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The new ABC show Pushing Daisies premiered a month and a half ago
with a charm that could steal one's heart. Its utter originality is configured
of a creative, appealing storyline with characters to match, witty writing and
bright pastoral colors. But six episodes in, the daisy is starting to droop; its
charm is wearing off.
The background story is as follows. Young Ned discovers at the age of nine
that he has the ability to bring someone or something dead back to life, with
one touch of a finger. However, a second touch means death, in permanence, and
for every person he keeps alive for more than one minute, someone else in close
proximity must die in the living one's place. Nearly twenty years later, Ned
owns a pie diner. Having come recently into his life are Emerson Cod, a private
detective employing Ned to revive murdered victims for 60 seconds of questions,
and Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, Ned's childhood sweetheart brought back to life
out of coincidence after her murder. Each episode is a story on its own, with
the feel of an individual movie in the style of Tim Burton. The stories, set in
a 60's yet modern ticky-tacky world, always involve a complicated and quirky
mystery to be solved that have included a car company with a new model that runs
off dandelions for fuel, a pair of stolen monkey statues, a mysterious messenger
pigeon, dog breeders, and a dead racehorse and his jockey seemingly risen for
revenge. The show is quality entertainment, or so it seemed at its kickoff, but
the running stream of the character's development is becoming redundant. Ned and
Chuck are in love, yet as she would die instantly if he were to touch her, their
relationship harbors challenges that are not able to be solved and so arise
repeatedly. The actors play their parts well, but those parts are all on the
verge of becoming tirelessly annoying.
It is nice to see that not all TV today is sickening reality
shows or melodramatic soaps, but it is also too bad Pushing Daisies
couldn't have pushed a little harder. Still, perfection is hard to find, the
show does have whim, and we never know what future installments will bring.
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