- "Pushing Daisies" - description from our buddies at wiki -
Pushing Daisies is a "forensic fairy tale" that focuses on Ned (Lee Pace), a piemaker with a mysterious ability to make the dead live again. The gift is not without its complications, however: if he touches this being a second time, they'll be dead permanently. If they live for more than 60 seconds, somebody else nearby will die. It's a gift that he puts in good use to help a private investigator friend, Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) and his childhood sweetheart, the once-dead Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel). Read more HERE.
This was a fun show, and very well stylized. Feature film Director Barry Sonnenfeld ("Men in Black", "Get Shorty") is an Executive Producer and also directed the 1st episode. And it really shows. It's got a funny and quirky pace to it and Lee Pace is really great as the lead. The only real problem is that I have no idea how they are going to make it interesting week after week. This is a really high concept show, but if you bottom line it I think it will be your run-of-the-mill comedy murder mystery show where Ned will help Emerson solves weird and wacky murder cases every week. It will be interesting to se how they develop a relationship between Ned and Chuck as they can never touch or she will die. The true test will be if the creators can keep that going while also staying true to the fairy tell elements in the pilot.
- "Reaper" - description from our buddies at wiki -
The story focus's on a young man named Sam Oliver (Bret Harrison). Throughout Sam's life, he always wondered why his Mom and Dad were so easy on him—whether it was sports, school, or career choices—and so hard on his brother, Keith to succeed. Because of it, Sam decides not to go to college, and takes a deadbeat job, wasting most of his time playing video games, wishing he could ask out his co-worker Andi (Missy Peregrym).
Everything changes in Sam's life once he turns 21 and finds out the reason his parents let him get by with the least possible effort was because they sold his soul to the devil before he was born. Satan (Ray Wise) explains to Sam that he must serve as his bounty hunter, tracking down souls that have escaped from Hell.
Sam is armed with "vessels" to collect the escaped souls, the first "vessel" being a Dirt Devil mini-vac. Sam finds that the work is dangerous and frightening, even with the goof ball help of his friends and fellow slackers, Bert "Sock" Wysocki (Tyler Labine), Ben (Rick Gonzalez ), and Sock's former girlfriend, Josie (Valarie Rae Miller). As bizarre as his life becomes, Sam feels good about his new found "mission", removing evil souls from the world and sending them back to where they belong. Along with his friends and his vessel of the week, Sam prepares to face his destiny as the "Reaper. Read more HERE.
Okay so "Reaper" was directed by Kevin Smith ("Clerks", "Chasing Amy") and given the material I can't say I'm too shocked. I wouldn't call Kevin Smith a stylized director by any stretch. Not that he did anything to hurt this show,it looks fine, however he didn't bring anything visually interesting to it either. This could have been directed by anyone, which is too damn bad cause there were some good opportunities for some great visuals in this show. I don't think I'd offend Kevin Smith by saying that, he knows his strongest asset is his writing and as far as the writing goes it's not too bad. Although he did not conceive the show, I'm sure he threw his 2 cents in just to spice up the script.
It's a fun show and depending on how that handle the escaped souls aspect of the show it could be really great. The pilot was 60 mins which was fine cause there was a lot of story that need to be told in the 1st episode, but this really needs to be a 30 min show, like Scrubs. An hour is gonna be way too long every week and will end up killing the show.
The stand outs in the cast are Ray Wise, from "Twin Peaks" fame, as Satan. He's creepy and funny at the same time. Also Tyler Labine as Sock is really funny. He was great in "Invasion" a few years ago and it's nice to see him on the screen again.
As always check these shows out and and let me know what you think.
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