Once upon a time, television audiences across the country (and further, if you could find it online) were blessed with the most amazing show of all time for a few short years. Pushing Daisies only ran from 2007 to 2009, but in that short time, it changed all of our lives. Okay, that’s not true at all. Most people in their 20s and younger — most people in general — have never even heard of Pushing Daisies, probably because most of us were still learning how to read when it came out and never got a chance to experience it on air. Although it has mostly been forgotten by audiences, I still believe that it’s one of the best television shows of all time. Here are just a few reasons (out of many) that make Pushing Daisies so wonderful.
- The Plot
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The main reason Pushing Daisies needs to be brought back from the dead is the ridiculous plotlines. There’s no show that even comes close to how absurd the plot of the show was. The show was mainly about a baker who runs a restaurant named “The Pie Hole” and who can bring people back from the dead by touching them. But, if he ever touches them again, they die immediately with no chance of coming back to life. The series follows him and his childhood best friend (who he brought back to life), a private investigator who makes pop-up books on the side, and one of the bakery’s waitresses as they solve crimes by bringing victims back to life and asking them what happened. Every episode has an equally strange subplot, like one where they go undercover to solve the mystery of a woman who was killed by a scratch-n-sniff book explosion. I have no idea who was coming up with these plotlines, but I’m glad they did.
- The Cozy Crime
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If you’re already thinking, “there’s no way this show is for me,” because you hate true crime, think again. Pushing Daisies somehow evades the harsher realities of crime and death, despite there being multiple murders in every episode. Because there’s little to no actual violence or graphic content, the show actually has a lot more in common with the “cozy crime” fiction genre. Cozy crime, also known as “cozy mystery,” is a subgenre of crime fiction where “sex and violence occur offstage.” This means that enjoyers of cozy crime books, movies, and films don’t have to deal with the same violent and explicit themes that plague some other genres of media, such as more traditional murder mysteries. Pushing Daisies centers around death, but it’s not depressing or hard to watch. Everything always ends up working out, and the dialogue is comedic enough that you’ll forget you’re essentially watching a show about a bunch of zombies.
- The Whimsical & Overall Immaculate Vibes
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One of the best parts about Pushing Daisies is the brightly colored settings and filters. The show might be a murder mystery and center on a town that’s “teeming with cold-blooded murder,” but you would never guess that that’s what the show is about based on stills from the series. Everything in the town of Coeur d’Coeurs is brightly colored and whimsical, from the Pie Hole and funeral home where much of the show takes place to the colorful clothing and decor in every scene. Even places where it doesn’t make sense to have any color, like a convent or a cemetery, are super-saturated and almost kaleidoscopic. And it’s not just the colors that make the show interesting. From the ridiculous situations the characters find themselves in and the diverse cast of side characters, from lighthouse keepers to beekeepers, it’s easy to stay entertained. Plus, there’s a surplus of animal sidekicks, from the Pie-Hole’s resident golden retriever to crime-solving pigs, and who doesn’t love an animal sidekick?
Pushing Daisies may have ended over a decade ago, but it will be one of my favorite shows for a long time. Hopefully, after reading this article, someone else will be inspired to watch it, and I’ll finally be able to have at least one other person who understands how much I love this nonsensical and amazing show.
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