why, did they have to waste time sending Olive away to that convent? They should have come back swinging (with Stephen Root and this storyline) and maybe they would not have been cancelled. Seriously. These last two episodes have been two of the very best. Ever.
That intro alone (Ned and his friends two pets) was one of the very best. I was laughing out loud within a minute of sitting down to watch. That can't be bad. And the show delivered another great laugh later on (when we heard the bear come back to life).
But humour was not the big hook this week. Neither was the case-of-the-week. No, this was was all about the regular characters and their stories. I'm so hooked.
Season 2, Episode 8. "Comfort Food" The best episode so far. Delightful from start to finish. The case-of-the-week (while certainly a lot of fun) is wisely relegated to b-story status, and the main thrust of this week's tale concerns Charlotte 'Chuck' Charles and various members of her family (living and dead). The Chuck storyline (and her pairing with Emerson Cod) is wonderful beyond belief.
Kristin Chenoweth has never looked more beautiful and Lee Pace is - once again - hilarious as an uncomfortable/unhappy Ned. Whenever they make Ned unhappy it pays huge comedic dividends.
Season 2, Episode 9. "The Legend of Merle McQuoddy" This time out the case-of-the-week is as strong and interesting as the ongoing storyline.
Emerson Cod and Olive Snook team up to investigate a murder in a lighthouse. They make a great team and provide one of the episode's highlights (at the end, when Emerson told Olive she could come work with him anytime). Olive is even more cute, and adorable, than usual as a tough-talking pi.
Meanwhile, Chuck's dad proves to be a real jerk. There's a great fight scene between him and Ned and lots of conflict for the young lovers: Ned and Chuck. They weather the storm very nicely and provide another one the episode's highlights (up on the roof, when Chuck grabs the plastic sheeting and kisses Ned passionately).
This current run of episodes has been the highlight of the series so far.
Season 2, Episode 10. "The Norwegians" Even more than usual, this episode hits the ground running at frantic pace. The first twenty minutes are mesmerising: the dialogue and cast are on fire. Seriously, this is some of the best PD stuff ever screened and some of the best TV screened all year.
Things slow a bit when The Norwegians show up, but this does not spoil enjoyment one little bit. As all the running plots converge upon one another it makes for one of the best episodes. You feel that it's all been building to stuff like this.
Orlando Jones, Michael Weaver and Ivana Milicevic are three of my favourite performers (particularly Ivana Milicevic, from her Mind Of The Married Man days) but they are swamped by the material and the excellence of the regular cast. This was an episode that needed no guests.
And that's about my only complaint about this episode of PD. There was too much goodness!!
Season 2, Episode 11. "Window Dressed to Kill" Two of Olive's friends escape prison and she helps them, while pretending to be engaged to Ned.
Wonderful Olive-centric episode. Kristin Chenoweth sings again and I love her just a little bit more than I already did. They need to have her sing in every episode.
It's another goofy story of murders in odd professions, and it pairs Chuck with Emerson very successfully, but what makes this episode/show wonderful is all the dead-on things it has to say about love, loneliness, heartache and longing. It's crazy, way-out there fantasy but the emotions are real.
Season 2, Episode 12. "Water and Power" Cod's ex is a suspect in a murder.
David Arquette continues to be a worthwhile addition to the regular cast, as Gina Torres proves (as ever) to be a great guest star. And a perfect match for Christine Adams. Cod has great taste in women, it must be said.
Season 2, Episode 13. "Kerplunk" Murder in the world of synchronised swimming.
Lily and Vivian return to the show, and return to the water, in the last-ever episode of this adorable series. The Ned/Chuck romance gets several solid scenes, and the Cod/Snook partnership yields many hilarious moments. The guest cast are terrific, too. Wendie Malick and Wilson Cruz are two of my favourites and both are completely on-form here, but the real revelation is Josh Hopkins, who is unrecognisable (and wonderful) as a himbo.
The final two minutes are remarkable. With nothing more than heartfelt narration (kudos to Jim Dale) and a long FX shot, the producers are able to bring the saga to an almost satisfying conclusion. I thought I would be gutted by the abrupt ending of Pushing Daisies (and I am) but the ending was sweet and upbeat and hopeful and... it helped me cope.
Pushing Daisies season two episode reviews
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Slings And Arrows, 24, Pushing Daisies, The Avengers, The Larry Sanders Show, Kyle XY
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Pushing Daisies season one episode reviews
Episode 1. "Pie-lette" No review can do this justice. It has to be seen to be appreciated. It's poetry on television. Wistful and lonely, while making you laugh out loud. It's beautiful. A genuine pleasure to watch. You sit there watching it and you've got a great big grin on your face. It's wonderful. Not since 24 or Lost has a pilot so excited me on first viewing. But this time it's not a dark vision of the world. A lonely one, yes, but it's a fairy-tale world this time. And fairy-tales must have happy endings. Mustn't they?
Episode 2. "Dummy" Some fans/critics wondered if the show could possible duplicate the pilot. Could it be that good? Every week. This amazing second episode, I think, answers the question. When we sit down to watch Pushing Daisies every week we will be entering a very unique vision of the world. And it is a wonderful world. A world of flower-powered cars, heartfelt musical numbers and stunning visuals. After the pilot I was crazy about Chi McBride, Anna Friel and Lee Pace, now I'm more than happy to add Kristin Chenoweth to the list. I thought Olive would simply be comic relief, I had no idea they would put so much heart and emotion into the character.
Episode 3. "The Fun In Funeral" I'd already watched one of 2007's New TV Heroes go up against a sword-wielding maniac tonight, I didn't think I'd see another awesome sword battle so soon. Let alone in the fairytale world of Pushing Daisies. But that's what happened. PD cleverly uses it's own mythology to generate a lot of the stories in this episode. The guy that Lee killed in the pilot is back to haunt him (sorta) and Olive Snook goes to visit Chuck's aunts and (in the standout moment of the episode) figures out who Chuck is. Pushing Daisies looks like nothing else on TV. And I love it.
Episode 4. "Pigeon" Another delightful outing from the Pie Maker and his friends. The show is very comfortable in it's voice now. It has a visual style and rhythm of language that comes easily. In some ways, it reminds me of early Moonlighting.
A place crash, two dead bodies, lots of scenes for Chuck's cool aunts, plenty of snappy dialogue, another song from Kristin (almost), and a plethora of oddball ideas highlight this story of an escaped convict in search of hidden diamonds. The story has more coincidences than you could shake a fake wing at, but that's only because the writers have correctly sussed that none of that matters in this mad world they have created. And they are right. The more outlandish the co-incidence the more I loved it.
My only gripe? Kristin Chenoweth (who has the absolute best cleavage on TV) sings a song. Almost. Her rendition of "Birdhouse In Your Soul" (one of my favourite songs) is used as background filler. Barely. We jump in mid-song and, seconds later, she is Shushed! and stops singing. Which sucks. I want more singing!
Episode 5. "Girth" The utterly-adorable Olive Snook takes centre-stage when her past comes back to haunt her. This change-of-pace episode shakes up the established formula of the series in a few ways. First, the team of Chuck, Ned and Emerson is broken up and given different things to do. Second, and more important, there is a downplaying of the romance between Ned and Chuck, which could be seen as the cornerstone of the show. These changes makes the episode the freshest and most enjoyable since the pilot and shows that the style and tone of the show are more important than the actual content. Much as I like the Chuck and Ned stuff, we don't need to see them gazing at one another in every episode.
Episode 6. "Bitches" Once again viewers are drawn into a very strange world. Wonderful and colourful, always delightful, but certainly strange. When a man with four wives is murdered in the most inventive sequence I've seen on TV in quite a long while, suspicion falls upon the four women in question. In a move guaranteed to make fans jump up and down with glee, our favourite three detectives add Olive Snook to the team. Were you jumping up and down with glee? I was.
The balance between case-of-the-week and ongoing-romance has never been better. The case was completely engrossing, and superbly cast. Always great to see Jessica Lundy and how hot was Christine Adams as a foil for Emerson? I hope she returns in future episodes. Together they made for the best Emerson scenes since the pilot. Olive's scenes, however, were more heartfelt and thoughtful. The writers are cleverly using the character to give new perspective on the Ned-Chuck romance, and the case-of-the-week fed into that better than ever before.
Episode 7. "Smell of Success" For once the dialogue didn't sparkle. It seemed contrived and false in the opening scenes and some of the episode that followed was a bit weak, too. Especially the stuff concerning the aunts. I think I'm over them now. They need to be brought into the fold, with regard to Chuck being alive. The case-of-the-week was quirky and interesting, however, but Paul Reubens was underused.
Episode 8. "Bitter Sweets" is the most inventive and delightful episode so far. Sparkling dialogue and an unusual world-view make for another wonderful hour of TV. PD grabs you and pulls you into it's world with increased confidence every week. But, this week, the writers play around with the show's formula in many ways. The case-of-the-week is as clever and off-the-wall as ever. But it is dispensed with a quarter of the way in, and replaced with a storyline about duelling stores. Quirky and enjoyable as this is, there is yet another twist furher down the line. Murder and mayhem ensue. Dialogue continues to sparkle. The script successfully places a sub-text and depth to the shenanigans. And it all comes to an end with a humdinger of a cliff-hanger. A real "Wow" moment.
Although Molly Shannon (deservedly) got all the hype for her guest appearance I, personally, was most delighted to see Steve Hytner (of Seinfeld) and Mike White (of School Of Rock) doing hilarious guest turns. Shannon will surely be back, but I wish we could see more of White.
Episode 9. "Corpsicle" Pushing Daisies reminds of Moonlighting in many ways. It's got a romance at it's core, it's got lots of snappy dialogue and fast paced talking, it's a got a very skewed view of the world and there is nothing else on TV like it. Best of all, there is an underlying sadness and lonliness to the central characters. My favourite season of Moonlighting is the 4th. It was a study in lonliness. And it was eloquently written.
Episode 9 of Pushing Daisies joins The Pie-Maker and The Girl Called Chuck in the midst of their first fight (following last week's stunning cliffhanger). Amid another kooky case-of-the-week and hilarious one-liners, there is palpable heartbreak to be found in the scenes of the two lovers fighting. The writing is honest and it always feels like a real fight between two people who love one another. Anna Friel has never been better. Likewise Lee Pace. Nothing much is resolved, and we end with a truly stunning cliffhanger. Fade to black.
I will miss this show so much. Sigh.
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Swingtown, Pushing Daisies, 30 Rock, The Closer, Damages, The Six Million Dollar Man, Stacked, Chuck.
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The Six Million Dollar Man, Pushing Daisies, Journeyman, The Bionic Woman, Samantha Who?, The Office, Acapulco HEAT, Seinfeld, My Boys.
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Notes From The Underbelly, Two Guys And A Girl, Pushing Daisies, Timeslip, Reaper, Californication, Damages, Logan's Run, Extras.
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Prison Break, Pushing Daisies, K-Ville, Bionic Woman, Taxi, The Hardy Boys Mysteries, Life Is Wild, Carpoolers, Women's Murder Club, The Office, Californication, Damages, Talking Tech On Air.
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Pushing Daisies
Pushing Daisies
his touch can bring the dead back to life, but he must never ever touch the woman he loves
Type of Pilot: Romantic Comedy-Drama
Similar Shows: Wonderfalls
The Inner Light: A hug can turn your day around, it's like an emotional Heimlich. Someone puts their arms around you, and they give you a squeeze and all your fear and anxiety comes shooting out of your mouth, and you can breathe again.
Strengths: An amazing visual flair, pace, cast and script.
Weaknesses: There are none. This is pitch perfect. A genuine pleasure to watch. You sit there watching it and you've got a great big grin on your face. It's wonderful. Not since 24 or Lost has a pilot so excited me on first viewing. But this time it's not a dark vision of the world. A lonely one, yes, but it's a fairy-tale world this time. And fairy-tales must have happy endings. Mustn't they?
Impressive Characters: Ned's cool. Fascinating. Living out in the world, but basically living a life of solitude (he avoids touching). His one-true love, Charlotte Charles (Anna Friel), is likewise very interesting. She's been locked away from the world, but she's read everything about it. Now, she's out and living it large. "I suppose dying's as good an excuse as any to start living."
Impressive Actors: Chi McBride blew me away. He is hilarious. Witty one-liners abound. After his dreary part in last years flop "The Nine", McBride appears to be having a lot of fun here. He's Emerson Cod, the private investigator who convinces our reluctant hero to help him investigate murders. Ned, you see, can touch the dead and bring them back to life. But, for very important reasons, he must touch them again within one minute and send them back to sleep. Permantently. Complications arise when his long-lost one-true-love is murdered. He brings her back to life, but doesn't have the heart to return her to the grave. Result: she stays around, but he can never touch her again. Never. Not once. If he touches her, she will die...
Less-Than-Impressive Characters: All the characters in this pilot postively sparkle. Even minor characters like the waitress who works with our hero, and the aunts who are grieving for our heroine, are funny and fun to watch. The backstory on the aunts is a scream.
Less-Than-Impressive Actors: This show was perfectly cast. I had no idea Chi McBride was gifted with such comic timing. I had no idea Anna Friel could be so adorable. She gazes wistfully at Ned (Lee Pace) whenever they are on screen together and it is heart-breaking to watching. She's all emotion, wearing her heart on her sleeve. He's the opposite. A cold fish. It's brilliant casting. Brilliant!
Continuity: I suspect not. But who knows? We've got a live one here, it could go anywhere. Do anything.
Rewatchability: Immense. I really want to watch this pilot again. It's wonderful.
Other Info: The show will air Wednesdays at 8, before Private Practice. Jim Dale narrates the pilot. And there's a lot of narration. And it's all wonderful. The narration, probably, is what keeps the dark concepts from dragging the whole thing down. www.Pushing-Daisies.com
Websites: Here's a fan website for the show.
Three Things I Really Like About This Pilot:
Visual Flair
Pace
Script
Miscellaneous Comments:
No review can do this justice. It has to be seen to be appreciated. It's poetry on television. Wistful and lonely, while making you laugh out loud. It's beautiful.
GRADE:
A+
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The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Burn Notice, Pushing Daisies, Aliens In America, Reaper, The Incredible Hulk.
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