Pop Vultures

As part of my fall cleaning efforts, I am viewing every returning show with a critical eye: should this show stay on my very crowded television schedule? It was with that attitude that I went into last night’s episode of Pushing Daisies. Forty-two highly stylized minutes later, I have my answer, and it is a very firm “I don’t know.”

Really, there is no other show on television about which I feel so divided as this one. I know that, for most people, it falls into the love-it-or-hate-it camp, and most PV readers seem to be quite firmly on the “love it” side, but I just can’t ever commit to one camp or another. I am firmly straddling the Daisies fence. Does that sound dirty to anyone else?

Last night’s return was everything we’ve come to expect from Pushing Daisies. Every quirky trick they’ve got up their sleeve, it was in this episode. If ever there was a time to judge an episode as representative of an entire series, this was it. And yet, I still can’t decide if I should keep watching.

My indecision is frustrating. This is not a show that I like in some ways or dislike in others. No, I either love it or hate it, and my reaction can change in seconds.

The sets, for instance, are breathtaking. They are cinematic in scope, fantastic and beautiful and unlike anything I’ve ever seen on TV. But, just as I’m starting to get caught up the glorious world created by the set designers, the damn voiceover kicks in, with so many self-conscious tics that it qualifies as the narrative version of epilepsy. Every time the storyteller announces the exact time, down to the second, or reminds us that Chuck is “aka someone else,” I visibly wince. It completely takes me out of the moment.

The plots don’t help the matter. I have no problem with the always silly mystery of the week, and always enjoy the way that each new mystery provides a new world to explore. The newly created Betty’s Bees, for instance, was an absolute visual treat. I have fewer kind words for the B-plots, however, which range from frustrating to downright asinine. The show is piling secret on top of secret, asking the viewer to not only keep track of each newly revealed hidden truth but also to care about them, and I just don’t. I don’t understand why half these things need to be secrets at all. Considering that Olive already thinks Chuck faked her death, is there any reason why Chuck couldn’t come up with a good cover story that would work for her aunts as well? Every week, she, Ned and Chuck whip up preposterous covers for their mystery solving, but they can’t think up a way to reunite her with her aunts? Really? The secrets aren’t compelling, and so I plain don’t care what happens, and begin to wonder if I should even bother tuning in next week.

Then, just as I’m reaching the frayed end of my patience, Emerson Cod opens his mouth, expressing all the frustration I’m feeling with his trademark deadpan snark, and I’m in love again. Ned sits awkwardly on a bench like an adorable, oversized puppy, and my heart thaws a bit. Olive…well, Olive appears onscreen, and everything is a little brighter. And then, for a few minutes, I love this show, and understand why everyone else can’t get enough.

At least, I do until the damn narrator opens his mouth again.

What did you think of the show’s second season premiere? Are you in the love it or hate it camp?