"Like nothign you've ever seen" is a phrase I hear alot promoting various projects, only to be disappointed that it's almost exactly like several other things I have in fact seen before. One of the few times a project lived up to the title was a show called Pushing Daisies. This show was incredibly unique, sort of a crime procedural, though very unorthodox, absurd, comedic and despite the them of death, proved to be more about life and surprisingly was first and foremost a storybook, fairy tale romance, and one like you have never seen before and sadly may never see again.
The show revolves around a man named Ned. Ned is a fairly ordinary man who wants to live a fairly ordinary life. He bakes pies at his shop, the Pie Hole, and is very happy to let this be the entirety of his life. He is good at making pies, he is happy making pies, and people are happy eating his pies. Ned likes baking pies because his mother liked baking pies. In fact baking a pie was one of te last things Ned's mother did the day she died. Still, bakign pies brings back fond memories of a simpler time for a simple man leading a simple life. However, lifeis not so simple for our dear ordinary Ned because he has a quite extraordinary gift, he can bring the dead back to life. When Ned was young his dear dog Digby died, hit by a truck. Young Ned rushed to his dog as most children would and without realizing it, his touch brought the dog back to life. Not long after, his mother died and he used his touch to bring her back to life as well. Sadly, two tragedies would follow that would teach Ned the rules of his gift and change his life forever, the first being that Mr. Charles across the street died just one minute after Ned's mother was resurrected, and the second being that when Ned's mother kissed him good night that night after tucking him into bed, the first time that she had touched him since being revived, she died a second time, this time permanently. Through some experimentation with bugs in the yard Ned discovered the three cardinal rules of his gift, one touch comes back to life, second touch means death forever, and if that second touch does not come within exactly sixty seconds of the first, then another life of equal value must die in place fo the resurrected. For Digby it was a squirrel, for Ned's mother it was Mr. Charles. The real tragedy of Mr. Charles death was that Ned was madly in love with Mr. Charles daughter Charlotte, whom he lovingly referred to as Chuck. Now, Ned knew that the apparently random death of Mr. Charles was in fact his fault and with this guilt he could not face Chuck, let alone tell her he loved her. And so, sad lonely Ned, with his dog that he could never pet, went on to bake pies and live melancholy ever after.
Until that is, Ned experienced a rather bizarre coincidence. While he was takign out the garbage one day, a thief was running away from a crime and in an attempt to jump from one building to another fell to his death on ned's dumpster and then shortly thereafter flopped upon Ned inadvertently activating his magic touch and springing to life. Knowing the consequences of allowing this stranger to get away alive, Ned did the right thing and touched the criminal a second time, making him dead again. The entire event was witnessed by Emerson Cod, a private investigator who, upon discovering Ned's gift, realizes how easy it would be for him to solve murders if Ned can bring the victims back to life and tell him exactly what happened. When Emerson Cod approaches Ned with a business proposition, Ned is not really interested because he wants to remain in his ordinary life a his ordinary pie shop. Emerson Cod then realizes he has the perfect leverage to hold over Ned, he will keep Ned's secret and allow him to live his ordinary life if he helps with murder cases. All Ned has to do is visit the morgue, touch the victim, ask pertinent questions, and then touch them again within sixty seconds and Emerson Cod catches the murderer and collects his reward.
However, this simple plan too becomes complicated by another bizarre coincidence. Chuck dies an untimely death; raised by her aunts who feared the outside world after the death of Chuck's father, Chuck wants to see the world and goes on a cruise only to be murdered while on board on the only trip she ever took away from home. Emerson Cod wants to investigate this death, but it is harder for Ned who knows this is like no other life that he has ever restored since that fateful day so very long ago. Ned ultimately agrees and restores Chuck to life, agreeing to make her dead again with their first and final kiss. However, Ned decides he can't take away her second chance at life and tells Chuck she can live if she never touches him. She goes back in her casket and the funeral proceeds with all believeing she is dead, then Ned digs her up and allows her to come back with him so they can have some sort of a relationship workign together at the Pie Hole and solving crimes with Emerson Cod and none but the three of them knowing the truth about Chuck or Ned.
This now creates a most complicated situation, in two entirely different ways. One is that Chuck feels like making the most of a person's last sixty seconds of life and her distractions mean they often get less information than Emerson Cod would want and they have to spend the rest of the episode doing actual investigations that Cod has gotten out of practice actually doing so that they can fill in the gaps. The second problem is that Ned is in love witha woman he can never, ever touch, and so they have to find creative ways to be intimate, sleeping in a bed divided by a plastic wall, dancing in beekeeper suits, etc. It's usually vey sweet, especially with the music playing in the background that highlights this unlikely romance, paralleled each week by the similarly unusual relationships of their murder victims and the people they knew in life, like a man who is so desperate for friendship that he starts a company to rent friends so that he can rent himself out to people as lonely as he is, or a man so lonely he falls in lve with his doll, yet from his perspective it is no more unusual nor less real than Ned's love for his living impaired girlfriend. These are no ordinary cases, each one stranger than the last and pushing the limits of believability, yet always having a very human and surprisingly relatable heart that always reconnects to our starstruck lovers.
Why was this amazing show like nothing you've ever seen canceled? The writer's strike.As a writer myself, I do understand how important itis to be compensated for your hard work, but sadly when the writers went on strike, a number of new scripted shows lost their momentum and their audience. It was too hard to win back viewers after an extended hiatus due to the season ending early because of the strike. So Pushing Daisies among some other prmising new shows that particualr year, died and was not to recieve Ned's magic touch and a second chance at life. If you can find it online, do give it a go, it really is like nothing else you've ever seen.
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