Dark whimsy, with pie

My favorite TV show last season was Pushing Daisies. The whole thing is driven by a plot device that was re-explained periodically throughout the first season. Ned, the sweet-natured pie maker, discovered in his youth that he had, literally, a supernatural touch; if he touched a living being (person or animal) that had just died, he could bring it back to life for 60 seconds. If he touched it again within that minute, it would die again for good. If he didn't touch it within that minute, it would stay alive, but some other living being in the vicinity would die. Finally, if he let the dead thing live, he could never touch it again or it would die for good. Got it?

It does seem a little more complicated than it should, but it's easy to follow, and it gives the show two good narrative touchstones: 1) Ned works with Emerson, a private eye who knows Ned's secret, and whenever a murder case comes their way, they visit the morgue so Ned can bring the victim back to life to answer a couple of quick questions that will help them solve the case; 2) in the show's pilot episode, one of the murder victims Ned brings back to life is his childhood crush Charlotte (nicknamed Chuck); he doesn't touch her within the first 60 seconds, so she remains alive (and a nasty funeral home director dies in her place, an event that becomes central to a later episode). This plot wrinkle allows indefinite, unconsummatable sexual tension; past shows like Moonlighting and Cheers used such tension to good advantage, but always wound up letting the central romantic pair go all the way, which then inevitably caused some damage to the characters' chemistry. These two can't even touch without a sheet of Saran Wrap between them, yet they manage to some off as sexy and romantic as any TV couple.

The show was chugging along nicely finding a smallish but loyal audience last fall until the writer's strike stopped it cold at its ninth episode. Luckily it was renewed by ABC and will start its second season in a couple of weeks. Happily, the entire first season was just released on DVD so I was able to refresh myself on all the show's whys and wherefores. This series benefits from a second viewing; with the plots and characters still familiar to me, I was able to concentrate on the two things that make the show unique: its whimsically dark tone and its wild color palate.

The show is set in its own baroque version of the real world, sort of Technicolor neo-Gothic; its look and its full-blown orchestral score make it feel a bit like a Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket movie. Ned's restaurant, the Pie Hole, is in a old but ornate urban building, the roof of which overlooks a clean mid-sized modern city; the morgue is painted bright white with thick red stripes; Chuck's aunts live in a cluttered crazy house, dark but still colorful enough--they used to have an aquashow routine as The Darling Mermaid Darlings but retired after Chuck's death. The one plot point I get a little tired of is keeping the aunts in the dark about Chuck's return to the living; with the wonderful Swoozie Kurtz and Ellen Greene (below) as the sisters, I'd like to see them have more to do than mope (Kurtz) and be ditzy (Greene), though I have to say that Greene's rendition of "Morning Has Broken" in one episode was beautiful and left me a bit teary.

Speaking of actors, everyone here is well-cast, from the sweetly handsome Lee Pace (above) as Ned, to Anna Friel as Chuck, to Chi McBride as the detective (also a knitter). Best of all is Kristin Chenoweth as Olive, a Pie Hole waitress who is in love with Ned and, at least for a chunk of the first season, resents Chuck. The more she figures out about what's going on with the two of them, the more rounded her character has become (also what I like about the character of square Janet on Swingtown). There's a fairly heavy stage-actor presence: in addition to Chenoweth, Kurtz, and Greene, Raul Esparza has a recurring role, and Jim Dale narrates each show.

The dialogue is smart, full of wordplay, and fast paced, a bit like the writing of Aaron Sorkin (Studio 60, Sports Night), so both the eye and ear are delighted. This is one of the few hour-long network series that can stand up to repeated watching for me, and the DVD is a must have--the colors positively glow on an HD set, though I must complain about the skimpy extras: no commentaries, no real featurettes, just some very short interviews keyed to specific episodes, and unfortunately all stuck together on the last disc, so they're not even easily accessible after an episode has been viewed. But still, it's a delight to be able to have this season to keep, considering that other hour-long shows I've enjoyed recently (Swingtown, The Middleman, Three Moons Over Milford) have never come out on disc and don't seem like strong candidates to do so soon. It's nice that a show so different and interesting can still be found on network TV, and while I'm waiting for the second season, starting in a week or so, I'm giving the old shows another spin.