But as witty as I found it, deep down that didn’t avert my concern that it was playing to a particular intellectual audience, and a possibly narrow one at that. But the show did reasonably well until the writers’ strike undermined it, and every other show last year. I’ll admit up front that the viewing figures suggest not, but so many shows this year have had a rocky start that I’m not ready to accept Pushing Daisies needs the Pie Maker’s touch yet. The first of the new series has a distinctly Bee theme, being about the untimely death of the fresh new face of Betty’s Bees, bee-based products operation. As this is an area of expertise for Charlotte “Chuck” Charles it gives her more to do than make goofy faces at the Pie Maker and blurt out what everyone else in a scene is thinking. She goes undercover at Betty’s Bees to determine who used the bees to kill, and bring them to justice. Meanwhile Emerson Cod creates pop-up books and the Pie Maker gets paranoid about his relationship with Chuck. Threaded between the plot to find the bee killer is the underlying secondary theme developed in the first season about secrets, and the keeping of them. Olive is full of these to the point she might burst, and so for her own sanity and Lillian “Lily” Charles peace of mind she’s convinced to enter a nunnery. In the typical hyper-reality of Pushing Daisies she arrives their in a remake of The Sound of Music complete with running across a mountainside in full voice. And that’s where we leave her, even after the bee assassin is incarcerated. So what’s my overall impression? I adore this show, its subtleties and nuances. I’m just not sure large numbers of other people get it and how clever it is, worryingly.
