Pushing Daisies

The best reviewed show of the fall season premieres tonight.

Talk about the first-ever episode of Pushing Daisies, entitled "Pie-lette," right now with fellow fans and readers.

Just visit our Pushing Daisies forum and get started! It's free, easy and fun to post a comment... or six dozen. And we have a feeling there's gonna be A LOT to say after watching this great show tonight.

We'll post a detailed episode guide following the series premiere, complete with Pushing Daisies quotes, pictures and more. Enjoy!

On the verge of becoming a household name due to the success of Pushing Daisies, Lee Pace reflected on the show with TeenTelevision.com.

Here are excerpts from that interview:

TeenTelevision: If you really had this power, who would you touch to bring back?
Lee: Wow. My grandmother because I loved her very much.

TeenTelevision: What about the show really intrigues you?
Lee: I'm really excited about the procedural [detective] elements to the show. It wasn't the thing that initially attracted me to it. I thought the love story would be really fun. But, with the minds that work on this show, I think that procedural element is going to be really awesome. The episodes that I've read so far, every one takes you into this really cool, kind of bizarre, splashy world.

They are all totally different, all exciting. There's a neat adventure to it. The first episode is about Ned getting excited about the adventure, getting out of The Pie Hole [where he works], excited about breaking free and starting to live his life.

TeenTelevision: You were born in Texas and lived as a child in the Middle East so how did you get into acting?
Lee: I got to a point where it was the only thing I knew how to do and I was in high school [in Texas] and I auditioned for Julliard and got in. I did a couple of monologues and had a meeting with them. I don't know how they picked me. They said, 'you now have to go back to high school and get your diploma' so I did.

You don't need to twist our arm, USA Today. We'll be tuned in to ABC tonight at 8 for sure.

But the newspaper - unimpressed with the lot of new shows - just published an article imploring everyone to watch Pushing Daisies. Here are excerpts from it:

If ever a season needed a push, this is it.

Few of the new offerings have stirred up much excitement, and with good reason — most are unexciting. Happily, that's about to change. Tonight, a fall too short on joy gets an enchanting lift: Pushing Daisies.

Created by Bryan Fuller and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, Pushing Daisies blends mystery, comedy and candy-colored visual delights into a fantasy exploration of modern isolation — a fairy tale for our times. The premise may seem unwieldy:

A man brings the dead back to life with his first touch and returns them to death with his second. But tonight's wildly inventive pilot swiftly lays the groundwork, laced with just enough dark humor to stop the whimsy from turning cloying or precious.

The man with the magic is Ned (Lee Pace), a gentle loner whose power has left him wary of human contact. He runs a pie shop with the help of a devoted waitress (Kristin Chenoweth, pictured), while solving mysteries with his private investigator partner (Chi McBride).

Any cop would envy Ned's method: He reanimates the victims, asks about the crime, and then sends them off to their reward.

Click here to read the full article.

Give Pushing Daisies Creator Bryan Fuller points for honesty: he admits that the upcoming ABC show used a certain French movie for inspiration:

"I can definitely cop to ripping off Amelie," Fuller told The New York Daily News.

But there is a difference between the foreign film and Pushing Daisies, one ABC pretty much instructed Fuller to follow; he had to figure out how to translate such dense subject matter into an easily digestible one-hour TV format.

"There definitely was not necessarily an edict, but a strong suggestion [from the network] that if the show were procedural, then it would definitely be much more digestible to audiences, and they would have a framework to allow all the more special and different things to go down easier."

Therefore, the show has been built around the concept of romance and intrigue. Each week viewers can expect an open-and-shut case regarding the various dead folks Lee Pace (who plays the life-giving-and-taking Ned) encounters via his restorative touch.

The series itself will stretch out the personal relationship between Ned and his untouchable love, Charlotte (Chuck) Charles, played by Anna Friel.

"It's not so much about celibacy as much as it is about intimacy," Fuller said of Ned and Chuck's unconsummated love. "Sometimes, physicality gets in the way of true intimacy."

The Pushing Daisies Insider staff is preparing for the exciting series premiere this Wednesday.

With that in mind, we've officially posted our Pushing Daisies Forum page.

Check it out HERE and NOW and talk with other fans about the pilot - sorry, "Pie-lette" - as well as actors Lee Pace, Anna Friel and the entire cast.

Enjoy!

Lee Pace isn't exactly complaining that Pushing Daisies is receiving such critical praise. But there is one drawback to such acclaim: pressure.

"If I'm feeling good, I'm very grateful for that," the actor recently said in an interview with Zap2it. "Some days, though, it makes me nervous, like, 'Oh, God, I hope we don't mess it up.'"

We doubt they will. Meanwhile, the actor took readers inside the character of Ned a bit.

"From the beginning moments of the pilot, (Ned has) created a place that he understands," Pace said. "He can give people fresh pie and goodness and be a generous person within a small world.

"Then he brings Chuck back to life, and his entire world is blown open. He learns something new, I think, in every episode about how to enjoy his life, how to make other people's lives a better place. That's the big psychology, I think, behind his gift, in that ... it's a tricky one, one that comes with a consequence and a dilemma."

Speaking of Chuck - or Anna Friel, the actress that portrays her - how does this British star feel about really making a splash in the United States?

"I was a little bit frightened because I never had done quite this style of acting before, where it's a little bit and there's a lot of comedy involved," she said. "But I thought, 'I'm going to choose the thing that scares and challenges me the most.' I loved the whole fairy-tale essence of it all, and I thought it was the most exciting script I had seen in a very long time.

"Chuck is just a wonderful character. I mean, she makes honey for the homeless and she's been raised by these two extremely mad aunts and learned several languages and read thousands and thousands of books. That's a great start for a character."

In an article on TV Scoop listing five British actors bound for glory in the States, a certain Pushing Daisies star topped the rankings.

Here's what it said:

1. Anna Friel
Still best known for smooching with a lady as Beth Jordache on British soap Brookside, Anna Friel is set to bid for US stardom in Pushing Daisies. This new offering from Bryan Fuller has been described by Friel's co-star Kristen Chenoweth as "phantasmagorical" and she could be onto something.

Following in the footsteps of other big concept shows such as 24, Lost and Heroes, Pushing Daisies centers on pie maker Ned who discovers he can bring the dead back to life with one touch. This somewhat unorthodox party trick proves useful when the love of his life Chuck (Friel) dies.

The only problem is that once revived, Ned cannot touch the person again otherwise they will die for good.

We can't imagine why anyone would ever miss an episode of Pushing Daisies.

But we suppose life events can't be changed or delayed sometimes. With that in mind, here's good news about where you can watch new episodes of Pushing Daisies after 8 p.m. on Wednesdays...

ABC and AOL recently announced that they'll partner up to stream full episodes of various network shows on AOL Video. This new partnership will cover the majority of ABC's primetime content, including new shows such as Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money.

AOL Video will offer the videos a day after the TV premiere. Typically, four episodes per series will be available at any given time.

What's our favorite part of Pushing Daisies so far?

Aside from the dynamite casting, unique look of the show and overall mix of romance, humor and mystery?

Gotta be the episode titles. The first offering - which is just a week away! - is called "Pie-lette." That's pure genius. Here's a look at the first eleven names:

• Pie-lette
• Dummy
• The Fun in Funeral
• Pigeon
• Girth
• Bitches
• Bitter Sweets
• Smell of Success
• Rival Darlings
• 12 Corpses
• Fruity Buddha

How can you not get excited about a series with episode titles such as these?!?

We've already reported that Kristin Chenoweth will be appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live on October 16. Turns out the actress will also sit down with Jay Leno on October 2.

And we hope you drink some coffee with dinner that night. Because Chi McBride will be on the Late Late Show with Conan O'Brien on the same date.

Also, Lee Pace (pictured here as Ned) is scheduled to appear on ABC's The View on Pushing Daisies premiere day, Wednesday, October 3. Check local listings for times.

Finally, Barry Sonnenfeld (director/executive producer) stops by The Late Show with David Letterman on Monday, October 1.