The best-looking show on any network this fall has to be ABC’s “Pushing Daisies.” In the early going, scenes unfold like fairy tales — white picket fences and golden retrievers — and colors pop as bright as imagination will allow.   (Source) The colors and the music hint something playful is about to unspool. And as we get our first look at the hero of the story — a boy frolicking with his dog — we sense happiness is in store.

Then the dog gets run over. The boy touches the dog. The dog comes back to life.

“The story actually started out as a spinoff of ‘Dead Like Me,’ and I put it in my back pocket,” said Bryan Fuller, executive producer of that little-watched, two-season, Showtime show and of “Pushing Daisies,” which he hopes will have a longer life and wider audience.

“I went into Warner Bros. and was talking about ideas to do for a new show, and I pitched them the idea of a guy who can touch dead people once and bring them back to life, and if he touches them again, they go back to being dead. Problem is, he touches a dead girl, falls in love with her and can never touch her again.”

ABC was intrigued but wanted something more.

So when “Pushing Daisies” comes to the small screen this fall, the show with cartoon colors and strange characters will be a romantic comedy but also have a “Cold Case” vibe. Our hero (now grown up) with the magic touch, played by Lee Pace, will team up with a detective (Chi McBride) and awaken the dead to find out who killed them.

That only begins to describe “Pushing Daisies,” a logic-defying fantasy filled with unconsummated romance, spinster aunts (Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz), a beautiful waitress (Kristin Chenoweth), a bit of Claymation and glorious, glorious pies.

Visually, thematically, it’s unlike anything seen on TV before, and it has won the hearts of many critics here.

Last year, Fuller was a co-executive producer of another show with fantasy elements: a little ditty called “Heroes.” He could’ve stayed with that show and spent his free time counting his money.

“I was writing episode 17 of ‘Heroes’ at the same time I was writing the ‘Pushing Daisies’ pilot,” he said.

He faced what he called “a win-win situation,” in which he could stay with that success or go in a new direction. He went for the daisies.

With wacky characters and lovebirds who cannot kiss, lest they die, is he trying to comment on pop culture or the state of sex in America? Is there an agenda he’s pushing?

“My motivation really was just to do something fun,” he said. “I think talking about relationships and the nature of relationships is something that a lot of fun can be had with.”

(Source)