PUSHING DAISIES (TV SERIES) - Blu-ray review

If you had the power to bring back the dead, would you use it? What if this gift came with a catch or two? Well, that's the premise for the ABC network's magical murder mystery "Pushing Daisies" which premiered on prime time television around this time last year.

To be honest, I never actually tuned in to the original broadcast, but when season one came in the mail for review I was able to see firsthand why the series was nominated for twelve Emmys (winning three) as well as three Golden Globes. Simply put, "Pushing Daisies" is an entirely different entity from anything currently on television today, and it looks spectacular on Blu-ray.

Created by Bryan Fuller ("Wonderfalls" and "Dead Like Me"), the series centers on a pie maker named Ned (Lee Pace), who owns a specialty shop called "The Pie Hole." When Ned was nine years, twenty-seven weeks, six days, and three minutes old--(a little gag from the series)--he discovered that he possessed a gift like no one else. You see, Ned can touch the dead, and bring them back to life.

But of course, Ned's power also came with a couple of hiccups that he learned through trial and error. For starters, one touch meant life, but another touch at any time would reverse the process permanently. Secondly, if Ned didn't retouch whatever or whoever he brought back to life and return them to their natural state of deadness within a minute, another nearby living being of equal life value would randomly croak in its place. We get to see all of this unfold through a bizarre series of flashbacks with Field Cate starring as young Ned.

Years later, a private investigator named Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) uncovered Ned's secret and forged an ingenious business scheme with the pie maker. The arrangement involves bringing murder victims back to life just long enough to ask for clues on who murdered them, solve the crime, and then collect the reward! How ‘bout them apples? All this pie and pie ingredient talk is making me hungry.

But one day, Ned is mortified when he learns that his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel), was murdered while taking a vacation on a cruise. Ned does his trick like usual to find out more details on what happened, except when the time comes to put Chuck back to rest, Ned is unable to muster up the strength to do it. As such, the funeral director drops dead instead. Now with Chuck in his life, Ned has found his soul mate. The only problem is, he can't physically touch her--unless she wants to become a corpse.

That's a pretty big set up for a series, but so far it's working quite nicely. I really like the whole "forensic fairy-tale" angle, plus the show is fluffed up with a sort of Tim Burton-esque flair to purposely set this kind of mood. Peculiar characters, bizarre storylines, and stylistic settings fuel the show and create a fictitious and magical world. The downside is that by design, the series probably appeals to a much smaller audience, as I'm sure the artistic vision isn't everyone's cup of tea.

The supporting characters are also strong and complicate matters even further. There's Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth), a waitress at "The Pile Hole" who hopelessly has the hots for Ned and is jealous of Chuck. Plus we can't forget Chuck's eccentric aunts--Vivian (Ellen Greene) and Lily (Swoosie Kurtz)--a down and out synchronized swimming duo known as "The Darling Mermaid Darlings" who believe Chuck is still deceased. These three characters contribute a fair amount of the humor, too.

Although the cleverness of the writing is one of the series' strongest elements, at times I still thought that the show suffers from being too wordy. It was almost as if the writers squeezed in an extra page or two for their script, so the cast had to adapt by virtually becoming motor mouths. This means viewers have to make a conscience effort to try and keep their ears open or they might be left out in the cold. For instance, sometimes when my brain was still in the middle of processing one joke, we were already halfway into the next one, which didn't really leave much room to actually savor the humor. I guess on the plus side, this helps make the series worthy of repeat viewings since you're highly likely to catch something you missed the first time around.

Like most of the scripted shows in early 2008, "Pushing Daisies" was held hostage by the Writers Guild of America strike and therefore only churned out nine episodes for its initial season:

1)"Pie-lette" (41:38). In the pilot, Ned's childhood sweetheart "Chuck" is murdered while vacationing on a cruise ship. After bringing her back to life to find answers and solve the crime, Ned makes a personal decision that will change his life forever...

2)"Dummy" (41:45). Just when dandelion-fueled vehicles are on the brink of becoming the smash hit of the future, one of the manufacturer employees is murdered and the killer is... a crash test dummy?

3)"The Fun in the Funeral" (42:31). Let us hang our heads and pray. Emerson stirs up trouble when his new case brings Ned back to the funeral parlor where he made the trade of a lifetime.

4)"Pigeon" (41:49). After a crop duster crashes into an apartment complex, a mystery unfolds involving death, broken appendages, and windmills. Lots and lots of windmills.

5)"Girth" (43:02). The ghostly apparition of a trampled jockey has seemingly returned from the grave on a vengeful mission to stomp out the souls of his former competition--which happens to include Olive.

6)"Bitches" (41:08). After a polygamist dog breeder is poisoned to death, suspicion keeps bouncing from wife to wife to wife to wife. How can you not love the name of this episode?

7)"Smell of Success" (43:10). When a scratch-n-sniff book kills the assistant of an olfactory expert, Ned and his friends think they smell trouble... and it's coming from the sewers. Paul Reubens (best known as "Pee-wee Herman") guest stars as the Morlock-like Oscar Vibenius.

8)"Bitter Sweets" (42:07). Dilly Balsam (Molly Shannon), the fierce owner of Balsam's Bittersweets Taffy & Sweet Emporium, is determined to one-up Ned's business across the street. But when Dilly's brother Billy is found drowned in a vat of sticky taffy, Ned is arrested as the prime suspect.

9)"Corpsicle" (42:35). It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, except for the frozen bodies of insurance adjusters turning up all over the place. While Chuck is dealing with Ned's confession, Oscar comes closer to finding out why Chuck smells... different.

Video:
Warner Bros. -- you're on your way to redeeming yourselves. Not too long ago, I harshly expressed my reviewer rage with the video transfer of Lost Boys: The Tribe, where I stated that it had the absolute worst picture quality I've ever encountered on Blu-ray. Well, the glorious transfer for "Pushing Daisies: The Complete First Season" is entirely from another plane of existence.

All nine episodes of the season are transferred to three BD-25s (VC-1 video codec) with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio for widescreen televisions. Here we have an immaculate transfer sporting one of the sharpest pictures ever to make it on Blu-ray. Colors are intentionally cranked to the tilt on the contrast scale, creating spectacular eye-popping splendor. Nearly all of the scenes appear three-dimensional, practically inviting viewers to reach out and touch their favorite characters on the nose (except Ned of course, just as a safety precaution).

Audio:
Unfortunately on their road to redemption, WB ran out of gas before they had a chance to reach their final destination when it comes to the audio. The packaging for this set specifies that an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track is included, when in reality all there is are a pair of Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks in English and French. I'm not sure if this was a printing error or a manufacturer mishap, but either way it's disappointing to say the least. By now, every studio should be using BD-50s as the standard for one thing, and not including any of the lossy or lossless audio codecs on Blu-ray titles seems like a backstab to the consumer. We're paying for high-definition picture and sound, so that's what we expect. Worst of all, saying Dolby TrueHD is present--when it really isn't--is just an added twist of the knife.

Anyway, enough of me ranting about what's not here so let's talk about what is here. The Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are still pretty good considering what they are (and what they aren't). Dialogue is clear, there's some mild musical ambience from the rear channels, and the base does underscore explosions and stampeding horse hooves for that little extra zing. Rounding out the audio features are optional subtitles in English, French, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

Extras:
The only bonus on the discs themselves is "Pie Time - Time for Pie," which is an interactive feature enabling viewers to select an episode and click on pieces of pie to see snippets of behind-the-scenes footage or selected scene commentaries. It's certainly a unique presentation of extras, however the untraditional style makes tracking down a specific feature difficult. I personally hope the second season doesn't continue this awkward format.

As for the packaging, the product details come printed on a cardboard slipcover, and the plastic Blu-ray case resembles a menu from "The Pie Hole." Each disc is stamped to look like a different delicious pie, and there's also a mock paper menu/episode guide enclosed inside.

My only other complaint is that the hinges to the plastic flipper holding the discs inside the case are flimsy and one in this particular screener was actually already broken. It could just be an isolated incident, but I think it's still something worth noting here in case it needs to be addressed for future releases.

The Final Cut:
While I enjoyed "Pushing Daisies: The Complete First Season" thus far, and I certainly can appreciate the clever writing and stylistic visuals, I still can't help but wonder if the show's immediate positive run is just a fluke. Currently, the series is able to hold its own because there are only nine very tight episodes as a result of the strike. But with twenty-two new episodes on the horizon for the second season starting October 1, will viewers eventually grow tired of the quirky premise, Jim Dale's narration, and the somewhat dry brand of humor? In other words, is "Pushing Daisies" just a fad doomed to wear off--or will the series stay as fresh as a pie sitting on a windowsill? Only time will tell.