WITH Pushing Daisies, the television genre that gave us the middling Medium, Ghost Whisperer and Heroes comes to the service of something very different; unrequited love, lolly-pop coloured scenery, whimsy, gags, eccentric characters and old-fashioned murder cases.
It’s all highly improbable, but like any good magic trick, it works.
When his dog is hit by a car, nine-year-old Ned discovers his unusual gift. His touch can bring the dead back to life.
Naturally for Pushing Daisies to prosper, the premise includes a few caveats. The first is that the dead can only be brought back to life for one minute; any longer, and another person in close proximity will take the newly undead’s place.
The second is that by touching the person who has been brought back to life one more time, they will die forever.
Now an adult, Ned (Lee Pace) is a withdrawn and shy baker who keeps his gift a secret. That is, until a sly freelance detective, Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), witnesses Ned’s extraordinary feat and, calculating how useful Ned could be talking to freshly minted corpses, puts him on the payroll.
But the real starting point of this cracking conceit, which was dreamed up by Bryan Fuller (Heroes, Wonderfalls) and cinematographer-turned-director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, Get Shorty), came when Ned’s childhood sweetheart Chuck (Anna Friel) re-entered his life in the form of a murder victim.
He brought her back to life, but then became bound courtesy of his gift – or is it a curse? – never to touch, let alone kiss, her.
“Seldom has a series predicated on keeping two characters romantically apart established such an elaborate barrier to ensure they stay that way,” wrote one American reviewer.
And it will stay that way, promises Lee Pace who plays Ned. “It’s not a world filled with magic. It’s a fairytale about this one guy with this odd thing. It would never occur to anyone else that Ned can touch dead things back to life. It’s an absurd idea.
“So it could never occur to the others that Chuck is actually dead, that Chuck is a zombie. It’s never going to be like ‘oh, I figured it out’, because it’s an impossible leap to make.”
Pace, who in person conveys the same boyish innocence and vulnerability as his on-screen character, had previously worked with Fuller on Wonderfalls and was surprised to learn that Fuller had written the role for him.
As Pace wanted to focus on film roles, his agent initially passed on the script when it came his way.
Where other shows toying with the paranormal and undead harness their high-concept conceits to churn out routine whodunit procedurals, Pace believes Pushing Daisies won’t be “the same story every week. It’s not going to be him revisiting a murder scene every week trying to find out where the bullet went or mooning over Chuck.
“That will get old,” he said on a visit to Australia last year during the US writers’ strike, which halted production of the show mid-way into its crucial first season. (The series was cancelled at the end of its second season, its final episode will air in the US in June.)
“But if we can get inside Ned and the real sense of tragedy, the shell around him that he doesn’t want to crawl out of, then there’ll be something to play, there’ll be something to play four years from now as well,” he says.
He credits Fuller for the tight-knit ensemble.
“I think there’s a lot of shows where the creator gets this very rigid idea of what a character is. (Bryan Fuller) wrote it with me in mind, and when I read it I thought ‘well, this is kind of how I talk, it is very close to me in a lot of ways’.
“But with Chi (McBride) and Anna (Friel) and Kristin (Chenoweth), Bryan is really sensitive to their strengths, their sense of humour and what makes them good.
“Chi brings a level of hurt and surliness … I think Chi is one of the most valuable people on the show. Without him I don’t think guys would watch the show, because it’s too kind of sickly sweet, it’s so adorable that without him rolling his eyes in the back seat it would get a little too sweet. He’s so good at playing that wry comedy.”
The bold look, is Sonnenfeld’s work, says Pace. “He figured out that colour palette, which is really bright at some points, but it can also get dark.”
He says Sonnenfeld broke away from the standard methods of shooting for television with long lenses so as to keep backgrounds out of focus.
“He uses wide lenses that give you the full background and it’s all in focus. That means you have to light the whole background and if they move from here to here they have a 20-minute re-light, which takes a lot more time.
“But you get that big movie feel to it. You get a sense of it not being like other television shows.”
Critics in the US hailed the show on its debut late last year, prompting Variety to observe paradoxically “fear for its longevity in the cold, cruel world of prime time”.
“There are a lot of journalists that like to print that line, that it’s so good no one’s going to watch it,” said Pace. “It’s a story they like to tell, but I think there’s an audience every year that’s going to tune into something that’s different and new.”
“The minute I read it I knew it was going to be special. I knew it wasn’t going to be a Desperate Housewives kind of hit, but I knew it would be quality,” said Pace.
All that’s missing from this fruity and whimsical confection is Paul Reuben’s alter-ego Pee-wee Herman. But wait. He makes cameo appearances as a character named Oscar Vibenius, whose super olfactory glands lead him to think there’s something special about Chuck.
Pushing Daisies airs Tuesdays at 7.30pm on the W Channel.
Where other shows toying with the paranormal and undead harness their high-concept conceits to churn out routine whodunit procedurals, Pace believes Pushing Daisies won’t be “the same story every week. It’s not going to be him revisiting a murder scene every week trying to find out where the bullet went or mooning over Chuck.
“That will get old,” he said on a visit to Australia last year during the US writers’ strike, which halted production of the show mid-way into its crucial first season. (The series was cancelled at the end of its second season, its final episode will air in the US in June.)
“But if we can get inside Ned and the real sense of tragedy, the shell around him that he doesn’t want to crawl out of, then there’ll be something to play, there’ll be something to play four years from now as well,” he says.
He credits Fuller for the tight-knit ensemble.
“I think there’s a lot of shows where the creator gets this very rigid idea of what a character is. (Bryan Fuller) wrote it with me in mind, and when I read it I thought ‘well, this is kind of how I talk, it is very close to me in a lot of ways’.
“But with Chi (McBride) and Anna (Friel) and Kristin (Chenoweth), Bryan is really sensitive to their strengths, their sense of humour and what makes them good.
“Chi brings a level of hurt and surliness … I think Chi is one of the most valuable people on the show. Without him I don’t think guys would watch the show, because it’s too kind of sickly sweet, it’s so adorable that without him rolling his eyes in the back seat it would get a little too sweet. He’s so good at playing that wry comedy.”
The bold look, is Sonnenfeld’s work, says Pace. “He figured out that colour palette, which is really bright at some points, but it can also get dark.”
He says Sonnenfeld broke away from the standard methods of shooting for television with long lenses so as to keep backgrounds out of focus.
“He uses wide lenses that give you the full background and it’s all in focus. That means you have to light the whole background and if they move from here to here they have a 20-minute re-light, which takes a lot more time.
“But you get that big movie feel to it. You get a sense of it not being like other television shows.”
Critics in the US hailed the show on its debut late last year, prompting Variety to observe paradoxically “fear for its longevity in the cold, cruel world of prime time”.
“There are a lot of journalists that like to print that line, that it’s so good no one’s going to watch it,” said Pace. “It’s a story they like to tell, but I think there’s an audience every year that’s going to tune into something that’s different and new.”
“The minute I read it I knew it was going to be special. I knew it wasn’t going to be a Desperate Housewives kind of hit, but I knew it would be quality,” said Pace.
All that’s missing from this fruity and whimsical confection is Paul Reuben’s alter-ego Pee-wee Herman. But wait. He makes cameo appearances as a character named Oscar Vibenius, whose super olfactory glands lead him to think there’s something special about Chuck.

source: theage.com.au