The short lived and utterly peculiar series Pushing Daisies may not leap to the lips of anyone cataloging the high points of genre TV over the last few years (in case you missed the memo, the internet would like you to know that the ought’s are ending, and the appropriate way to mark the occasion is to catalog everything from the last ten years into concise and whimsically organized lists). This hypothetical omission comes in spite of a protagonist who can raise the dead, an archetypically gruff private investigator, and a setting where the murder rate rivals that of the darkest corners of the rust-belt. In a time when genre TV seems bigger than ever, the fantastically bizarre pop song that was Pushing Daisies fell largely on deaf ears. It was a touch of sweetness offered up to culture which has unfortunately forgotten what the word really means. Not the stomach churning excess of corn syrup or the simulacrum of aspartame, but a spoonful of pure golden honey, a bottle of cola made with real raw corn sugar sweating in your hands on a summer day, homemade pie with a scoop of farm fresh ice cream – Pushing Daisies was that kind of sweet. At least, it started out that way. I could innumerate the reasons I suspect the show failed to find an audience, and I probably will, but for now I’ll let the sad story unfold.
The first details I noticed about Pushing Daisies were the colors – impossible to ignore or overlook – a golden retriever prancing through a field of yellow and green and glowing like a bonfire against a backdrop tweaked till it seemed brighter than the sunniest summer day. And other colors followed, reds in particular, but a full spectrum burning as though charged with some ethereal magic. So vivid, so idyllic that no matter how familiar the world of Pushing Daisies seemed, it was undoubtedly somewhere far more fantastic than here.
I’ve been half-heartedly questing for a word or term which really describes the setting of this series. It’s reminiscent of the suburban other-worlds of The Simpsons or Edward Scissorhands, a world that represents an exaggeration of certain iconic ideals to the point that reality bends towards the needs of the story and its setting. Somewhere between idealism and magical realism sits a pocket world, a place characterized by a sort of general deference to the conventions of reality when convenient, and an ambivalent disregard when the tale could be better told without them. It’s a difficult setting to describe, but one which is plainly articulated in the earliest establishing shots of the series.
It doesn’t take long for the story itself to catch up to the setting, but it was the oddness of the place, more than the story’s flagrant magic and murder-of-the-week detective tropes which really qualified Pushing Daisies as piece of genre fiction for me. Fantasy just alien enough that I could get lost in it, escape into it, and yet real enough that I could connect the stories back into my own life, give them more meaning through my own context – at its best, pushing daisies made finding that balance seem effortless.
As a work of genre, the show was wildly eclectic, borrowing tropes from everywhere and anywhere. Conventions of romantic comedy being amicably poked fun at, the tongue and cheeky British narrator borrowed from the storybook children’s television of a simpler time (which probably never existed), the mild but relentless gallows humor, the Sunday afternoon at Grandma’s hokey murder mysteries – Pushing Daisies treaded dangerously close to the dubious distinction of having, “something for everyone,” a point which I suppose also means there was also plenty for less epicurean audiences to find not to their liking, if they tuned it all; they probably didn’t.
All together, the myriad components add up to one word: quirky. An adjective with identity issues, lost in the limbo between compliment and pejorative, defined only by the speaker than lost again to ambiguity in the ears of the listener. What the fuck is quirky? Who does it appeal to?
Well, my wife and her sister for one. And myself, to a slightly lesser degree.
Let me explain that qualifier, because I really did enjoy the show. In fact, when we watched the first season, a little over a year ago, I was crazy about it. I dug it all, the visual playfulness, the oddities, the cornball romantics, the whole gumbo. But than the show was doomed before its second season even began, and with the burden of time constraints and rejection a foregone conclusion, its eclecticism became a proverbial albatross (the dead kind).
To say that the balance was off, true and concise though that statement might be, fails to cut to the heart of what was really wrong with Pushing Daisies in its second season. Everything was off. The narrative was less compelling, the romantic antics less endearing, the sweetness turned saccharine. Even the colors seemed less vivid and more artificial; the visuals faltered, became muted with the grime of reality, and with that the illusion fell to pieces. It was like the waning days of a fading affair, you might try and make the most of those final moments, eke what joy out of them you can, but it’s over the moment you realize it’s ending. There was a broken-hearted half-heartedness to the second season which I can’t bring myself to blame the show’s creators for.
There was a clarity of vision in the earliest episodes of Pushing Daisies which its creators simply could not sustain – circumstance just wouldn’t allow it. Even the shows final bow has rapidly become muddled in my mind, pale in comparison to its vibrant opening. Nothing stands out about the show’s conclusion. Not that I was looking for some existential puzzle or emotional twist, I have plenty of shows to choose from in that regard. But even a happy ending should have some signature moment, something which defines it, and I didn’t see that in Pushing Daisies; but maybe I’m being unfair. After all, they do tie up most of the obligatory loose ends, and beyond that maybe the most one can expect from a reluctant good-bye is a smile and a wave.
Michael Re is a freelance writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and story-telling has long been the proverbial monkey on his back. For the last few years, he’s worked as a critic of comics, film, and television, all the while toiling away at his own creative pursuits in an effort to always put his money where his mouth is. His most noteworthy accomplishments are as a song-writer, having co-written and performed on nearly a dozen records. He also watches entirely too much television, and is very glad for an opportunity to justify doing so.
Michael is also an acting editor at In Genre. 
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