We Need a Pushing Daisies Revival Now More Than Ever

In an era brimming with reboots and revivals, it’s shocking no one has attempted to revive the show about bringing back the dead. Seventeen years ago, ABC debuted Pushing Daisies, a “forensic fairytale” from Bryan Fuller.

The series centers on Ned (Lee Pace), a piemaker who could reanimate the dead with a single touch. With private detective Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), Ned uses his ability to help solve grisly, albeit comical, murder cases.

Ned’s gift comes with a catch, though. If he brings someone back to life for longer than a minute, someone else dies in their place. If he touches someone and reanimates them a second time, they stay dead forever.

This presents quite the conundrum when he reanimates his childhood sweetheart, Charles “Chuck” Charles (Anna Friel), while investigating her murder.

As the two navigate their new relationship, they must also keep Ned’s nosey employee, Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth), at bay and keep Chuck hidden from her grieving, agoraphobic aunts Lily (Swoosie Kurtz) and Vivian (Ellen Greene).

Pushing Daisies felt like a rarity in the network TV landscape. Creator Bryan Fuller flipped the police procedural on its head with something fresh and exciting.

It straddled the line between drama and comedy with its fast-paced dialogue and oddball characters. Its grotesque murders are beautifully contrasted against its lush visual design and whimsical tone. Aided by pitch-perfect narration from Jim Dale, the series employed intricate wordplay that was both silly and smart.

However, the show’s first season was cut short by the 2007 Writers’ Strike and, upon returning for its second season, it never managed to find its audience. Pushing Daisies was canceled after two seasons and twenty-two episodes.

Despite its limited run, Pushing Daisies amassed a passionate fanbase and remained a critical darling, finding itself on many “Canceled Too Soon” lists. Yet, there have only been murmurings of a revival, which is a shame because it is the show we need right now.

At a surface level, the show is an adrenaline shot of whimsy. Its brightly colored sets break through the desaturated monotony that has permeated the current entertainment landscape.

The alliterative and witty names of characters and locations feel ripped right from a storybook. Olive even breaks into song now and then.

The world of Pushing Daisies is a welcome reprieve from the dreary real world. It’s removed enough to feel like you’ve stepped out of reality without overpowering the central themes at its core. High saturation and musical numbers aside, Pushing Daisies never shies away from the heavy grief covering our characters.

Ned and Chuck are never able to fully express their love in the traditional sense. Keeping Chuck alive means a sacrifice of physical intimacy. Often throughout the show, Ned contends with the idea that he cannot show up for Chuck in any physical way and ponders if this reality is enough.

Chuck mourns the family she thought she knew. While she tries to stay connected from afar, she unearths deep family secrets that completely undo her reality.

Olive yearns for a community that constantly keeps her at arm’s length. Emerson remains on the steadfast hunt for a daughter he lost years ago. And Vivian and Lily fall into a deep depression over their seemingly deceased niece.

Try as they might, no one in this show can keep their respective skeletons buried as they grapple with loss in different ways to varying degrees of success.

But the show firmly believes that loss, while challenging, only makes the act of finding much sweeter, if not in the ways we expect. As they unpack their grief, they’re able to make room for more.

The real world grows darker with every passing second. Just five years ago, life was irrevocably changed, and normalcy went out the door with the onset of the pandemic. The world is still reeling from a collective trauma while navigating new traumas each day.

We’ve reentered the world worn down and rattled from unimaginable loss. There’s the lingering question of how one moves forward or at all when so much bad is happening in the world. Pushing Daisies firmly believes in revivals and second chances; life can go on without turning away from past trauma.

All of these characters are stuck in some way, desperate to move forward. However, none of them find a path forward until they learn to walk it hand-in-hand with their past. In a world where forward seems uncertain, this is a much-needed reminder.

They’re also all trapped behind a wall of their own design. However, throughout the run, everyone slowly whittles away at that wall and reopens themselves up to the world. They come up against all sorts of fiendish characters and death-defying scenarios, but their biggest act of bravery is believing in the world again after the world left a scar.

Pushing Daisies perfectly provides both a well-earned escape and a head-on, yet palatable confrontation of the inevitable. Like a warm blanket in the frigid winter, it doesn’t make the problem disappear; it simply helps you endure the storm.

It won’t fix the never-ending problems facing the modern world, but it may give people the comfort to push forward.

Bryan Fuller’s masterpiece shines a spotlight on death against a lavish backdrop because that is what life is. Grief is inevitable, but so is joy, and neither can flourish without the other. It’s a reminder that life can still be beautiful; in fact, life matters more because we know grief.

Pushing Daisies is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Follow us on X and on Instagram!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!