F(l)o Show: Shows we want to resurrect: Pushing Daisies

Before freshman year at Hopkins, I had only watched two TV shows. I can’t even claim to have grown up watching Cartoon Network. There are two reasons for this.

First, my parents were those parents who were of the opinion that watching cartoons rotted your brain. (Of course, they also apparently think that I turned gay because of my obsession with musical theatre, so I would take what they say with a grain of salt.)

The second reason, which is related to the first, is that our house did not have cable.

But for whatever reason, they started letting me watch more television by my junior year in high school. And thus began my first love affair with a television show in 2007.

As the first show I watched live every week as it aired, “Pushing Daisies” is the show that will always have a special place in my heart.

For those of you who have never seen this show, the basic plot revolves around Ned (Lee Pace), a piemaker who can bring people back from the dead with a touch. However, if he touches that person again, he or she will die again. Permanently.

If he doesn’t touch the person again within a miniute, though, someone else in the vicinity will die.

In the show, Ned works with Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) to solve murders, but things get complicated when he brings his childhood sweetheart back to stay.

I initially watched this show because I was still obsessed with Wicked at the time, and Kristin Chenoweth played the supporting role of Olive Snook, a waitress at Ned’s pie shop who is infatuated with him.

I quickly fell in love with the quirky characters and witty one-liners (“Follow the yellow thick hose!”) that permeated the entire show. This show also featured unique crimes every week. How many crimes shows have you seen where the victims are hugged to death or fried in their own fried chicken batter?

The show was set up like a morbid fairy tale, with a narrator (Jim Dale) in the background setting the stage for every episode with a (usually depressing) story about Ned’s childhood and who would then reappear every so often in the rest of the episode to explain things or transition between scenes.

The characters, though, made the show for me. Ned was adorable in all his reluctant nature, Chuck’s optimism was irritating, but refreshing, Emerson’s snark was hilarious, and Olive’s tendency to burst into song satisfied my fangirl heart.

Unfortunately, this show was one of the ones victimized by the writers’ strike, and it was canceled after only two seasons.

The fandom is strong, though, and people still talk about it as a show that was canceled way before its time.

When I have a bad day, or when I just want to indulge in some nostalgia, I pick out an episode of this show. I giggle at Emerson and Olive and I let Ned and Chuck soothe the romantic in me.

I may have new television obsessions now, but “Pushing Daisies” was my first true show, and you never forget your first show.