Pushing Daisies is a Winner!

Our protaganist, Ned, runs around in a lime green car called, yup, the Dandy Lion, and it runs on Dandelion fumes. Quirky, fun, odd? Yes. But charming in a way. He makes pies and owns a shop called The Pie Hole.

A baker, Ned played by Lee Pace has the ability to bring the dead back to life just by touching them.He discovers this as a young boy when his dog is hit by a car and his touch revives it. The same happens when his mother has an aneurysm but the neighbor's father drops dead as a result. The jinx, if he touches them again, dead again. It's a gift and a curse. If he allows someone he has touched to live for more than a minute, someone else dies. First touch, life, second touch death and it's all in his hands.He tries to use the gift in a simple way, making pies and touching rotten fruit and bringing it back to it's original ripe condition to use in his baking. This is his moral dilemma, his curse and his gift and thus the story unfolds.

Lee Pace won a Golden Globe for A Soldier's Girl in which he played a transgender woman.

Ned uses this gift /curse and goes into partnership with Chi McBride ( Emerson Cod), a detective. They start solving mysteries by talking to the dead/alive/dead victims. They solve murders by rejuvenating the victim long enough to have them identify the killer. Then they collect the reward. This gets the lawyer, cops, court slant going. So it's a romantic, mystery, comedy, fantasy, crime story. It's whimsical, ethereal, spoofy, and full of dilemmas.

Then we get the sweet, sad, fairy tale spin . Ned discovers his childhood sweetheart is a victim. By the way, just to confuse things, her name is Chuck (played by Anna Friel). Now, he's found and restored his soul mate but if he touches her again she will be dead . Another dilemma to be watched unfold in the future episodes.

One more love angle is Olive played by Kristen Chenoweth , a waitress in the pie shop Ned works in. She has a crush on Ned and she can be touched. What will she do to captivate Ned? She is the busty, dumb blonde character and she is flirting with Ned. It's all cute, quirky and oddly, funny in a macabre way. I'll be watching this on Wednesdays,definitely.

The cast has some well known actors, Swoosie Kurtz for instance. The rest of the cast includes Chi McBride and Ellen Greene. So we have the busty babe, the funny gal, one black guy and some pretty faces.

It's interesting to see how many of these new shows actually make it. So many of them seem to be such drivel. This one is actually being touted as an original, although it reminds me very much of Edward Scissorhands. It's charming, it has the surreal back drops and the unrequited love. It has a taouch of Reaper,Bionic Woman, Chuck and a dab of Six Feet Under idea with a twist. In Chuck a dork has his brain implanted with government data so he too is now "special" a la Ned. Bionic Woman, well we know about her special powers and parts and The Reaper has had his soul sold to Satan.In a way so has Ned but he hasn't sold to Satan he is just cursed in a way.

The coexecutive producer for Heroes is the producer of Pushing Daisies and the director is Barry Sonnenfield who did Men In Black. Not too shabby. He's also an executive producer on this show. Both obviously, very talented. I think they have another hit.

Pushing Daisies is considered one of the top 10 new shows. It aired on Wed 8 pm EST on ABC. This is the busiest night for new series so there will be stiff competition.It's up against Kid Nation, Back To You,Americas Top Model and Deal or No Deal. I think this will top them all.