Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks Back at the TV Show Pushing Daisies

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

It included an actor who would go on to join the most diverse cast in a US primetime show, had a woman who had the very first lesbian kiss on UK television and was narrated by a man who made his name in the quintessential old style smutty comedy films in the UK, the Carry On films.

It was the epitome of a dramedy with an outlandish premise that would not last beyond 2 series and 22 episodes. Produced by Warner Brothers television and originally aired on ABC, Pushing Daisies hit our screens in the UK just as we were tiring of Ugly Betty. It was an apposite time and we were ready for weird.

The premise?

Ned was a pie maker who owned a pie shop. But he had an ability which was peculiar and unusual; the ability to bring dead things back to life.

Of course, there were issues with the gift.

A modern day Midas touch, he could bring things to life for one minute without fear. If they stayed on the planet for longer than a minute, then something else would have to die. He manages to bring life back simply by touching them. He returns them to the afterlife by touching them again.

Life needed balance after all.

Ned, played by Lee Pace – who went on to become Ronan the Accuser in the Marvel universe – and was joined by his dead childhood sweetheart, Chuck. Played by Anna Friel, who had the very first UK TV lesbian kiss on soap, Brookside, had been brought back to life by Ned. Having managed to bring Chuck to life, Ned, now cannot touch her again otherwise she will die. Not the best chat up line or the premise for a lifelong relationship, but they did try! Rather than a will they won’t they narrative, it became a can they, should they type of storyline.

The road to Chuck was paved with being involved with private investigator, Emerson Cod, played by Chi McBride, who went on to join the cast of Hawaii Five-O. Ned is able to help Cod out in any investigation involving a death and given that his shop is financially melting away, Cod’s suggestion to help out for a financial reward is grasped, though not over enthusiastically, with both hands. All he does is visit the mortuary, bring the deceased back to life and ask the right questions to find out who the killer might well be.

Job not quite done, but an advantage gained, nonetheless.

All this whilst running a pie shop, The Pie Maker!

There is another character who has lost her heart to Ned, Olive Snook, his assistant. But her love shall always go unrequited, though she is quite literally more attainable than any dead childhood sweetheart…

The private investigator had his own unique back story. His ex wife had kidnapped their daughter and he had written a pop up book for her to try and make contact and get her back. It was a touching narrative string and one that worked really well.

With the type of production values that made it stand out with funky color schemes, quirky designs and names with which to conjure the fairytale quality was assured. The voice over by Jim Dale – a stalwart of the 1960’s and 1970’s Carry On films led that let me tell you a story quality to it that made it more like an adult fairy tale.

It was loved enough that it got 17 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, but it was not enough to get it to season 3.

It was a series stopped far too soon and it would appear to have been the writer’s strike at the time, that really put paid to it which was a complete shame. The ending of the series came after the final episode, and an epilogue was able to wrap things up. We had the news that Cod’s daughter that he he had tried to get back had come back, that Olive Snook, long in love with Ned, had left the Pie Maker to set up a shop dedicated to mac and cheese and that Chuck’s father who had been brought back to life by Ned but had not been returned to the afterlife left his daughter disappointed that she would not follow him as she wanted to stay in the neighborhood for reasons we could all, apart from her father, see.

This was a tremendous watch, not least because it was a visual treat but also because it gave fairy tales a boost for an adult audience. We could all believe in magic again and not feel childish… The storybook feel of the sets and the use of CGI was a little ahead of its time, perhaps but it made a massive impression on a father and two of his kids who eagerly watched to see if Ned would see that Olive Snook loved him, that Chuck would find peace and that Ned would settle down.

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television , you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of the Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…

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