Bryan Fuller's Inevitable Failure: Pushing Daisies: The Complete First Season

The Good: Moments of acting and general concept
The Bad: Terribly repetitive, Very limited concept, Not terribly funny or dramatic
The Basics: A thoroughly average series hits DVD with an anemic first season that holds up poorly over multiple viewings.


Bryan Fuller is a writer and producer whose work I respect immensely. Fuller was one of the geniuses behind the clever and dark dramedy Dead Like Me and later Wonderfalls (reviewed here!). He has a loyal fan base for good reason: his shows might be short-lived, but they tend to be clever, character-intensive and have something impressive to say about the human condition. So, if anything, I was eagerly awaiting Pushing Daisies when it debuted as part of the troubled 2007-2008 television series.

By the time the Complete First Season of Pushing Daisies debuted with its nine episodes on DVD, I was already tuned out. Having given it a chance again on DVD, I renew my apathy toward the series and for a while I felt bad about that. Now, I'm mostly just bored and largely it is because series creator Bryan Fuller has created a series that has such limited potential that it was largely doomed from its first episode. Indeed, when I watched the pilot with a friend, when it was over, she just shrugged and said, "Yeah, how long can they keep that up?!" And she was right; by the end of the first season, the strain in the concept has already been stretched well beyond capacity.

Ned is a decent guy who lives as a pie maker baking pies and fending off the advances of his neighbor and coworker, Olive Snook when the love of his life - his childhood neighbor - Chuck (Charlotte, actually) is murdered. As a private detective named Emerson Cod investigates Chuck's murder, Ned gets access to the body and reveals a skill he possesses: he can resurrect the dead with a single touch. Unfortunately, reviving the dead in this fashion comes with two consequences: he must put the dead to rest with a second touch within a minute or someone nearby will die and if the person he resurrects is kept undead, he may never touch them again or else they will die.

Thus, Ned resurrects Chuck and quickly finds that she shares his feelings for her, but given that he cannot touch her, things become complicated. Also complicating their budding relationship is Olive, who wants Ned for her own and Chuck's aunts, Vivian and Lily, who she misses dearly. Soon, though, Emerson sees the benefit to Ned's gift in his business as a p.i. and he enlists Ned to aid him on high-profile cases with fantastic rewards. Soon, the gang is balancing pie making with detective work in a somewhat ridiculous romance where a man has a second chance at love, provided he never touches the woman he adores.

The nine episodes of the first season of Pushing Daisies tend to be rather formulaic with Emerson getting a case that Ned's ability has the potential to make much easier and solvable. Ned is enlisted, the pair discovers that things are actually more complicated and with Chuck and/or Olive "assisting" the case gets solved. Cases include such things as an environmentally beneficial car that seems to be using corpses as crash test dummies, the murder of jockeys - with Olive being a potential target -, and a novelist whose scratch-and-sniff book blows up in his face. There are some twists and turns, like a dog breeder who has four wives and a candy store that opens up to threaten the business at the Pie Hole, but largely, these are fairly common and unsurprising murder mysteries for those who are fans of the genre.

Unfortunately, the concept is rather quickly realized. Ned can take Chuck with him in his car, provided they are separated by a significant barrier (in this case, a plexiglass wall he has installed between the driver's side and passenger side). Ned can hide Chuck in his apartment and they can lay near one another, provided they have enough barriers between them. They can even kiss, so long as there is plastic wrap keeping their lips apart. The only real complication of interest is that soon Ned discovers that for some reason Olive is immune to his death/life touch . . .

Unlike most of Fuller's works, Pushing Daisies is more gimmick and plot oriented than actually character-driven. In Dead Like Me, the Reapers had limitations and taking souls was a conscious act, preventing exactly the type of mishaps that occur in this series. Similarly, Jaye in Wonderfalls might be plagued with prophetic abilities, but the underlying question that caused the series to move - "what if divine forced were truly talking to someone in modern times?" - gave Jaye and the writers of the series virtually limitless options to explore. In Pushing Daisies, the limitations are all concept-based and playing it out offers very finite options and ultimately, the series must create a story that is always mired in frustration or defy its own tenants. Indeed, given that the series is billed as a dramedy, odds are it will not surprise the viewer by turning devastatingly tragic by having Ned accidentally re-kill Chuck. So, instead, the characters plod along somewhat formulaically.

In the first season, the principle characters are:

Ned - The pie maker, he has a secret which involves the way he first discovered his ability and inadvertently killed Chuck's father. Having gotten a chance to spend his life with his childhood love, Ned takes the chance and he now surrounds himself with a woman and a dog whom he can never touch. He resists his neighbor's advances and clear interest in him and allows himself to be impressed into Emerson's service as a detective where he uses his ability to resurrect the dead to find out clues to murders,

Emerson - A private detective who quickly determines that Ned might be his key to an early and happy retirement, he opts to keep Ned and Chuck's secret in order to solve cases and make himself wealthy. Soon, though, he develops a genuine affection for Ned,

Chuck - Finding herself resurrected after more or less figuring out she was killed, she misses her guardians who raised her. She and Ned reconnect quickly and she refuses to be kept hidden as his plaything and she joins Emerson and Ned on many cases to keep herself busy and happy,

Olive - Ned's neighbor and employee at the Pie Hole, she has an obvious love of Ned. She is a former jockey and is known to break out into song while baking. She quickly becomes both jealous of Chuck and more curious about Ned,

and Vivian and Lily - Chuck's eccentric, shut-in aunts who were part of a mermaid act until one lost an eye. They take Chuck's death hard.

Pushing Daisies is further hampered by a narrator who provides voice-overs on every episode and that's just annoying. The stories are largely clear enough that the viewer can understand what is going on without being told what we are already seeing on screen. Fuller and his creative team take a pretty obvious concept and then spend time each episode explaining it more and it is insulting to the viewers.

Given that there are no great leaps of character, the best Pushing Daisies can hope for in most episodes is that the actors will do their best with the material they are given. Kristen Chenowith plays Olive with the same enthusiasm and perkiness she seems to have in every role and the addition of her musical talents (something she was diversifying into professionally between her time on The West Wing and the premiere of this series) seems more like an actor choice than an actual necessity to making the character or show work.

Similarly, Lee Pace plays Ned much the same way he played his character on Wonderfalls. He's good, but the performance is nothing extraordinary or different. Pace plays good guy well but this role uses the talents we have already seen him portray. In fact, on the acting front, it is Chi McBride who is most impressive for going a different place than one has seen from the actor before. McBride plays Emerson and he does it with a stiffness that is very different from his portrayal of principal Steven Harper on Boston Public or his businessman on the first season of House, M.D.

Ultimately, though, Pushing Daisies is a limited concept show that is played out well before the end of the second episode. As I write this, the second season of Pushing Daisies is on-the-bubble for cancellation and for those who are thinking of picking this set up, I'd advise patience: odds are, a "Complete Series" boxed set will be available sooner as opposed to later.

For other works featuring Kristen Chenowith, please check out my reviews of:
The Pink Panther
Stranger Than Fiction
The West Wing - Season 6
The West Wing - Season 7
Four Christmases

5/10

For other television reviews, please be sure to visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Let’s Go To Prison Is Funny Viewing After Viewing.

The Good: Deliciously crass, Funny, Generally original
The Bad: Light on character, Light on acting, Light on DVD bonus features
The Basics: Funny and decent over multiple viewings, Let’s Go To Prison is more crude humor than social commentary and more average than extraordinary.


If it seems like my quest to watch all of the movies that have won Best Picture has been broken up by a rather obscure collection of movies, this is because my partner and I have vastly different standards and desires for our movies. She has absolutely no interest in joining me on going through all of the movies that won Best Picture and I have a pretty strong desire to make peace and spend time with her. So, when she picks the film we will watch for a night, she dips into her collection and we end up seeing a ridiculous comedy, like Let’s Go To Prison.

To be fair, Let’s Go To Prison is a movie I have wanted to see because I have heard some pretty wonderful things about it. All I honestly knew about it going into the film was that it featured Will Arnett and that everyone who I know who has seen it has said it was hilarious, including my partner. Having now seen it twice, I agree the film is funny, but like a lot of comedies the humor does not hold up incredibly well upon multiple viewings. While I appreciate the film, Let’s Go To Prison is actually a fairly average comedy. It is good, but it trades quite a bit on shock value for humor and as a result holds up less well than the initial impact might suggest.

John Lyshitski is a petty criminal who is busted rather early in his life for a minor infraction and he ends up going to juvenile detention, thanks to judge Nelson Biederman III. After a life in and out of prison, Lyshitski serves his last sentence and ends up on the outside ready to perform acts of revenge against the judge whom he feels has robbed him of most of his life. Unfortunately for him, Biederman III has died and Lyshitski decides to revenge himself upon Nelson Biederman IV. High strung and needing medication, Biederman IV breaks into a pharmacy and his expensive legal team refuses to back him, so Nelson Biederman IV is sentenced to prison. Feeling bad, but seeing an opportunity to continue his torment of Biederman, Lyshitski gets himself arrested and sentenced to the same place as Biederman.

On the inside, Lyshitski appears to befriend Biederman while tormenting him as much as possible. Lyshitski arranges for Biederman to become the "property" of Barry, the resident hulking, yet sensitive guy. As Biederman tries to wrangle with his legal team to get set free, Lyshitski continues to pay off others to beat on his nemesis. But in a freak accident, Biederman kills the head of the jail's white supremacists. This makes Biederman the new alpha in the prison yard and he and Lyshitski come to blows, which puts them in a dangerous position when the chief jailer arranges a fight to the death between them.

Let’s Go To Prison is funny, but it is frequently crude. Much of the humor is very stereotypically masculine, with jokes being filthy and revolving around crude sex jokes ("Did you have to put a finger up my ass?" "No. . . but it happened") and surprise violence, like Biederman getting punched in the face abruptly. The humor is, fortunately, not as violence oriented as something like Observe And Report. But, most of the humor hinges on being gross or shocking for how far over the line it appears ready to go.

The most unsettling incident of this type of humor comes when Biederman first visits Barry's cell. In that scene, the viewer clenches for the inevitable bit of rough prison sex that has been telegraphed from almost the first moment Barry entered the film. Here, though, is where Let’s Go To Prison actually manages to be surprising for a film of its type. Instead of being predictable and horrific, the scene is resolved with an anticlimax that is far funnier. This is one of the scenes that actually holds up better on the second or third viewing as the viewer knows that the tension is playing out for a wonderful punchline, as opposed to something truly excruciating.

But Let’s Go To Prison is otherwise a remarkably straightforward movie with little to no actual character development. Lyshitski is an unlikable protagonist and his desire for revenge upon the Biederman family is cruel and often ridiculous. As well, Biederman the Fourth is hardly likable as he is constantly stressed and yelling at everyone until the moment he is imprisoned and broken. And then, the viewer's reaction to Biederman's plight is much more a generic human reaction to seeing suffering than actually empathizing with Biederman on a specific character level. Biederman suffers and we do not feel he deserves it, but we also do not care much for him as a person as he was not much of a decent guy before he was arrested.

In this regard, the surprise of Let’s Go To Prison comes in how likable Barry ultimately is. The giant who appears to menace Biederman is actually all he appears to be. He's a sweet guy who is looking to rehabilitate and find love in the world. As such, he actually becomes a surprisingly decent character by the standards of being a positive gay character. Unlike most prison movies with gay sex being the result of loneliness or hate, Barry is motivated by exactly what he appears to be: love. He's smitten with Biederman and this leads him to take the risks he does for him.

Barry is played by Chi McBride and were it not for Waiting. . . (reviewed here!), this would probably have been a shockingly different role for McBride, who is often cast in dignified roles. But he makes the role of Barry work and he illustrates just what a great actor he can be by selling the role perfectly. Unfortunately, the rest of the acting is more the result of inspired casting than anything else. Will Arnett is essentially replaying Gob - his Arrested Development (reviewed here!) character - in a new setting. As well, Dax Shepard, who plays Lyshitski, is playing what he virtually always plays, a twentysomething slacker who is pretty much the worst stereotype of characters that age. Having seen very few things with Shepard, it is disappointing how familiar his performance here seems.

On DVD, Let’s Go To Prison is presented in an unrated form so the language and sex-jokes are pretty explicit. However, one of the bonus features allows viewers to see the original version of the film. Outside that, the only bonus features are fairly explicit deleted scenes and they are VERY funny. Anyone who enjoys the rest of the film will love the bonus scenes.

Let’s Go To Prison is a fun comedy, but it is very average. While it is one of my partner's favorite movies, I enjoy it, but it is objectively far more ordinary than than it is extraordinary. Still, it is worth watching; those who like it will find it is worth the buy as it does stand up over multiple viewings.

For other works featuring Dax Shepard, please check out my reviews of:
Parenthood - Season 1
Old Dogs
Baby Mama
Without A Paddle

6/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Waiting For The End And A Purpose: The Terminal Leaves Me Unimpressed.

The Good: Likable protagonist, Generally good acting, Interesting initial plot
The Bad: Ridiculous turn of antagonist, Pacing, Plummets into boring
The Basics: As a man caught in an administrative crack, Viktor Navorski is forced to live in an airport, with consequences that quickly become dull and uncompelling in The Terminal.


It is easy to see, after the first half hour of The Terminal why this movie did not generate boatloads of money to help United Airlines. According the the trivia before the movies open, Steven Spielberg has been quoted as saying "Most movies have a beginning and just keep beginning." Spielberg doesn't know when to end movies. Like A.I. (reviewed here!), The Terminal drags on and on after the first half hour, begging the viewer to ask "Why am I still sitting here?"

The Terminal begins with real potential, more than I would have thought. Viktor Navorski arrives at JFK Airport in New York City and learns that his nation has become engulfed in a civil war. As a result, there is no legitimate nation of Krakozha and thus his passport is no longer a legal passport. Without a legal passport, he may not get a visa to enter the United States and he is forced to reside within the confines of the airport terminal.

Navorski is sentenced to live in the terminal by Frank Dixon, a field agent with the Department of Homeland Security. Dixon is simply doing his job, which is waiting out the Krakozhian civil war so that Navorski may either return home or enter the United States. The main problem with the film develops when Dixon becomes obsessed with Navorski's presence. Navorski is not harming anyone, he is not a nuisance in any real way, and is not even terribly conspicuous. Dixon becomes determined to pass the Navorski problem onto someone else, though Navorski is not a problem anyone would notice except the Department of Homeland Security.

For example, at JFK, there is are carts that may be used to aid passengers in transporting their luggage. Unfortunately, most people do not bring the carts back to their designated areas. So, there is a system that rewards those who do bring the carts back with a quarter. Navorski soon realizes that if he rounds up the carts and returns them all, he can make enough money to buy food at the Burger King within the terminal. Dixon sees Navorski doing this and, rather than tacitly approve of it, he thwarts Navorski's efforts by hiring a new staffmember whose sole job is to return the carts to where they belong. Dixon's determination to rid the terminal of Navorski climaxes in the most over-the-top way and then senselessly disappears.

In short, The Terminal suffers greatly from a forced antagonist that, in the final analysis, makes little to no sense. And the film does not need a man vs. man conflict, the piece would work extraordinarily well as a man vs. society piece. But Dixon does not simply represent the overbearing society created by the Department of Homeland Security, he reveals personal ambition and a serious emotional stake in getting rid of Navorski.

And then there's the romantic subplot. While residing in the airport, Navorski falls for a flight attendant named Amelia. The relationship between Navorski and Amelia is far less interesting than the relationships Navorski makes to survive in the airport, like his relationship with janitor Gupta.

What does work is the acting. Catherine Zeta-Jones is well-used as Amelia and she manages to not steal the scenes she is in. In fact, it is more a movie displaying the talents of Stanley Tucci. Whatever the faults with the character of Frank Dixon, Tucci portrays him well and with as much consistency as the script will allow. Tucci plays reasonable very well and, while it is inconsistent with the established character, he is able to make over-the-top anger seem very realistic.

The film rests on Tom Hanks, though and he delivers as usual. Hanks appears somewhat bloated and only slips out of character once when yelling. The majority of the movie, he looks like Ed O'Ross (Nikolai from Six Feet Under) and his transformed body language and accent work quite convincingly to establish his character.

Even Hanks cannot save The Terminal, though. The idea is not bad, but the execution of it is. Spielberg and the film's writers try to create intrigue by providing Navorski with a reason for wanting to come to New York City, clouding it in the peanut can he carries with him constantly. The problem is, by the time we learn what is in the can, it is almost impossible to care. The movie has stretched on for far too long.

And once we do learn why Navorski is in New York City, it makes even less sense that he would be willing to stay in the terminal as opposed to making a run for the City outside. The last half hour of the movie is an uncompelling plodding experience to try to resolve all of the plot and character aspects introduced earlier in the movie. The problem is, by the time they start to be resolved, Dixon is ridiculously villainous and the rest of the aspects seem far too removed from our interest to be compelling.
The Terminal lures the viewer in with a deceptively good beginning that quickly takes a turn toward the boring and ultimately the disappointing. There are better Spielberg and Hanks films. There are a lot of movies that are better. Period.

For other films with Zoe Saldana, please check out my reviews of:
Columbiana
Avatar
Star Trek

4.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movies I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Waiting . . .: A Fairly Lame Comedy With Some Truly Universal Moments!

The Good: Moments of humor, One or two acting moments
The Bad: Predictable, Inconsistently funny, Predictable character arcs, Derivative
The Basics: Waiting . . . presents a dark comedy about servers at a restaurant, the abuse they put up with and the games they play in order to stay sane.


I have a theory . . . it goes something like this: whether or not I think the movie is the best thing Kevin Smith has ever done, there is a whole generation of moviemakers who watched Clerks and decided they wanted to be Kevin Smith. To be fair, this is not the worst thing in the world, nor is it the most original or welcome. The thing is, Kevin Smith is quite an adequate Kevin Smith and we remain thrilled with his jokes. I, for one, feel like so long as there is a Kevin Smith out in the world making movies, we do not need people like Rob McKittrick making movies like Waiting . . . that are essentially non-Kevin Smith (but might as well be Kevin Smith) movies.

McKittrick's Waiting . . . would be fine and original if it did not have so many obvious Kevin Smith conceits, the foul-mouthed potheads, the lovelorn worker who is happy in his rut, the restless worker who is not cool with his station in life and the near-constant dick and fart jokes. McKittrick essentially remakes Clerks in a family dining restaurant with the same universal sense that Clerks had for convenience stores. In other words, despite the Kevin Smith conceits, Waiting . . . has the same sensibility to it such that anyone who has ever worked at a restaurant will be able to pull out which characters remind them of people in their lives and experiences, much the way Clerks reminded people who worked in convenience stores of their experiences there.

On Mitch's first day at Shenaniganz family restaurant, he is plagued with watching innumerable videos, and he meets Monty and is introduced to the other servers and cooks at the restaurant. He is also introduced to a foul game involving revealing his genitals to other workers and accusing them of being gay in order to pass the time. As Monty shows Mitch the ropes - and considers seducing the not-quite legal Natasha - Dean comes to work where he is offered a promotion by the restaurant's manager, Dan.

As Dean mopes through his day trying to figure out if he wants to take the promotion and stay at Shenaniganz, he considers where other graduates from his class are now. As customers abuse the female servers and the cooks work to have sex with other servers, Dean muses on how good his friends truly are and what he wants out of life.

Here's the thing, I suspect that people who might like Waiting . . . are probably creative enough to watch something like Clerks and empathize with the protagonists in that movie. I honestly doubt that there was a huge market of people who sat and scratched their heads watching Clerks and said, "This is good, but I just don't see the struggles like I had at that restaurant; I wish someone would make a movie like this, but put it in a restaurant setting!" Similarly, I doubt there was a huge audience of people scratching their heads and saying, "I wonder when Anna Faris and/or Ryan Reynolds will get work again . . . I'd sure love to see them in a movie again!"

The thing is, it is more than the presence of T-Dog and Nick, the pot-smoking, whippet using busboys who curse their way through their few scenes like utter degenerates that makes Waiting . . . derivative of Clerks. The Monty and Dean friendship is an unlikely pairing between an utter loser and a guy with real potential. The character arc of Dean is virtually identical to that of Dante in Clerks. The style of humor where jokes focus on sexual insecurities and genitalia or gross-out humor is virtually identical as well.

To be fair to writer-director Rob McKittrick, Waiting . . . does have more characters and the female characters have a bit more direction and presence than in Clerks. While some are pretty much just sex objects in this film and Amy whines her way through the film, Serena holds her own and the angry Naomi is distinctive. Even Natasha, who seems to be another kitten in the crew, has a strong sense of presence, even if her desire to lose her virginity as a seventeen year-old to the much older Monty is not the most positive character arc.

But to be realistic, much of Waiting . . . is just a bunch of late teens and twenty-somethings drinking, getting high, getting laid and messing with customers who they complain about in the worst possible language when in the back room. Waiting. . . continues a cinematic trend of movies that continue to illustrate twenty year-olds living below their potential and existing in a way where they are content to stagnate. This type of humor gets old quickly and the characters are tiresome.

In Waiting . . . there are few surprises and much in the way of gross-out humor, like when the cooks doctor a plate of food after a customer complains about it using such things as body hair, spit and dandruff. Gross. And while there is some vicarious satisfaction to be gleaned from the working person getting one over on the annoying customers, it is disturbing to think of how such things could happen at any point in a restaurant. But in the tradition of such movies, the customer here is always wrong and the customer is always annoying, abusive and vocal about their contempt for the help in such a way that they pretty much deserve what they are getting.

As for the acting, Waiting . . . is hardly anything extraordinary. Anna Faris, who gets second billing, is adequate in what is little more than a cameo. Justin Long holds his own as Dean, but he gives nothing his fans have not seen before. He had far more realism and gravitas in Dreamland and his comedy in Waiting . . . does little more than his Mac computer ads. Chi McBride, David Koechner and Luis Guzman lend some sense of maturity and presence to the movie, though only McBride escapes the film with a sense of dignity to his performance.

It is Ryan Reynolds who carries much of the film and he does it quite well, though this role hardly expands on his comedic acting abilities. Indeed, Reynolds is more a product of casting to the type than challenging the actor. Reynolds deadpans and glances his way through the film in a way that reminds casual viewers how he became popular, as opposed to making the viewer think "Wow, he's got talent!"

Ultimately, the problem with Waiting . . . is that it is hardly original enough and while anyone who has worked at a restaurant may be able to pick their friends out of the film, there is little entertainment outside the reminiscing for the rest of us.

For other works with Ryan Reynolds, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Change-Up
Green Lantern
The Proposal
X-Men: Wolverine
Blade: Trinity

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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