Pushing Daisies Slated For The Ax?
- Thread starter Capt_Piett
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It's got to be something of an equal importance in the great scheme of things; I'm stretching my mind for any TV show I like as much as Pushing Daisies...
To match its caliber - maybe Dexter or Lost. Brrr.
Weird that you should mention that, since Heroes is likely to be the show most likely to be resurrected directly from Pushing Daisies' demise...at least resurrected creatively if not in terms of ratings, with Fuller's help.
Heroes has become a creative dead end whereas Pushing Daisies is a creative field waiting to be tilled and nurtured for stories. Of course Heroes still has the numbers (diminished though they are) to keep going whereas Daisies never really got the chance.
It's too bad that Pushing Daisies will be doing it's namesake soon enough.
It's too bad that Pushing Daisies will be doing it's namesake soon enough.
Heroes has a premise that allows for a far wider creative range than Pushing Daisies. Ideally, I'd like to see both continue. PD could have 4-5 solid seasons but Heroes is like Star Trek: a potentially never-ending franchise. Except they messed it up. 
I dunno, I think PD has been stalled out too. I mean Ned drools over Chuck, Chuck drools back...so where are we going with this? I was willing to just wait and see but hey I never got impatient with Lost either, so I'm no guide to use for this sort of thing.
The audience bailed in droves because, let's face it, they didn't see the point and got bored. I think the show could have used a much stronger what's-at-stake factor that kicked in at the first episode of the season, to give people not just a reason to keep watching but an imperative. Chuck worrying about her aunts finding out she's alive and Olive's secrets...way too weak to serve as an imperative. I cringed watching each episode, knowing that a lot of viewers were yawning.
And that's what you need nowadays, an imperative: to FORCE people to watch. Everyone is incredibly impatient and quick to bail on a show. Hey, so am I, I've bailed on all the new shows this season besides My Own Worst Enemy and that one's a marginal-keep at best.
The audience bailed in droves because, let's face it, they didn't see the point and got bored. I think the show could have used a much stronger what's-at-stake factor that kicked in at the first episode of the season, to give people not just a reason to keep watching but an imperative. Chuck worrying about her aunts finding out she's alive and Olive's secrets...way too weak to serve as an imperative. I cringed watching each episode, knowing that a lot of viewers were yawning.
And that's what you need nowadays, an imperative: to FORCE people to watch. Everyone is incredibly impatient and quick to bail on a show. Hey, so am I, I've bailed on all the new shows this season besides My Own Worst Enemy and that one's a marginal-keep at best.
They have to stall the Chuck/Ned angle for a long time but we're still learning their history and the twists involving their parents. Heroes on the otherhand keeps rehashing the same time traveling dribble. Daisies I think suffered because of the writers strike. Just as it was getting off the ground the strike hit and then it kept going and people forgot about it. It happened to a lot of the freshman series that barely had time to get an audience let alone keep one.
I agree. These days, the audience is more to blame for the sad state of TV than the Networks. Imagine how many concepts, from Sherlock Holmes to Star Trek, would have died stillborn if older generations had been as deficit in attention span as the current one.
I'm not sure I agree with either of your points.
For one, some of the serious ratings juggernauts on TV have little to no continuity at all, let alone cliffhangers that "FORCE" people to watch. Sure, some of the shows we really get into, like Dexter, take that approach, but I'd hardly say it's a requirement.
Second, I don't think it has to do with the attention span of the viewers so much as the patience of the networks. As few as ten years ago, many shows would be given a couple of seasons to get a following, if the network execs knew they had something special. These days, it has to perform right away or it gets the axe.
For shows like Pushing Daisies, it just doesn't work that way. It spreads through word of mouth and builds a following, like 30 Rock.
If Daisies is a victim of anything, it's the strike. It was an ill-timed hiccup in the middle of what should have been a fun little ride.
Agreed. Pushing Daisies--at least what I saw of it last season before I stopped watching--is essentially a procedural with a fantasy twist. Ned raises the dead so he and his friends can solve the mystery of how they died. The problem is that people who like procedurals want at least a modicum of realism (they want to be able to believe it's real, even if DNA results are ridiculously rushed) and people who like fantasies don't want to sit through a procedural.
I was totally intrigued by PD in the beginning, but as the weeks went on I got tired of it and frustrated with it. The premise quickly got old and the love story a bit hard to swallow after a while.
Seconded. They needed a bigger hook than just "cute guy can bring people back from the dead but can't be with his true love because if he touches her, she'll be dead again." They needed an arc from the beginning.
Well, maybe so. I barely watch TV anymore, so I guess I can't say. But it seems like all I hear is how shows need to be serialized, there has to be arcs, some new secret must be revealed, a major character must shockingly die, everything you thought you knew must be proven wrong, or that episode was a waste of time because we didn't get our novelty fix.
Well, it's both. Certainly the networks seem to get quicker on the draw every year, but the audience has become very fickle as well.
True. But we're seeing here that some of the audience is getting bored with PD because "nothing is happening" except a unique show with great characters and cool stories.
Very true indeed, the strike and the hiatus did not help. But on the other hand, it's the same show in the same timeslot-- why didn't the audience come back?
Well, it's a modern day Fairy Tale-- it's not supposed to be a documentary.
Much as I love Pushing Daisies, I can't say that people who don't like it aren't smart. The color palette or the narration can grate. That's a matter of taste and there's no arguing that. But the basic dilemma of Ned/Chuck is not a story, so the only real stories are the mysteries. They are done with wonderful inventiveness, so I enjoy them. But they are farcical stories. Someone allergic to farce won't enjoy them.
As to the what's-at-stake argument, love is at stake. But we're in season two and the only twitches in that beast have been Chuck finding out about her father's true cause of death, and Chuck moving out. But the show maintains the status quo---Chuck and Ned are giddy in love but not sex. I don't think people are stupid or too insensitive to get it if they 1.) think that's moving like a snail or 2.) don't think Chuck/Ned are purer or sweeter if they don't do it.
As to the what's-at-stake argument, love is at stake. But we're in season two and the only twitches in that beast have been Chuck finding out about her father's true cause of death, and Chuck moving out. But the show maintains the status quo---Chuck and Ned are giddy in love but not sex. I don't think people are stupid or too insensitive to get it if they 1.) think that's moving like a snail or 2.) don't think Chuck/Ned are purer or sweeter if they don't do it.
^^ That's another point. The fashion today is the gritty faux realism of shows like nuBSG or The Shield or whatever. The fact that this show is in color and uses abstract storytelling elements and other artistic devices-- plus the fact that it is essentially upbeat-- is definitely a strike against it.
I look at PD as sort of a real life (as it were) Scooby Doo. The Gang has to go around solving mysteries, being put in occasional danger, and there's usually a twist in the end. Scooby Doo didn't have any overall plot or arc, and was (IMO) just as quirky.
I will be saddened if it goes off the air, but there is always the possibility that it could be picked up by another network with less limited vision than ABC has shown for it.
Personally, I care nothing at all about shows like Heros, Survivor, Lost, etc. PD is the only show I watch on ABC; if they axe it, they'll have lost me as a viewer. Not that the loss of one viewer does much, but PD is a refreshing breath of air in the drivel that most networks have on these days. Bachelor or Who Wants To Be Paris Hilton's BFF, anyone?
I will be saddened if it goes off the air, but there is always the possibility that it could be picked up by another network with less limited vision than ABC has shown for it.
Personally, I care nothing at all about shows like Heros, Survivor, Lost, etc. PD is the only show I watch on ABC; if they axe it, they'll have lost me as a viewer. Not that the loss of one viewer does much, but PD is a refreshing breath of air in the drivel that most networks have on these days. Bachelor or Who Wants To Be Paris Hilton's BFF, anyone?
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