With Dead Like Me, it took a little time to get used to the lead, no instant likability either, but at least she grew on you. Friel just bugs me.

The facts are these:

Pushing Daisies made a brilliant pilot that scored high in many areas. ABC executives tried to get certain aspects of the show fixed (where it scored low) and Fuller said the rest would make up for it. He bet that the exceptional STYLE would keep people around for the rest to work. He also bet on a cast member that scored extremely low. Fuller also bet heavily on “the love relationship,” hooking female viewers because it was a tragic love.

Ratings are the worst on ABC for a scripted program. ABC is currently in 3rd place among the networks.

Fuller gambled and unless some miracle happens and viewers fall out of the sky he lost.

Viewers are not relating to the show. It isn’t because dialogue is too snappy, it isn’t because the show is too smart. It isn’t that the show is too quirky. It is that they don’t buy the concept. It’s an OPINION. The people have chosen to watch something else or not at all. It happens.

Fans making absurd claims is pointless. It’s over. Move on. For every claim you fans make, I’ll make my own about it being stupid. Whose is more valid? Doesn’t matter, show is done with. Enjoy the final episodes, and if they don’t air (could happen) then enjoy the DVDs.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b66522_did_abc_just_cancel_pushing_daisies.html

First industry buzz site to mention that what I posted on here early today was true. I’m pretty sure the rumor was posted here first (and it wasn’t a rumor, it happened).

The show is over. It would take a miracle. Obviously I watch shows for a reason. That reason is tied to how I knew what Fuller was told before it was reported publicly. I can also attack a show and it’s elitist fans all I want. You guys ASK for it.

If you study history, Frost was more Romantic and used traditional forms. Whitman didn’t as much, and back then it was change.

@Alde: Survivor has been critically acclaimed. Hate it at all you want…critics didn’t.

ABC took a huge risk when they put Wednesday night as Sophomore Night. I think PD would do really fine if put after a popular ABC show.

Regardless of the IQ necessary to watch Pushing Daisies the broad audience didn’t buy in. And very clearly, men in particular were not buying in to the premise. It basically averaged a 2.9/8 with women 18-49 and women 18-34 last night, and a 3.1/8 with women 25-54. None of the younger male demos had above a 1.7, though as with women, it performed better with older males, with a 2.2/6 among men 25-54.

There is nothing about the show that is “clever,” or even smart. The mysteries are horribly dull. The show contradicts itself every episode that someone doesn’t say “whats with the animated corpse hanging out with you guys?” The Chuck character isn’t alive, but an animated corpse. No one notices? That is rather stupid.

Does it have neat sets? Sure. Is it quirky? Sure. Is it smart or clever? Nope. In fact I’d say it’s pretty stupid.

Just because I think it’s stupid doesn’t mean I don’t watch it. I’m amused by Emerson. The rest of the characters are actually rather annoying. I keep watching expecting them to fix the obvious problems, but they never do. Now I watch it like I slow down to look at a car wreck. This show is a wreck and it’s fun to watch it die a slow and painful death.

Fuller should return to Heroes and try and save it.

Smart show? I wouldn’t necessarily label this. Creative? yes. The investigation cases are boring, in a sense where you wonder why you’d care. The interactions between the character are mostly fun (especially when there’re Emerson and Oliva involved), but I didn’t find them interesting enough, enough for me to care. Ned and Chuck can’t touch? Are we ever putting them together? Writers give viewers more on why these two are so in love with one another, other than they were each other’s first kiss/childhood friends. The set decorating department and makeup dept. & rest of the crew should be creditted for the creatively. Oh, and Fuller for his concept.

Also, there is nothing that’s going on to engage the viewers to. Towards the end of last season, they did had something -Olive finding out Chuck “fake” her death, and one of the aunts is Chuck’s mother. Both secrets are in the hands of Olive, in which she tried to keep. But that suspense quickly diminished when it was resolved in the first three episode of season 2, simply with Ned telling Chuck the truth about her mother. Where did the suspense go?

I enjoy PD, but it’s not a show I’d look forward to every week (it’s still on my DVR list).

Frankly, PD is indeed too clever for the huddled masses. It is well acted and the writing is excellent! The dialogue is just too fast-paced and witty to be “understood” for certain folks, who then turn to mindless reality TV (Dancing, Survivor etc) or poorly written crime procedurals because they don’t have to think. Come on, have you listened to the dialogue of the CSI, L&O shows? A 5 year old could figure out the plot in the first 2 minutes. How come only drama cable shows received Emmy nods for writing this year? PD got a not in comedy. Sorry, these shows are dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. I’ll keep rooting for PD!

the mistake about this series was to try make a crime drama.

Also it got canceled today (well Fuller was told to make the 13th episode a Series Finale, but I suppose some miracle could happen and people watch the last few episodes, but that would take a miracle).

because it will get the boot this season

Anyway, the best thing to do is to tell your friends and family to watch this program! It went up .3 in the 18-49 demographic last night and saw a boost of nearly a million viewers. If most of these new viewers return for the next slice of pie and tell a few of their friends, you never know what could happen. If this show could capture the amount of viewers it did last night and add on a meager million more, that could be just enough to be borderline on the renew/cancel index.

Oh well, at least shows like Lost prove that there can be breakaway hits with fantasy/sci-fi elements in them. I think over the next five years we’ll see a lot more hits from this genre. I do wonder though if shows like Eureka, Reaper, and Supernatural would have been hits if they have been broadcast.

Fortunately, I have hundreds of eps of “Law & Order” to watch yet too.

(For the record, I have yet to watch a full ep of 2.5 Men. I assume I’ll catch it in reruns someday.)

As an aside, was anyone else nauseated by the following paragraph from the Watch with Kristin article?

–

TV was once a vast wasteland, but through ingenuity and small-screen spirit it has been turned into a flourishing paradise of awesome. However, if we begin to let go of revelations like Pushing Daisies on ABC, there is a very real threat to quality television as we know it. The wasteland may creep back and overtake all that is gracious and good in our living rooms every night. Join the fight against the scourge of bad TV, won’t you?

–

That’s at least partially sarcastic, right?

Right?

If we’re going for best overall network of the last twenty years, it’s definitely FOX. If you were to list every “good” to “great” show that has aired on FOX at that time, you’d be absolutely astonished by how long the roll call sheet would be. Unfortunately, FOX is no longer a risk taker and is fine with hobbling its schedule around tired animation, a giant reality show, and some meh procedurals. I guess they did indeed decide to morph into CBS Lite after having an endless stream of great shows for about three years that didn’t pan out into ratings successes….I mean, Firefly/Wonderfalls/Dark Angel/Family Guy/The Tick/Action/Andy Richter/Undeclared, etc. Can’t say FOX didn’t try although they certainly screwed up the marketing on a lot of these.