After three episodes of Pushing Daisies I think I'm officially hooked. Last night's episode was in some ways better than the pilot, in the way it acknowledged the moral fuzziness of our heroine's resurrection and in its depiction of our hero's queasiness over his actions. Others have dissected the show's visual charms, the fun of its oddball tone, and the wonderful casting, but what struck me last might the most was how wonderfully theatrical and archly constructed the dialogue is. I've been going through the Season 3 Deadwood DVDs, and so the perhaps comparison was a natural one for me, but there's a very similar sensibility going on here in the way the dialogue is handled. So far, Daisies' dialogue isn't nearly as ornate and Shakespearean as Deadwood's, but it is getting there, with its winkingly, knowingly formal touches and odd constructions.
The other element that caught my attention last night was the score. That main theme is a great piece of writing - romantic, fairly-tale like, and yet not stereotypical or a blatant Elfman homage, as I might have expected it to be. I'll have to pay more attention next week and see if that originality and flavor extends beyond the main theme and into other underscoring.
This is the only new show I am eagerly awaiting new episodes of so far, and I hope it sticks around for a while.
Until Whenever
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