With its panel at the Paley Festival last week, Pushing Daisies has been in the news recently. Since guest poster Samantha finally got around to watching the first nine episodes, she has a few concerns to share, although she fears she’ll need witness protection after writing unflattering words about people’s favorite show.
A few years ago while my friend the Notorious C and I were watching High Fidelity she turned to me and said, “You know, I have the same problem with this movie as I did with the book.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“Why her? I don’t get it. What’s so special about Laura? We never really get to know her and even worse, understand why he loves her or she loves him. So we’re stuck with both of them, and I don’t know why I’m supposed to care.”
This observation came back to me full force as I twice sat through the first nine episodes of Pushing Daisies. In order for the series to work, we have to believe in and love Chuck just as much as Ned supposedly does, but there’s not much to love in her.
What the hell is so wonderful about Chuck? Why her? Good lord she’s annoying. That precious little wave, the inappropriate discussions of her relationship with Ned, the hair in desperate need of a hot oil treatment. Every time she broached the relationship topic, I found myself saying, “Do I really have to hear this?” The one gratifying part of that, though, was more often than not, my words were echoed by Emerson Cod. Is there one set of writers working for Ned and Chuck and another, who shares my feelings for the thwarted lovebirds, writing for Emerson and Olive?
This charming candy-colored detective show is inhibited by the very elements which make it unique. The show is liberally populated by characters; unfortunately, those characters are about as multi-dimensional as paper dolls. Quirky, quirky, quirky! Quirky is a personality trait, not a personality. In order for quirky to work, it must ground itself or contrast with something of substance. Most of the characters on this show are working so hard at being special they lose the qualities that make them believably human.
Even the show’s attempts at substance are sabotaged by its need for quirkiness, as in this exchange between Olive and Alfredo:
Olive: Can I ask you a question? If you loved me….
Alfredo: Yes?
Olive: And we could never, ever, ever touch. Wouldn’t you eventually get over it and move on letting someone else have the slightest hope that you might move on to them?
Alfredo: If I loved you?
Olive: Yeah.
Alfredo: Then I would love you in any way I could. And if we could not touch, then I would draw strength from your beauty. And if I went blind, then I would fill my soul with the sound of your voice and the contents of your thoughts until the last spark of my love for you lit the shabby darkness of my dying mind.
Olive: Eh, forget it.
The writers, not trusting their audience with the merest scrap of sincerity, cynically undercut the honesty of the moment, at Olive’s expense. Olive is a selfish character, true, but even she isn’t that wretchedly careless with the feelings of others. Pushing Daisies constantly dismisses the emotional intelligence and maturity of its audience and, in so doing, undermines its own worth.
Such is the case with the narration. It can have its moments of whimsy, but too much of it only serves to diminish the story and characters instead of enriching them – it’s all tell and no show. We learn that Olive has an orchestra swelling in her heart (and who doesn’t?) not through her actions, but by the narrator yanking us out of the moment and saying, “Hey, look! Something quirky is gonna happen!” Wouldn’t it have been much more satisfying to have simply seen it, as happened with Aunt Vivian’s “Morning Has Broken”? I mean really, you don’t put several Tony award-winning actors in your series and not have them break into song or dance at some point, right? It’s not like we had to be prepared for these moments.
Or how much more interesting would it have been for us to slowly notice Emerson’s knitting? The audience could spot the unusual knitted items with which he surrounds himself, or observe him reading his knitting magazines, or even better, have no clue at all until he whipped out the needles to extricate something from a body bag. That would have been a perfect opportunity for Ned to ask in mystification, “Why do you…?” But, of course, Ned would never ask that question, would he? He’s too preoccupied with making sad eyes at Chuck and too self-absorbed to be even marginally curious about other people – a trait even the ever-irritating Chuck noticed.
So, we don’t know why Ned loves Chuck or why Chuck loves Ned, and we’re stuck with two unsatisfying characters and no reason at all to care about them. And the sad thing is, they’re central to the premise of the series.
As a baker, I understand the balance of flavors that are required to make a good pie. The counters on the set are overflowing with obscenely beautiful glazed fruit, but even if they were real, I wouldn’t want to eat them. There’s not enough crust to balance out all of that sugary-tartness. Like those props, Pushing Daisies suffers from an excess of filler and a lack of foundation. It’s trying so hard to be light-hearted, it loses its heart. It strives for profundity in its considerations of life and death but ends up paddling around in the shallow end of the pool. While the show itself could grow out of these considerable flaws with time, Ned and Chuck’s situation doesn’t have that luxury. There is a finite point in the not-too-distant future which will test the audience’s patience with an irresolvable love story. With so many flawed ingredients, how can Pushing Daisies possibly deliver on its early promise?
Agree? Disagree? Whether you’re down on quirkiness or up with Chuck, tell us about it in the comments.
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March 25th, 2008 at 9:52 am
I understand what you’re saying, and I do wonder how long it can hold my attention, but I don’t agree. I love PD. I love Chuck, I love Ned, I love Chuck and Ned. Dunno why, except I am a total sucker for love that cannot truly be. Unrequited love, love with obstacles…total sucker. And so this, along with the quirky feel and amazing colours and weird characters totally appeals to me and everything I love about TV and what it can do.
While I don’t know where it’s going or where it can go, I’m happy for now to sit back and disappear into their world. It makes me happy.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I know, I know, I sound like a total killjoy — I like the show, I do. And I see where you’re coming from too. I’ve just been burned so very many times by shows that far outlived their expiration date, and PD, to me, has a very brief shelf life if it’s going to work.
Buffy pissed me off, Twin Peaks hardened my heart. And I think if a show is gonna go for the quirky and the fun as well as the sincerity, it should really go for it. PD pulls its punches.
(sorry, hit post before I was finished)
March 25th, 2008 at 11:42 am
I do see where you’re coming from. If they’re going to drag out the Ned/Chuck no touch thing for seasons on end then it will get very old, very fast. And of course if it is successful then it won’t have a limited shelf life because it will continue to be renewed as long as the powers that be make money out of it. How to ruin good shows 101. Maybe PD should have a limited run, if it can’t come up with something to keep it fresh. And if it does, I want a happy ending please.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I agree, it should have a limited shelf life. I’d be thrilled with a happy ending, I’d be even more thrilled if that ending managed to live up to how it began.
I don’t wanna be able to tell where it’s going, but I sure as hell don’t want another Sue Ellen woke up from a two year dream episode either.
March 26th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I think that’s the important point for me - I love the show as it is, but I honestly don’t think it’s all that sustainable. I wish American TV people were more willing to run with the idea of a short-run closed series, which would work perfectly in this case (and then you could have a happy ending completely in the style of the show).
(I agree about Chuck, though. But then I also don’t really understand how anyone could think they were in love with someone they knew when they were 10 and hadn’t seen since. Clearly the basic premise doesn’t really work with me, the anti-romantic, but that hasn’t stopped me loving the show.)
March 30th, 2008 at 4:34 am
Have you noticed the bright colors and zany stylized sets and costumes, and the exaggerated dialogue? Emerson Cod? The Darling Mermaid Darlings? Aha! It’s a comic book. Not a graphic novel, which has more depth and gravitas, but a two-dimensional comic book, which provides lightweight but satisfying entertainment. It’s fun. Lighten up. Not high drama, not high art. A comic book come to life, and well done at that. It’s also a parody of itself, which is what makes it really good. The reviewer almost caught on to that, but missed it in the end.
This is not the main course. It’s the amuse bouche.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:44 am
We do know why Ned loves Chuck, she was his childhood crush. In the heart of every man lies that warm feeling of the first chush. If the girl who lived across the street from me stumbled into my life again I may get all puppy dog eyes for here again (assuming she has stayed as thin as Chuck has). I completely understand where Chuck is coming from.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:45 am
Oops, that last sentense should be “I completely know where Ned is coming from.”
March 31st, 2008 at 7:34 am
I completely agree with you. I stopped watching after three or four episodes.
March 31st, 2008 at 8:01 am
Rachel: If this were the Emerson Cod/Olive/Ned/Oscar Vibenius mystery detective show with all the attendant silliness, I’d totally watch this every week. As it is, I like it, I don’t LOVE it.
MaryAnn: I agree that it can be viewed as a comic book, but if that’s so, then it’s a comic book with pretensions to graphic novel sensibilities. PD can’t have it both ways and satisfy me as a viewer. No comic book has ever attempted to romance me with ersatz gravitas.
Scooter McGavin: Okay, maybe it’s because I’m a woman, but if my girlhood crush came strolling back into my life, I’d probably run screaming in the other direction. I’m with Emerson on this.
Brian: Thanks!
April 12th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
i completely agree. the premise was promising, and i tried to like it.. but you pretty much outlined everything standing in my way. this show is a great example of the laziness of using voice-over narration. ive been told plenty but i dont recall witnessing anything. the past few episodes i have found myself hoping those two will accidentally touch with fatal consequences. your review is on point.
October 26th, 2008 at 4:25 am
Chuck is annoying?? Wow, you must have no tolerance for any kind of TV character.
The one-dimensional detective aka “the funny guy” and prune-faced waitress with the squeaky voice would be at the top of my list.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Joe: Tomato, tomahto…
Not caring for Chuck as a character does not prevent me from liking other teevee characters of all sorts. Just as your dislike for Emerson Cod and Olive Snook doesn’t prevent you from liking other characters on this show or others.