Ok this is my first review here and I’m not going to lie to you… It’s the whole fucking reason I made this blog since it was the final straw to snap my mental stability at the current media and TV companies.
In this review I’ve chosen to take one of the works of Bryan Fuller which has had a lot of criticism and compliments from different parties. The basic story follows that of Ned Digby, the pie-man who is the baker at the Pie hole who has a secret gift that was given to hi by no-one in particular. He can bring the dead back to life with a touch, something you think would make him a messiah of sorts right??? Well then you’d be bloody wrong, as the curse of his gift limits him to bringing them back only for one minute or else the universe has to balance it out by taking a life of another of equal value, bird for bird, bee for bee, dog for squirrel pretty much a form of scale balancing.
There are more rules however, three in total in fact which govern his ability relating him to that madman who all forget in the tale of our giant green monster who started the trend of chasing people who look funny and different with torches, pitchforks and all other forms of nasties they got at the local hardware store when they got the call a freak was on the loose. Some smart alecs out there may be going ah yes I know all read in a fucking smug answer so I say well done, you’ve read a single fucking book in your life don’t get ahead of yourself. For those of you who didn’t pay attention in English class after reading of mice and men and started laughing at Lenny when he killed the puppy I am of course talking about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a book about a mad doctor who learns how to reanimate the dead and winds up destroyed with his creation.
Pushing Daisies takes this idea with the design of the Doctor himself being that of Ned Digby, who as previously mentioned is a pie maker who can bring back the dead with three rules.
1: First touch the dead are brought back to life with no ill effects and can do everything physically possible in their condition unless otherwise like being frozen in an ice block.
2: The second touch they die forever and can’t ever be brought back, end of, capeish.
3: The dead can only come back for 60 seconds, any longer and something else has to die to balance out the scales.
So as you see you could understand why he would be reluctant to do this and also of touching people, hugging ect. However he’s forced to continue after Emerson Cod, a private investigator who finds out his secret and uses him to help him solve murders since it’s easier to ask a victim who killed them, find the culprit and then collect the cash after. Stroll in his childhood sweetheart Charlotte “Chuck” Charles who winds up killed on a cruise to Tahiti and Ned can’t help bring back for keeps at the cost of the guy running the parlour dying on the toilet. There’s a catch for him however, no badly he wants to hold her the rules stand and she’ll wind up six feet under if she even so much as brushes his hand with hers, however even a barrier as thin as Clingfilm is enough to stop the effects of death again taking Anna Friel back to her grave.
Enter Olive as well; the waitress who works at the pie hole and is madly pining for the pie-maker in a way I can only agree from personal experience is very creepy.
A mixture of the two having feelings for Ned often leads to hysterical points of outbursts and other issues. Include the pie-makers dog brought back nearly two decades before and Chucks agoraphobic ex-synchronized swimming duo of which one looks like a Pirate and drinks at a rate that could almost withstand my liver.
The series in all is a very unique idea with a unique cast of which half I haven’t heard of before but I shall never forget simply for their acting talent, appearances, dress sense and hairstyles. That and yes I have said it before and I’ll say it again, Anna Friel is F**king gorgeous and any other guy who says otherwise is either reading this with their girlfriend/wife in the room, gay, blind or plain and simply in need of being culled for their sheer stupidity. The special effects at times made me wonder if I have a snowballs chance in hell in the future of doing such things with my current course after watching parts like a play-doh village running for it’s life, full cities of Cgi and the ever so special colour change effect they use for bringing back the dead.
The music sound track is interesting with the orchestral group that create the scores and matching moments for the show the actually hit it with surprising accuracy which I normally tend to slander first since I have seen shows that may as well have the Benny hill show theme running instead of the attempt at a sad overtone for a funeral.
The setting is absolutely mad in that I think Dr Seuss himself would enjoy it since he could probably have let that bloody cat and a few Sneetches out and the population wouldn’t have noticed it. They have Fords driving about powered by dandelions whilst also having cardkey technology, Air crop dusters and insurance brokers, but not one motorway commercial airline or Hippy for that matter.
I can’t stress enough how mad the basic idea is so I’ll probably do a video based on my favourites in the future.
The plots as well find a certain allure, even in the first season with the mad ideas they have for deaths, a few of which I’ll post as an example.
A man who gets stabbed to death with a designer doggy hairbrush
Murder Via a Crash Test Dummy
A plane crashing into an apartment
Drowning in Taffy
And an exploding Scratch & Sniff Book…
As you can see the team must have either been reading to many urban legends or had some severe thick thoughts they need to talk to a shrink about before they get let back out amongst the general public.
That’s the good bits out of the way, now lets get onto to the bad bits that everyone loves so much with the ability to pick on in party conversations when their dullness drives everyone else F**king suicidal with dullness.
The continuity, the episodes have a habit of forgetting everything at one moment or adding in titbits to fill out extra themes for the story. “Oh Ned only brought Chuck and Digby back to life again, no wait he brought back the canaries oh wait now they add in a snake and a python…” Then all of a sudden it gets added back when you don’t expect, nice idea to try and play a mindfuck with those of us who have no metal intellect what so over. Don’t forget some of us notice this stuff.
The obsession with squirrels, seriously what the fuck is your obsession with using squirrels to bring back almost everything in the first season… Is a squirrel like a pound coin? You trade them in for almost anyone else, Pets one, kids a fiver adults maybe what? The comedy, at times it just isn’t great but other times it pretty much smacks the nail straight on the head with things like a man missing half his face from a dog attack.
A final bit I’m not happy admitting is the fashion they have in parts. Yes that makes me sound incredibly gay but looking at some of the costumes like the same dress in different colours they give Olive that maybe I should join The “Queer eye for the straight guy” gang and hand out fashion tips to the costume crew. However on some occasions they do damn well in enough for me to hit rewind on the ps3 to watch a scene again from wanting a second glimpse. However as a hat connoisseur myself I have to say they screw up big time on some occasions but on others they make me want to hit EBay and track down the hat to add to the collection.
All in all from watching the first season in one day of Freedom I guess I can sum it up quickly enough. Pushing Daisies is a unique show in nearly every factor with parts that people can relate to on different levels, I’ll agree Myself with Ned on the no touchy factor for reasons I don’t like discussing. It’s funny, gets you thinking and at some times can cause cringing of degrees that I haven’t suffered since watching the uncut version of Brüno.
The special effects are amazing to the point of making me think I’m watching an overly funded Hollywood effect buster which has the crap acting you get from a majority of dull actors with the personality of dishwater, *Cough*Angelina, Brad & Tom *Cough*. The 3d modelling is spectacular to the level of making me want to break into the company, steal the hard drives and take the models for my own personal usage in my course.
The actors are all great and capable of making you believe you’re there but a fair few of the supporting extras that get brought in have the acting talent that could be pulled out from a Starbucks workers personal diary.
As a final send off I’ll say this…
Pushing Daisies is an awesome show with a lot of fun packed into it even if it has a few flaws and if you think otherwise you’re a mainstream idealistic watcher of crap like Lost and reality TV which may as well be replaced by Nazi Propaganda…
Arks Ratings
Design: 9/10
Plot: 8.7/10
Uniqueness: 10/10
Sound: 7/10
Cast: 9.5/10
Originality: 10/10
Total: 54.2/60 – 9/10
Overall Rating: 9.8/10
Overall favourite: Anna Friel, how many times do I need to say this? She’s Fucking Hot and can bloody act, David Thewlis you are a lucky Bastard and I have to salute you...
