Pushing Daisies "Bzzzzzzzzz" Season Premiere Talkback (Spoilers)

[The Penguin]

The facts are these... The Emmy Award-winning Pushing Daisies returns for its second season tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. We had a short season of just nine episodes last fall as we met Ned, who can return the dead briefly to life with just one touch. But his random gift isn't without deadly consequences. He discovered the rules of his gift early: First touch - alive; second touch - dead again, forever; Keep something alive for more than a minute and something else has to die in its place. Ned runs The Pie Hole in Coeur d' Coeur and uses his gift to help private investigator Emerson Cod solve murders and they split the reward money. When Ned brings his childhood sweetheart Chuck back to life, he can't bring himself to touch her again and she has joined Ned and Emerson on their cases. Last December, Pie Hole waitress Olive found out that Chuck's Aunt Lily is actually her mother!

"Bzzzzzzzzz" - Season Premiere
Wednesday, October 1, 2008 @ 8 p.m. ET/7 CT on ABC
Chuck goes undercover as a "Bee Girl" to solve a murder, and Lily gets Olive to a nunnery.

#1.09: "Corpsicle"

ABC.com - Pushing Daisies

[Discloner]

Oh how I've missed my weekly dose of pie. I'm not too sure of the more complicated drama-esque center this episode was focused on, but there's still more than enough charm to make it good watchin'.

Besides...Olive as a nun? Ha! I was nearly rolling on the floor when she did her Sound of Music bit. Looking forward to more wackiness.

[The Penguin]

Where are the rest of the Pushing Daisies fans? There must be more than two of us.

It was really great having the show back and getting back into the world of Coeur d' Coeur was great. I agree that this episode was a bit more complicated that some of the others have been, but not necessarily in a bad way, there was just more going on.

All the stuff with Lily and Olive was separate from the case and with the extra reveal that Vivian was Mr. Charles fiancee just made things even more complicated. Those two ladies started as Chuck's interesting aunts and now it's this love triangle. Not what I expected.

I suppose it should be given points for not being overly simple, but even the murder case felt like it had a few more layers than I am used to (and that's not a criticism of the 'normal' cases to be clear). Great seeing French Stewart even if I was a little unclear on how he got Betty's Bees. I didn't make note of any this time out, but Emerson is still his entertaining self and what Ned did for Chuck was really nice. Bring on more episodes!

[Dogbert]

Where are the rest of the Pushing Daisies fans? There must be more than two of us.

There are more than two, but apparently not many more. Personally, I've just been too busy to be posting much lately. In what little free time I do have, I've been watching the first season on DVD, so I can't even comment on this episode as all the episodes are beginning to blur together.

Unfortunately, the ratings for this episode were horrible. Last place in just about every way possible. The ABC press release, which is 100% unadulterated spin, even had a hard time finding the silver lining. I believe their bragging related to PD beating Knight Rider among women 18-34. In other words, it came in last place, but if you really hard, you can find one event in which it placed second to last. The reactions I've seen from the ratings nerds who speculate on network decisions all the time are not good. They range from "hopefully, ABC will let it die a dignified death by funding and airing the 13 episodes ordered" to "ABC might just pay the actors and writers the contractually obligated 7 episodes and end it there." Only a small few see a brighter future (e.g., switching to a different night and getting better ratings, moving to another network, etc.).

With the DVD sales reportedly being good, I'm hoping WB finds some way to continue the series, but I'm not holding my breath.