Pushing Daisies - The Complete First Season

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Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/16/2008 Rating: Nr

Amazon.com
Pushing Daisies is many things at once: detective show, romantic comedy, whimsical fantasy and above all, a story about a guy who bakes pies and has the ability to bring dead people back to life. Somehow all of these things come together to make one of the most enjoyable, funny and bittersweet shows to come along in a long time. A lot of that magic comes from the near-perfect casting - Lee Pace (The Fall, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day) as Ned the Piemaker is wonderfully reserved and adorably neurotic; his facial expressions alone provide some of the most moving and hilarious moments in the series. Anna Friel as Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, Chi McBride as Emerson Cod and Kristin Chenoweth as Olive Snook round out the regulars at the Pie Hole and veteran actresses Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene are great as Chuck's eccentric aunts whose passions include synchronized swimming, amateur ornithology and rare cheeses. Pushing Daisies exists in a world where people regularly break out into song to express their feelings, where death is never gory and usually played for comic effect, and where every color on screen is richly saturated and vibrant, creating an oddly timeless Edward Scissorhands-like world.

Bryan Fuller, the creator of cult favorites Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls has perfected his style with Pushing Daisies; this series has a broader appeal than the previous shows. Each imaginatively produced episode has such snappy writing paired with ghoulish sensibilities, heart wrenching romance and classic caper-style crime fighting, making every moment completely un-missable. The DVD release of Season One contains all nine original episodes and a behind-the-scenes featurette. ---Kira Canny

Customer Reviews: Read 83 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

A Delight!! Every Week Feels Like A Mini-Feature Film! December 12, 2007
97 out of 103 found this review helpful

Alternately funny and whimsical, PUSHING DAISIES is a visually distinctive romantic comedy that encompasses a truly winning mix of ingredients. With its modern fairy tale settings and exploding color schemes - along with perfect but unobtrusive narration by Broadway veteran Jim Dale - comparisons to the work of Tim Burton are all but unavoidable. (In a good way.)

As in his previous outing (DEAD LIKE ME), series creator Bryan Fuller explores the great beyond but this time the results are much more impressive. The entire series centers around Ned (an utterly charming Lee Pace), who - at an early age - discovers that he possesses the power to bring the dead back to life with just a touch of his finger. The tradeoff? If he touches that person again, they will remain dead forever. And leaving the dead resurrected for longer than a minute causes someone else in the immediate vicinity to die. Cruel? Perhaps. But the universe demands a cosmic balance - and this is its solution.

Ned - the owner of a fairly successful pie shop known as `The Pie Hole' - uses his unique gift to earn a living in two ways: His astonishing pies, where his special touch invigorates the fruit with incredible flavor; and helping a detective (Chi McBride), who accidentally witnessed Ned's gift first-hand, solve murder cases. How? He revives the victims long enough to find out who killed them and then the two of them split the reward money. This can, and usually does, lead to near dangerous adventures for the two of them. Sounds exciting - but as Ned's co-worker Olive (the adorable Kristin Chenoweth of Broadway's WICKED) points out, it's a detached, emotionally frigid existence.

That is, until Charlotte enters his life again.

Charlotte or "Chuck" as she is called (played by Brit actress Anna Friel), is the girl Ned loved as a child before she moved away. When Ned and the detective discover the murdered Chuck on one of their cases, Ned brings her back to life for a sizable reward but can't bring himself to kill her, creating this dilemma: Although Ned and Chuck are strongly drawn to each other, they can never, EVER touch.

PUSHING DAISIES is loaded with stars from film, TV and the stage (Paul Ruebens, Raul Esparza, Molly Shannon, Swoosie Kurtz, Ellen Greene, Christopher Seiber, Barbara Barrie, Grant Shaud - to name but a few), and it's clear that everyone is having a marvelous time. The series is filled with tons of clever touches and Lee Pace, full of childlike vulnerability, is an immensely likable lead. His palpable longing for Anna Friel's Chuck is both sweet and touching. Seldom, however, has a series predicated on keeping two characters romantically apart established such a seemingly insurmountable barrier to insure that they remain that way.

As long as the creators can sustain the high level of entertainment that the first (as of this writing) nine episodes have provided, one can only pray that this highly original and gorgeous looking television experiment keeps going for years to come.

5 out of 5 stars

The most promising new show of the strike-shortened season February 7, 2008
61 out of 66 found this review helpful

Season One of PUSHING DAISIES has ended. Sadly, the show, which was supposed to run through 22 episodes, has ended at 9. Many shows have been adversely affected by the WGA strike, but except for FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (which not only is going to be cancelled, but did not even get to wrap up its final season, so that it will end with the narrative dangling, an unfitting end to one of the most brilliant shows on TV) none as much for my money as PUSHING DAISIES. This is simply one of the most original, extraordinary shows in the history of television. I awaited the arrival of each of the nine episodes comprising Season One like many await the release of highly anticipated films. That we got only the fraction of a season is heartbreaking.

In case anyone questions whether the season is indeed over, creator and producer Bryan Fuller has stated bluntly that the show will not resume production until next summer, when they will start work on Season Two. And to make it all even more definite, this past week it was announced that Anna Friel, who plays Chuck on the show, will very shortly start filming LAND OF THE LOST with Will Ferrell. You can't shoot new episodes if your female lead is unavailable.

What makes this so heartbreaking is how incredibly fresh and original this show was from the very first episode. I was enthralled from the very first seconds. As the camera moves up from underneath the earth, through the roots of the plants and grass just under the surface, and then up to reveal a vividly yellow field of flowers through which young Ned is running, I was completely entranced. Everything about the show affected me in similar fashion from the music, to the extraordinary use of color (the color is what causes many people to compare it to AMELIE), to the relentless number of wonderful sets. I've never seen a show that I have found so visually exciting.

And luckily the writing and the acting is every bit as good as the art design. It is almost impossible to over praise the writing on the show for two reasons. First, when you watch the first episode, it is so stunningly good that your immediate reaction is: they can't possibly keep this level of excellence up. Yet, they do. In fact, the show doesn't merely stay as good as the pilot (or "Pie-lette," as it is titled), it gets better. The show doesn't merely have a brilliant premise, but has a plan. Although we've had only 9 episodes, any viewer will definitely get the sense that this show is going someplace very specific. Second, the show features some of the wittiest dialogue ever found on television. Many compare the dialogue to that on THE GILMORE GIRLS, both for its immense cleverness and wonderful wordplay, but for its sheer quantity. Without doubt those two shows probably have more words per minute than any shows ever previously seen. (Interestingly, some of PUSHING DAISIES is filmed on the part of the back lot upon which THE GILMORE GIRLS was filmed.) Part of the reason for this is that any spots that on other shows would result in silence on PUSHING DAISIES provides an opportunity for the Narrator, who embellishes the story in marvelous fashion. Other shows have featured narrators, but in my opinion only ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT does so quite so well.

PUSHING DAISIES features a wonderful if somewhat compact ensemble cast. Lee Pace, whom many may know from an earlier Bryan Fuller series WONDERFALLS (on which he played the main character's brother), plays Ned aka The Pie Maker, who "isn't like the other boys," in that whenever he touches a dead thing he brings it back to life, with two caveats. First, if he touches that dead thing (or person) a second time, they will be dead forever. Second, if he doesn't touch it or them again within 60 seconds, something else must die in its place. Anna Friel plays Ned's great childhood love Chuck aka Dead Girl, who is brought back to life by Ned after she was murdered. Of course, this means that Ned and Chuck can never touch directly, which is, as Olive Snook points out, tragic ("notwithstanding big ticket items like genocide and death"). The outrageously talented Kristin Chenoweth plays Olive. Although one of the great Broadway musical talents of her time, neither TV nor the movies have found a way to take advantage of her. Until now. At first I was perplexed why they would cast such a huge talent in what was clearly the second female lead, but as the series goes along Olive quickly became one of my favorite characters. And Kristin even sang a song, performing "Hopelessly Devoted to You" in one of the season's highlights. Ned's partner in solving crime, the delightfully named Emerson Cod, is played by Chi McBride. Emerson is hands down the funniest, most delightful character on the show and perhaps a majority of the funniest lines on the show are uttered by McBride. Chuck's aunts are played by two more Broadway stars, Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene. The Narrator is performed by Jim Dale, who is perhaps best known as the reader of the Harry Potter books on CD. For me he is one of the most wonderful things about the show, providing precisely the right texture and background to every scene. But one other performer has to be mentioned, or rather a pair of performers. I can't tell them apart and I don't know the name of the second "actor," but Orbit and another Golden Retriever play Ned's dog Digby. Orbit played JD (short for Just Dog) on an earlier Bryan Fuller series, DEAD LIKE ME. I have no idea how they get the reactions on film that "Digby" makes to things that happen around him, but to watch him you'd swear he really is acting. My favorite Digby scene might be his interaction with Olive during her singing of "Hopelessly Devoted."

As much as I love this show I have to add that I've been amazed and perplexed that not everyone I know who has seen it has liked it. Some don't like the Narrator. Some don't like the fast-paced dialogue. I simply can't account for this. PUSHING DAISIES does have a very definite style. I suppose that if the style rubs you the wrong way, you might not like it. But for me and several of my closest friends, this is one of the most magical shows I've ever seen. My two all time favorite shows are BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. How much do I love PUSHING DAISIES? Although there have been only 9 episodes, right now I am inclined to say that I love it as much as those two, making it one of my three all time favorite shows. Which is just another reason why I have been so upset by its truncated debut season. But with the writers strike finally about to end (as I write this it has been indicated that the union will vote two days from now on the new contract), I am eagerly looking forward to Season Two. What accidentally turned out to be the final episode of Season One did end on a bit of a cliffhanger and works fairly well as a transition to Season Two. Be sure to watch this to get ready for it.

5 out of 5 stars

Rich colors, woven, romantic fairy tale of life, death and pies December 23, 2007
24 out of 32 found this review helpful

Through 9 episodes so far, Pushing Daisies has become an ever more and more complicated romantic fairy tale between a pie maker and his childhood crush. Now grown up and brought back from the dead (at the expense of a crooked mortition) by the pie maker, Charlotte (Chuck) and the pie maker have fallen in love in the most delicious series of the 2007-08 season. The only problem is that if they ever touch, she will die for good.

The support cast include a reward seeking, former detective, a pie shop assistant, the pie maker's dog (brought back to life at the expense of a squirrel), a deadpan, morgue worker (pun intended) and two aunts of Charlotte (Chuck) ,who use to be mermaid swimmers in a circus.

What if you could be raised from the dead for one minute and then put back to being dead? What if you survived that one minute but someone else or some other living being had to die in your place? Each week is a new mystery of who-dunnit, why and how in cases that are bizarre to the tenth power.

Pushing Daisies is colorful, witty, absurd, charming, romantic and yes grim as a push me, pull me reaper who happens to bake pies. As all good tales the story adds with each episodes with more and more being revealed as far as the main characters relate to each other and the lives (sometimes deaths) that they have experienced.

Pushing Daisies is my current favorite tv show. I hope ABC's Wednesdays at 8pm will continue to be illuminated with its' uniqueness.

4 out of 5 stars

Unique stories that are always beautiful to look at July 29, 2008
20 out of 24 found this review helpful

I wasn't sure if Pushing Daises was going to make it to a second season. Not because it isn't good, but because I didn't know if the average viewer would be interested in such off-the-wall stories and characters. It seems that enough of us stuck with it to bring the show back for a new season this fall. Good job folks.

The main draw for me were the interesting plots of each episode, the wacky characters, and most of all, the incredibly vibrant visuals. You just have to watch this show broadcast in HD or on Blu-ray DVD. It is really a feast for the eyes.

The production design, colors and amusing narration reminded me a lot of the movie Lemony Snicket with Jim Carrey, but being that this is a TV show with a much smaller budget, it is amazing in terms of technical achievement. I'm just glad that reality shows are getting replaced by real entertainment. Thanks to shows like this one and others, TV is worth watching again.

5 out of 5 stars

PLEASE COME BACK SOON! December 13, 2007
9 out of 12 found this review helpful

After 9 fabulous episodes, I cannot wait for more! While I have incredible respect for those involved in the negotiations to ensure fairness for both the networks and the WGA, I cannot wait to learn more about the adventures of the Pie Maker and the girl called "Chuck."

This is a delightful show that has a very Seuss-ian feel. Very comedic ("Bitch, I was in proximity!" and "Reality isn't like puppies, you don't pick your favorite") and definitely sure to entertain even the most skeptic individuals.

Please cross your fingers for a swift resolution between WGA and the networks so we can get back to the saga of Ned, Chuck, Olive & Emerson Cod!

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