A Review of Pushing Daisies... aka, a heartfelt elegy for a show long gone

Why are the shows I like always cancelled??  Even when I don't know that I like them before they're cancelled? Alas, I'm currently mourning the cancellation of Pushing Daisies... a show whose cancellation was mourned by the rest of the world almost about a year ago.  (the rest of the world who cared anyhow, since color me skeptical that it would have been cancelled had the whole world actually been watching it...)

Despite its fully cancelled-and-buried status, I'm going to review it just the same.  My advice?  Go add it to your DVD queue on netflicks, and cross your fingers with me that it will be resurrected.  I'm hoping for a movie, but word on the street is that the missing third season of Pushing Daisies might be presented as a graphic novel... which would be pretty cool too.

Pushing Daisies has the quick-and-clever dialogue of the Gilmore Girls, with the complicated situations of life-and-death interplay from Dead Like Me, and a body count that you'd expect from Castle.  Its smart, funny, and sweet, and centers around, believe it or not, a pie maker-turned-detective named Ned who can bring people back from the dead with a single touch.  Naturally its not quite so simple as that, because if Ned touches that person again then he or she is dead-for-good, and if the person he touched stays alive for more than a minute, someone else dies in their place, but it's enough so that Ned can use his gift to help solve murders and bring justice to those whose lives were ended prematurely.

The set of Pushing Daisies is picture-book bright and cheery, probably to counter the inherent morbidity of a show centered so much around death, but the real charm of the show is in the characters. Skillfully acted, by a cast that includes the charming Lee Pace (who apparently is making an appearance in Twilight: Breaking Dawn??), the characters seem to care about each other.  And they made me care about them too.  Curses on whoever "ok-ed" that cancellation!

If you want to check out Pushing Daisies yourself with absolutely no commitment, you can find full episodes from the first season online.  Chances are, you'll either love it or hate it.  Let me know if you love it so we can commiseration together over its cancellation!