Pushing Daisies, "Pie-lette"
My two main reactions to the pilot of Pushing Daisies:
I have no idea if, or how, this show can sustain itself as an ongoing series.
And I sort of love it big bunches.
A lot of the reviews I read for this show have described it as Burton-esque, and they are not wrong. From the overall vibe it has of a twisted fairy tale to its sense of the absurd and the macabre, and especially in its visuals, it is very, very reminiscent of Tim Burton films, in a very good way. The opening shot of Coeur d'Couers, as the camera sweeps up and over what is very obviously (and very deliberately) a fake yellow field under a fake blue sky, reminded me of the opening shot of Beetlejuice, and the use of color in general seems to be very strongly influenced by that film as well as other Burton works like Edward Scissorhands.
The color scheme is dizzyingly oversaturated, filled with patterns and colors and design until the eye can no longer take it in, until we no longer know where to look first: the yellow field is very yellow; the blue sky is very blue, and unrelieved by either clouds or sun or the rooftops of any buildings. Olive's apartment is an explosion of flowers and swirls and God knows what else; the Aunts' house is even more so, and filled, to boot, with layers and layers of knickknacks and memories. People's clothes are bright pops of color: Chuck is laid in her coffin in a short gold sequined dress, and we see her later in a couple of patterned coats as well as a bright white sundress with a splashy red pattern that's reminiscent of bloodstains. Even Emerson, clad in an otherwise fairly low-key casual suit, wears a handkerchief in his front pocket that's a swirl of color upon color.
The one exception is Ned, who wears, as an adult, either black or neutral colors throughout. He's the one visually dull thing in this circus-riot world, maybe because he's the one who's been walking the longest with Death.
There's a lot of doubling in the show so far, too much to be accident or whimsy. It shows up in the names of things -- Boutique Travel Travel Boutique, the Darling Mermaid Darlings, Coeur d'Coeurs -- and in the narration: "Lying in the dark, Chuck considered how she came to be lying in the dark."
If a person Ned has brought back to life stays longer than one minute, another has to be sacrificed in their place, so the funeral director dies instead of Chuck -- and Chuck's father died instead of Ned's mother, except then Ned's mother died anyway. Ned has chosen to keep two people (well, okay, one person and one dog) alive. His power is based on two touches, one to bring back life, one to restore death permanently.
Chuck reaches out to touch the wall in Ned's room, and on the other side, he turns and makes the same gesture, and the dividing wall visually shrinks to almost nothing as they come as close to touching as they possibly can. Chuck walks out of Ned's apartment dressed in black, just as Olive walks out of her apartment dressed in white, and they're framed to look like mirror images of each other.
Chuck's initials are C.C., and her nickname makes her full name Chuck Charles. Olive lives in Apartment 44.
There are two Aunts, and two monkeys. The Aunts used to make their living as synchronized swimmers.
And no, I have no idea what all of this means -- something to do with symmetry, maybe, or balance; Yin and Yang -- but it pretty obviously signifies something.
All of this could slide, very easily, into painfully saccharine cutesiness, but the pilot, at least, manages to avoid this, both because of the intelligence of the writing and the inescapably morbid side of the entire conceit. However bright it is, however shiny, however cheerful, Death hangs over everything, and it's always there. Mortality haunts everything, and the insane brightness of the entire world emphasizes this rather than detracts from it.
Other things I loved:
Jim Dale's narration. Again, could be painfully cutesy if done wrong, but it hits just the right note, and contributes to the idea that this is all a demented fairy tale of some sort.
"I used to think masturbation meant chewing your food. I don't think that anymore."
The little wooden hand Ned uses to pet Digby.
Chuck's calm reaction to being told that she's been brought back from the dead and that she and Ned can never touch. Rather than waste time on histrionics or existential crises (actually, the entire show is an existential crisis, now that I think about it), she just shrugs and goes on and announces that she wants in on the reward.
In the car, when Ned asks Emerson to hug Chuck, which he does reluctantly, and then Ned tells her that the hug is from him.
(And doesn't the potential for threesome and/or conduit fic just pretty much write itself right there?)
(Yes, I'm going to the special Hell. It's cozy down here.)
Ned's restaurant is called The Piehole.
As I said, I have no idea how, or if, this show can sustain itself as an ongoing series (and, more practically, I don't know if the initially high ratings will hold for subsequent episodes), but right now I'm madly in love with it.
I have no idea if, or how, this show can sustain itself as an ongoing series.
And I sort of love it big bunches.
A lot of the reviews I read for this show have described it as Burton-esque, and they are not wrong. From the overall vibe it has of a twisted fairy tale to its sense of the absurd and the macabre, and especially in its visuals, it is very, very reminiscent of Tim Burton films, in a very good way. The opening shot of Coeur d'Couers, as the camera sweeps up and over what is very obviously (and very deliberately) a fake yellow field under a fake blue sky, reminded me of the opening shot of Beetlejuice, and the use of color in general seems to be very strongly influenced by that film as well as other Burton works like Edward Scissorhands.
The color scheme is dizzyingly oversaturated, filled with patterns and colors and design until the eye can no longer take it in, until we no longer know where to look first: the yellow field is very yellow; the blue sky is very blue, and unrelieved by either clouds or sun or the rooftops of any buildings. Olive's apartment is an explosion of flowers and swirls and God knows what else; the Aunts' house is even more so, and filled, to boot, with layers and layers of knickknacks and memories. People's clothes are bright pops of color: Chuck is laid in her coffin in a short gold sequined dress, and we see her later in a couple of patterned coats as well as a bright white sundress with a splashy red pattern that's reminiscent of bloodstains. Even Emerson, clad in an otherwise fairly low-key casual suit, wears a handkerchief in his front pocket that's a swirl of color upon color.
The one exception is Ned, who wears, as an adult, either black or neutral colors throughout. He's the one visually dull thing in this circus-riot world, maybe because he's the one who's been walking the longest with Death.
There's a lot of doubling in the show so far, too much to be accident or whimsy. It shows up in the names of things -- Boutique Travel Travel Boutique, the Darling Mermaid Darlings, Coeur d'Coeurs -- and in the narration: "Lying in the dark, Chuck considered how she came to be lying in the dark."
If a person Ned has brought back to life stays longer than one minute, another has to be sacrificed in their place, so the funeral director dies instead of Chuck -- and Chuck's father died instead of Ned's mother, except then Ned's mother died anyway. Ned has chosen to keep two people (well, okay, one person and one dog) alive. His power is based on two touches, one to bring back life, one to restore death permanently.
Chuck reaches out to touch the wall in Ned's room, and on the other side, he turns and makes the same gesture, and the dividing wall visually shrinks to almost nothing as they come as close to touching as they possibly can. Chuck walks out of Ned's apartment dressed in black, just as Olive walks out of her apartment dressed in white, and they're framed to look like mirror images of each other.
Chuck's initials are C.C., and her nickname makes her full name Chuck Charles. Olive lives in Apartment 44.
There are two Aunts, and two monkeys. The Aunts used to make their living as synchronized swimmers.
And no, I have no idea what all of this means -- something to do with symmetry, maybe, or balance; Yin and Yang -- but it pretty obviously signifies something.
All of this could slide, very easily, into painfully saccharine cutesiness, but the pilot, at least, manages to avoid this, both because of the intelligence of the writing and the inescapably morbid side of the entire conceit. However bright it is, however shiny, however cheerful, Death hangs over everything, and it's always there. Mortality haunts everything, and the insane brightness of the entire world emphasizes this rather than detracts from it.
Other things I loved:
Jim Dale's narration. Again, could be painfully cutesy if done wrong, but it hits just the right note, and contributes to the idea that this is all a demented fairy tale of some sort.
"I used to think masturbation meant chewing your food. I don't think that anymore."
The little wooden hand Ned uses to pet Digby.
Chuck's calm reaction to being told that she's been brought back from the dead and that she and Ned can never touch. Rather than waste time on histrionics or existential crises (actually, the entire show is an existential crisis, now that I think about it), she just shrugs and goes on and announces that she wants in on the reward.
In the car, when Ned asks Emerson to hug Chuck, which he does reluctantly, and then Ned tells her that the hug is from him.
(And doesn't the potential for threesome and/or conduit fic just pretty much write itself right there?)
(Yes, I'm going to the special Hell. It's cozy down here.)
Ned's restaurant is called The Piehole.
As I said, I have no idea how, or if, this show can sustain itself as an ongoing series (and, more practically, I don't know if the initially high ratings will hold for subsequent episodes), but right now I'm madly in love with it.