Pushing Daisies

I was caught by surprise by this show. Friday I happened to be online and somehow ran into a mention of this show. When I was looking for new shows to check out, somehow this one didn't seem appealing. But on a second look I noticed I liked to of the actors Anna Friel (best remembered by me from Timeline) and Kristin Chenoweth (from Broadway's Wicked). Then I noticed the plotline and thought that seemed interesting.

The basic gist is that the main character, Ned (Lee Pace) discovers at a young age that if he touches something or someone that has died, they come back to life. But if he ever touches them again they die permanently. He also learns that if he leaves someone that he has resuscitated alive for more than one minute, someone else will have to die to pay the balance. He learns all of this when his mother dies of a brain aneurysm when he is a child. He revives her only to have the father of his childhood sweetheart fall down dead. That night as his mother puts him to bed, his mother kisses him, killing her again. This time she is permanently dead.

Ned grows up and starts a pie restaurant called The Pie Hole. It seems his mother made pies when he was younger and he is now obsessed with pie making. The fact that he can bring dead things back to life makes it so he can touch a bad fruit and it will become fresh again, just as long as he doesn't touch it again.A private investigator (Chi McBride) discovers Ned's ability and proposes that they track down people who have recently died, revive them long enough to find out how they died, then collect reward money.

This works just fine until he runs into the corpse of his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte Charles (Anna Friel) who goes by the nickname Chuck. Once he revives her he finds he can't kill her again. So he sneaks her away from the cemetery and she joins him in his new occupation. They are completely in love with each, but neither can touch the other or his new love will die and this time he won't be able to bring her back.

Rounding out the cast is a beautiful and quirky waitress, Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth), who would like to be closer to Ned. Ned, however, is nervous about being close to anyone after the death of his mother.

The show is narrated by Jim Dale, who voices the Harry Potter books on CD. Pushing Daisies has a very Charlies and the Chocolate Factory meets Edward Scissorhands/Tim Burton feel to it. I really don't see this show making it. It seems to quirky and intelligent for most audiences, but perhaps ABC will be able to make it work. For myself, the show was very entertaining and very funny.

Pushing Daisies airs Wednesday nights at 7pm central on ABC.