Pushing Daisies: Season 2 [Blu-ray]

Love Pushing Daisies. Too funny. Lee Pace is a phenomenal actor.

This is a show that doesn't look like it should work on paper. Ned (Lee Pace) is a pie maker who also happens to have a gift. With one touch, he can bring the dead back to life. But a second touch kills them forever. While he owns a pie restaurant that he runs with the help of Olive (Kristin Chenoweth), he moonlights helping private investigator Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) solve murders by interviewing the murder victims. In the first season, Ned kept one such victim alive. He just couldn't let childhood sweetheart Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel) stay dead. But she has to keep her life secret from Aunts Vivian and Lily (Ellen Green and Swoosie Kurtz).Yes, the set up takes a little bit to explain. But once you buy into the premise, it works. Every week, the crew takes on a new murder investigation in such locations as a circus or with magicians. Heck, they even get thee to a nunnery. They solve the murder of a modern day Robin Hood. And there's a synchronized swimmer killed by a shark.But each week also involves ongoing stories about the character's lives. As the season opens, Olive knows a secret about Chuck's mother. As things progress, Emerson hunts for his missing daughter, Ned finds some long lost relatives, and Chuck and Olive become roommates.All this leaves out my all time favorite episode of the show. "The Legend of Merle McQuoddy" makes so many references and jokes to the Disney film Pete's Dragon a fan of that movie must watch it. Adding to the fun, Jim Dale, one of the stars of that movie, is the narrator of this series.Honestly, I can't rave about this show enough. It is whimsical and fun. Each week's mystery plays perfectly into the on going storylines. The acting is perfect. The dialogue is fast and clever, leaving you hanging on every word. And it looks amazing. This show was made for HD. Trust me, this is the way to watch it.Unfortunately, the ratings for the show were poor, so the 13 episodes here represent the final episodes of the show. Because of how the show was canceled, the producers weren't given enough time to wrap everything up. Having said that, the final episode has a nice coda that left me very satisfied. Now, if only I knew how some of the dangling plots played out.If you missed this show, correct that now. Get both this and the first season. Before you know it, you'll be hooked on this quirky, intelligent, and fun show.

Not wanting to rehash all of my comments from my review of the first season. See that review for more info about the story line. I will reiterate that this is a favorite show of mine. It is comedy that is unique and stands apart. Great writing, characters, stories. A bonus... the series is only 2 seasons AND they actually wrap up the series in such a way as to leave you contented.

So, Ned has this power: With one touch he can bring something - or someone - dead back to life.Cool.But there are a few catches.First of all, if the formerly dead something or someone stays alive for more than 60 seconds something or someone else must die.Not so cool but understandable. I mean the universe must, after all, stay in some sort of balance.Secondly, once he has brought it or them back to life Ned can never touch it or them again.If he does, it or they die.This time, forever.Welcome to the second - and last - season of 'Pushing Daisies,' an absolutely delightful, Emmy winning comedy that died all too soon for its many fans.The series revolves around Ned and his unique ability, his formerly dead girlfriend Charlotte Charles - who goes by the nickname 'Chuck' - and a tight ensemble cast of friends and relatives headed by the wonderful Kristin Chenoweth and veteran character actor Chi McBride.Chenoweth plays Olive Snook, who works at Ned's restaurant. She's had a longtime crush on her boss, who makes the best pies in the city, but Ned only has eyes for Chuck. This leads to some hilarious situations and some that are downright poignant as, in this second season, she is forced to come to grips with that fact.McBride, meanwhile, plays private detective Emerson Cod, one of the very few people who know of Ned's special ability. Ned, in fact, helps Cod out on cases by reanimating dead people and asking them who, in fact, killed them. The answers aren't always clear, as you can imagine, since he only has 60 seconds at a time to explain to them that they're dead and then ask them his question.Anna Friel plays Chuck, who was murdered while on a cruise in the South Pacific. Ned has reanimated her but, of course, can't touch her again. This makes for some very intriguing scenes between the two of them and leads to more than one complication in what is already a very complicated relationship.Three things make this series really stand out, in my opinion.First: the dialogue is an amazing mix of film noir and elegance and is often spoken at a rapid pace - not too rapid, but just fast enough to add a certain amount of humor to the words.Second: Chenoweth steals virtually every scene she is in and that's saying something because Lee Pace, who plays Ned, Friel and McBride are very fine actors who can certainly hold their own in just about any scene.Finally: Series creator Bryan Fuller's comic genius is evident in every scene. His characters are appealing, the plots are grounded (despite their often-fantastic nature) and he knows how to inject just the right amount of poignancy into his writing, thereby turning what could have been slapstick into something much finer, much rarer.Shame on the corporate types for canceling this wonderful series before its time was due.

Why didn’t they continue it!!!! 🫨

Ho acquistato sia questa stagione che la prima (alla quale riporto la stessa recensione) e sono pienamente soddisfatta: ho adorato questa serie e sono felice di averla anche in dvd. Ho aspettato parecchi anni per acquistare nella speranza che prima o poi venisse rilasciata anche la versione italiana dei cofanetti, alla fine mi sono "arresa". Mi fa comunque piacere perché tanto in casa la guarderò solo io, quindi anche avere audio e sottotitoli solo in inglese non è un problema, è così che l'avevo vista anche in passato, però dispiace che così non si possa distribuire anche a un pubblico impossibilitato a fruire della visione in versione originale.Detto questo, i prodotti sono entrambi arrivati entro i tempi indicati e in condizioni integre, qualità della visione buona. Consigliato agli amanti di questo piccolo gioiellino di serie tv (sfortunatamente di breve vita per via di una congiunzione astrale non favorevole).

可愛らしい話にほっこりします

The second season of the recipe for success: great idea, deep and lovable-as-weird characters, plots half way between a fairy tale and a Lynch story and an absolutely stunning photography. One of the best series of all times.

...let us sit upon the groundAnd tell sad stories of the death of shows;How some have been erased; some slain in rating wars,Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;Some poison'd by producers: some sleeping kill'd;All murder'd...There are many ways to tell an eloquent tale of that faithful companion of life. Shakespeare did it, as well as a host of poets, writers and other artists. But no network executives. They can't write, but they do have the powers to cancel. They should never be allowed to be revived, not even for one minute, but this will only be made clear to you if you take the delightful trouble to visit the realms of a pie-maker and his troupe.What Bryan Fuller and this amazing troupe of cast & crew has accomplished is an absolute joy. Yes, it may look like a fairytale, but for once the almost disneyfied sets and props succeed where not many dared to go (Fuller has also been in the thick of Star Trek scriptwriting). This is no science fiction show, but a beautiful story, and as with many a Hans Anderson tale, it is bittersweet indeed. The 22 episodes do not only let you smile, or outright laugh, but it also shows you that death becomes us all, and that it should be accepted without too much regret.The whole thing does remind you of "Rashomon" - a story told from many points of view - and the continuity is amazing, talked together by the redoubtable Jim Dale. This superior pie-making does also remind you of "The 10th Kingdom", or "Wonderfalls", another one of Fuller's gems, also cut short, or "Dead Like Me", yet again originated by Fuller and, o my, axed as well. Do we detect a pattern here?While the cast is wonderful, special kudos must go to the petite Kristin Chenoweth, who also lighted the Leo character in "The West Wing", and won a deserved Emmy for her role in "Pushing Daisies", reminding us that she is also a very accomplished opera singer, an unsusual but delightful combination of talents, and it shows, with the glorious over-the -top parafrase of "The Sound of Music" in the "Bad Habits" episode. The whole show, by the way, is brimming with a fantastic number of references to a slew of great movies, and so does the music.Buy this set and enjoy this great fantasy of almost 17 hours of life, death and mayhem. Your only regret will be that the only way to revive this experience is to watch the series again. And you will do that, I guarantee you. Only network executives will stay dead.

Well, I loved this second season, the atmosphere, the lovable characters and the oh so witty dialogues. The stories are as original and as unexpected as in the first season, and I have to say that I have not been disappointed a bit ... We still have the impression of being in a Tim Burton / Jeunet film with the saturated colours and romantic stories. I loved the awkwardness of Ned, the liveliness of Chuck, the cynicism of Emerson Cod (and his witty jokes, his even more boorish attitude), the naivety of Olive Snook (who joins a nunnery to mend her broken heart) without forgetting Aunt Vivian's delightful way of speaking and Aunt Lily's incapacity of being with other people. The only thing I deeply regretted was that some characters started to appear (Chuck's father and Ned's father) but we don't learn more about them, which was a bit frustrating - It is really too bad that the series was cancelled and that there is no sequel. We don't have any answers as to WHY Chuck has the magic finger (probably a thing related to his father, but we can only imagine without knowing...)Pushing Daisies is to the world of series what Big Fish is to the cinema: a world full of imagination and possibilities, a modern fairy tale that you love and still think about after watching it. We want to bite into the episodes as if they were pies made by Ned. Undoubtedly like the pies he makes, the series leaves a sweet, refreshing taste in our mouth that makes us want to have some more...