Showing posts with label Pushing Daisies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pushing Daisies. Show all posts
Monday, May 30, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Pilot Me: Pushing Daisies
I’ve often noticed that when the Emmy’s come around and the crew of TV shows are asked to make their submissions for their “best” work, they almost always decide on the pilot episodes. Is it because the pilots are the beginning, and beginnings are always the best places to start? The whole point behind “Pilot Me” isn’t about that, I always wonder why shows end up going awry after their pilots – even if it’s an unfair question. Television shows are fluid, and they’re constantly open to change. It’s interesting to see where the changes take the show, and how they hold up when viewed against their pilots; hence, this feature.
I’m probably showing my ace too early by starting off with what I believe to be one of the greatest pilots from one of the greatest television shows, but I have to admit that when The Mad Hatter named this as one of his favourite pilots I just had to start off with it. I don’t know, with the amount of people that love this show I always wonder why it got cancelled in the first place, but I’m digressing. I have to admit, with just five seconds of screen-time Pushing Daisies sets up that age old dichotomy that represents its entire show, but in such an innovative way – life and death.
I just love watching the camera move up from gritty brownness to the picturesque fields of Couer d’Couers, as if the producers are thinking – this is what death is like, but our perspective is so much brighter.
Structure is an essential part of Pushing Daisies, it opens with a childhood Ned wherein we learn a significant lesson via our austere British narrator (voiced by Jim Dale). It’s the longest opening sequence of the series tenure because there’s so much information to give the audience before it becomes so confusing. Fuller’s way of introducing us to this magical world of Couer d’Couers (I love saying writing that) – forget the unnaturally peppy art direction, which is one of the dozens of great technical marvels about this show – dialogue-wise Pushing Daisies is marked by its quickness. That entire sequence lasts for all of five minute as we move from Digby’s death and subsequent resurrection, childhood Chuck, Ned’s mother’s death and resurrection, Chuck’s father’s death, Ned’s mother’s death and that fateful first kiss. Sounds like a plethora of information?
It is – and yet, Pushing Daisies never feels like overwrought with it. We’ve already met two – permanent – deaths and we manage to feel their gravity even as the pilot retains its buoyancy. It’s easy to see why this took home the Emmy for Best Director.
I love that first shot of Ned, there. Lee Pace is so perfect here because he’s so understated – as a comedian and an actor. He has that constant air of befuddlement where things seem to happen to him, and not because of him which makes him such a perfect protagonist for a show where he has the power to raise people from the dead. And my beloved Chenoweth – I hate to get all fanboyish at the beginning of the feature, so I’ll curtail any garrulous discussion of Olive Snook’s brilliance, although – as an aside – I always wonder why her hair went from long in the pilot to short in subsequent episodes.
In terms of development, though, Olive is set up as an ideal character for comedic relief in the pilot, and as the series develops she to have those consistent comedic beats while having her past explored to fine results (like the brilliant episode “Girth”).
This sets Olive up, in the pilot especially, as a great opposite for Chuck. I love this random sequence between the two with Olive’s unknowingly sentient question.
“Does he touch you?”
Chuck is probably the show’s most perplexing character, which is no judgement on Anna Friel who is such a welcome departure from the basest of comedic heroines without being the stereotypical quirky that we’ve come to identify with either Zoey Deschanel or on the other side of the spectrum Rachel McAdams. Of course, Anna’s on television here – but regardless.
Still, I’m digressing. I often wonder about Chuck’s response to Ned’s oddity. Is it a character trait of a similarly odd girl growing up with similarly odd aunts (Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Green so hilarious for the duration of the shows’ tenure on ABC), or is it that being “dead” make us more accepting of these “oddities” in life. It’s perplexing either way – but, it’s hardly a deal breaker. The concept of romantic love is such an important part of Pushing Daisies, and it always manages to take on that fantastical nature without becoming mawkish, even though it’s propelled by silly stuff like him opening her coffin – twice.
It’s interesting to watch how Fuller and Company kept trying to weave the Aunts into the earlier episodes.
Before Olive’s happenstance meeting with them, it was always a question of how you’d get them working in context of the show. I’ll always maintain that the strength of any show depends on a fine array of supporting players, and Pushing Daisies had that in spades and the pilot does a great job of introducing us without overwhelming. Easily one of the best pilots I’ve seen.
(I had to point out how the title card for the show - see above - is shaped in the form of a pie-slice. Little things like that contribute to my love for this show.)
Did you ever take a gander at Pushing Daisies Pilot - "Pielette"?
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
TV Meme, Day 15: Favourite Female Characters
Choosing my favourite female characters was so much more difficult than choosing the males. I tried to be diverse I tried to be fair and I had to put 6...and here they are...but let me list some runners up first...
Here they are: for constantly being excellent even when their cast does not back them up I submit a quintet of excellent ladies from Grey's Anatomy in preferential order - Chandra Wilson as Dr. Bailey, Katherine Heigl as Izzie Stevens, Sara Ramirez as Callie Torres, Sandra Oh as Cristina Yang and of course Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey; for managing to cross over to another show and become an even greater character Kate Walsh in Private Practice, for bringing the funny and being real Isobel Sanders on The Jeffersons, for saving the world again and again Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the combined female casts of Sex & the City, Desperate Housewives, Glee and Brothers & Sisters
#6: Lorelai Gilmore
Show: Gilmore Girls
Actor: Lauren Graham
Trade Marks: Devotion to Rory - her daughter, crazy banter with everyone around especially her mother (played excellently by Kelly Bishop), a predilection for Luke's coffee and Luke, bad decisions,
Turn Offs: her parents - especially when they want to control Rory's life, boys who get in the way of her daughter's education (I'm sensing a trend here), boring people
Why I Love Her: Because Lauren Graham plays this role so beautifully it makes me sad when people forget that she so talented. The part of the kooky mother may be a stereotype, but don't tell her that because Lorelai is a creation all her own. It doesn't matter what she is doing, you cannot take your eyes off her performance. That is called good acting.
#5: Sharona Flemying
Show: Monk
Actor: Bitty Schram
Trade Marks: devotion to her son and her boss – Adrian, wisecracks, gumption and dedication worthy causes, being a hot mom.
Turn Offs: her boss – Adrian when he's out of control, Randy, Natalie (at first), her deadbeat ex-husband (until he cleaned up his act)
Why I Love Her: Because Sharona was my favourite character on Monk more than Monk himself somtimes. So wise, so streetsmart, good looking, and dedicated to her son. When she left the show I stopped watching for months only coming back in bits. Traylor Hackford (what kind of a name IS THAT?) could never replace her. Sigh.
#4: Miranda Hobbes
Actor: Cynthia Nixon
Trade Marks: Pragmatism and sensibleness, her red hair,
Turn Offs: Wishy-washy men, not getting promoted, models and modelizers (love that episode)
Why I Love Her: Because the fact that she has two Emmy's is no fluke. Every episode I wait for Miranda to come, and when she turns up with her red hair and intelligence and delivers smart cutdowns that are still hilariously, I ask myself - why the hell does she not have a proper film role?
#3: Phoebe Buffay
Actor: Lisa Kudrow
Trademarks: Kookiness, vegetarian ways, guitar and song, random humour, her pornstar twin sister, her massages
Turn Offs: Evolutionist theory, her twin sister, sad endings, mean people
Why I Love Her: Because Lisa Kudrow is just amazing and Phoebe's random humour is essential to the show. From watching Phoebe run in the park, to watching her banter with Joey and Mike and everything that comes in between there's no doubt that she is one brilliant character.
#2: Olive Snook
Show: Pushing Daisies
Actor: Kristin Chenoweth
Trademarks: Breaking into song, rash behaviour, devotion to Ned regardless of obstacles, perkiness, sweetness, all around awesomeness
Turn Offs: Anything between her and Ned - aything, quietness
Why I Love Her: Because she is played by Chenoweth (just kidding, sort of). Olive is so lovely and Chenoweth makes her so loveable even when we should not be rooting for her, and she sings (what more can we ask more) and maintains this all while still defending our hero.
#1: Karen Walker
Actor: Megan Mullally
Trademarks: Accompanying drink in hand, devilish cackle, arguments with her maid – Rosario, spending her husband’s money, inability to use public amenitie, extensive use of the word "honey".
Turn Offs: Poorness, work, Minnie Driver and the character she plays - Lorraine Finster, Candice Bergen
Why I LOVE Her: Megan's comedy genius cannot be touched by ANY ACTOR on TV. It's the sort of genius that leaves me gasping for air, not only from the writing but from her ability to make even the most tired jokes something tired.
The ongoing TV MEME goes on, for it must.
Which of these women remind you of the wonders of TV? Whom have I missed?
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
TV Meme, Day 1: A Show That Should Never Have Been Cancelled
Television is a dastardly mistress. The existence of a show is ever more ephemeral than that of a film, especially in a time when few shows are in demand on DVD and only a select few are lucky enough to be aired after their time has expired. If a show doesn’t go completely all out or suffice to a bland, generic niche in its first few episodes the dreaded c word emanates – cancelled. In the wake of the 2007-2008’s writer’s strike a marvellous new show was put on hold. It reappeared half a year later, even more innovative than before. I suppose, though, in a way it was ahead of its time and it was cancelled with only 24 episodes in two seasons. Such was the story of last decade’s comedic masterpiece Pushing Daisies.
Pushing Daisies was – not by coincidence, I’m sure, just like the euphemism from which its title derives. What is the phrase pushing up daisies if not a whimsical and perhaps irreverent title given to the dead. And it’s this same whimsicalness which is inherent in the atypical hilarity, blindingly bubbly colour palette and ferociously original concept of the show. The story…? A young boy realises he has the inexplicable gift of reviving dead things, but like all gifts it comes with stipulations. If he allows the undead thing, or person, to live for more than one minute something of similar “life value” dies (a man for a man, a flower for a flower, an animal for animal). He revives his dead dog while a bird falls dead; he revives his mother after a heart attack precipitating the death of his childhood sweetheart’s father. What Ned does not know is that if he touches the revived again they die again – permanently. Thus, a good night kiss from his mother renders her dead eternally. Ned becomes a pie maker and happens upon his childhood sweetheart – dead. He revives after some emotional conflict, and therein lays the crux of one of the show’s main conflicts. Chuck and Ned are in love, but alas, cannot touch.
Pushing Daisies does something special. Each episode surrounds the dead and their story, yet each episode leaves you with convinced of the joy in life. It balances the dark (and perhaps more realistic) overtures of disaster in the world with a blind faith and glee that is completely charming. I don’t know why Pushing Daisies met such a woeful end. Can a show be too good for the public? I never know why more weren’t watching, I don’t know why ABC performed one of its most cruelly inane acts. But cancelled it is. Nonetheless, Pushing Daisies is a marvel and I’ll soon be buying it on DVD. Chances are you haven’t seen it.
You should rectify that.
This entry is part of my ongoing meme on TV Moments
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