All the 'net reviews I've read are very positive, but I'm kinda underwhelmed. Maybe there's something wrong with me.
The idea for "Pushing Daisies" is great: A 9-year-old boy discovers he can bring dead things (a fly, his dog, his mother) back to life with a touch. The catch is that when he touches said revived person again, at any time, said revived person croaks permanently. Another drawback is that, if he doesn't touch said revived person within 60 seconds, a random someone else nearby will die.
Clever idea, much like the kind of adult fantasy (no, not *that* kind of adult) that used to appear in the pulp magazines in the '40s. The show is well-cast, has heart and comedy, and is lively and colorful.
But . . . it's got holes in the execution that I could drive my Buick through. For instance, the hero, age 9, revives his 3-year-old dog after it's hit by a truck. Nineteen years later, as the main story begins with the hero as an adult, *he still has the same dog*. Huh? Golden retrievers don't live to be 22, do they? If it's possible the hero's touch confers long life, as with the mouse in King's "The Green Mile," please have a character speculate on that.
Also, he can't pet the dog, or (in the rules the show sets up) the dog will die. First off, you know that at age 9, he'd have been overjoyed to see his dog alive again, and would have hugged him. Oops, dog is dead again. Besides, in 19 years, this dog has never jumped on him or nudged him in some way?
The other flaw is this: The hero and his private investigator friend, who knows his secret, are finding recently murdered people whose relatives are offering a reward. Hero wakes up corpse, asks him, "Who killed you?", and puts him back out again. But then our heroes blithely go and collect the reward. Hold the phone, babe. The cops (and we never see a single cop in the story) would demand, yanno, actual evidence before they could make an arrest. (Maybe future stories will show our heroes actually investigating, based on the info the corpse gives them.)
Okay, you say, it's fantasy. But fantasy, even comedy fantasy, needs to get us to suspend our disbelief. It needs to keep us from asking such questions, at least while the story is unfolding.
Then again, maybe my fantasy-appreciation module is on the fritz. What did you think of the pilot?
The idea for "Pushing Daisies" is great: A 9-year-old boy discovers he can bring dead things (a fly, his dog, his mother) back to life with a touch. The catch is that when he touches said revived person again, at any time, said revived person croaks permanently. Another drawback is that, if he doesn't touch said revived person within 60 seconds, a random someone else nearby will die.
Clever idea, much like the kind of adult fantasy (no, not *that* kind of adult) that used to appear in the pulp magazines in the '40s. The show is well-cast, has heart and comedy, and is lively and colorful.
But . . . it's got holes in the execution that I could drive my Buick through. For instance, the hero, age 9, revives his 3-year-old dog after it's hit by a truck. Nineteen years later, as the main story begins with the hero as an adult, *he still has the same dog*. Huh? Golden retrievers don't live to be 22, do they? If it's possible the hero's touch confers long life, as with the mouse in King's "The Green Mile," please have a character speculate on that.
Also, he can't pet the dog, or (in the rules the show sets up) the dog will die. First off, you know that at age 9, he'd have been overjoyed to see his dog alive again, and would have hugged him. Oops, dog is dead again. Besides, in 19 years, this dog has never jumped on him or nudged him in some way?
The other flaw is this: The hero and his private investigator friend, who knows his secret, are finding recently murdered people whose relatives are offering a reward. Hero wakes up corpse, asks him, "Who killed you?", and puts him back out again. But then our heroes blithely go and collect the reward. Hold the phone, babe. The cops (and we never see a single cop in the story) would demand, yanno, actual evidence before they could make an arrest. (Maybe future stories will show our heroes actually investigating, based on the info the corpse gives them.)
Okay, you say, it's fantasy. But fantasy, even comedy fantasy, needs to get us to suspend our disbelief. It needs to keep us from asking such questions, at least while the story is unfolding.
Then again, maybe my fantasy-appreciation module is on the fritz. What did you think of the pilot?
