Pushing daisies

Pushing daisies is an American series that was created by Bryan Fuller. It aired on the TV-channel ABC for two seasons (22 episodes) and immediately after the pilot episode it became a hit in America. The series is a fairy tale that centres on Ned, a pie-maker who possesses the ability to bring dead people back to life again.

The plot of the series can be summarized as follows: Ned is gifted with the mysterious ability to bring dead beings back to life again and even food becomes edible again, simply by touching them once. However, there are some minor stipulations to that ability. First, Ned can only touch dead people once, if he touches them a second time they die, in fact forever. Secondly, if Ned keeps a person alive for longer than one minute, something of similar “life value” drops dead as a form of balance. In the first episode Ned finds out that he possesses this talent by resurrecting his Golden Retriever Digby after he had been hit by a truck. He also brings his mother to life again, but he keeps her alive for longer than one minute. So, in order to keep the balance, the father of his childhood sweetheart Charlotte Charles dies. Of course it was bound to happen that his mother died shortly after her resurrection when giving him a goodnight kiss. Ned loses touch with Charlotte, because his father sends him to a boarding school. Meanwhile, Charlotte is taken care of by her agoraphobic aunts who move in to take over the role of her parents. Ned moves on in becoming a pie-maker and opens his own restaurant called “the Pie Hole”. But his restaurant fails to attract any customers and Ned is happy to hear that the private investigator Emerson Cod, who accidentally had discovered Ned`s gift, offers him a job. Ned has to bring murder victims back to life, ask them question about their murderer and touch them again so that they die forever. Emerson will then being able to solve the case and share the reward money with Ned. So far so good. But then Ned discovers that Charlotte has been killed and he decides to resurrect her forever. This of course demands that they never touch each other again after Charlotte’s resurrection. In spite of this, they fall in love again. Charlotte learns to appreciate life at Ned’s side and Ned slowly becomes more self-confident. Their love-story continues and the funny trio solves lots of cases.

The title of the series refers to the expression “to be pushing up the daisies”, which means: to be dead.

The story’s main character Ned (the Pie-Maker) is starred by Lee Pace. In 1997 the actor was accepted to the Juilliard School Drama Division in Lincoln Centre. He was given very classic roles such as Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet”, Richard II in “King Richard II” and Cassius in “Julius Caesar”, among others. More recently in 2003 Lee Pace starred in the Sundance Hit, Soldier’s Girl. He was awarded the Golden Globes Prize and the Independent Spirit Award, but he also won a Gotham Award for Outstanding Breakthrough Performance.

Ned’s sweetheart Charlotte Charles is starred by Anna Friel. The actress has had a very successful career on television. So far she has appeared in various TV-series, including Coronation Street, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Fields of Gold among many others. She was also given roles in films such as Perfect Strangers, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Me without you. In 1995 she was awarded the Best Actress Prize for TV Times Award, and via her role in Pushing Daisies she was awarded the Satellite Award in 2007. The series was described as an outstanding TV-series.

A very important role too is starred by the dog Digby. The other actors include Chi McBride (in the role of the investigator who wants to make money out of Ned’s secret power), Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz (who star Charlotte Charles‘s two aunts) and Kristin Chenoweth, who stars the waitress Olive Snook who works at Pie’s Hole and is in love with Ned.

In May 2007 Pushing Daisies was given a 13-episode order by ABC. A few months later, the show received a full season order. However, there were problems with the scripts of the second season, as only nine out of twelve were complete and eventually ABC cancelled the TV-series. There is good news about this though, because from 30^th May onwards you will be able to watch the final three episodes on ABC.

Mélina & Jessica