Counterterrorism units and crime-scene investigators still clock in for work on TV, but one network in particular is convinced audiences are eager for escapism. “I can’t watch ‘24.’ It’s just depressing,” said Bryan Fuller, creator of this fall’s most anticipated series, the pleasurable and candy-colored “Pushing Daisies” on ABC. “I don’t want to see terrorism.”

Hefty ratings for more fanciful shows, and the decline and shifting emphasis of Fox’s “24,” suggest he’s not alone. Jack Bauer will fight global warming this year, but viewers may already have moved on.

Instead, magical realism is taking hold in primetime.

“Pushing Daisies” is the most different-looking pilot in years. It’s an hour full of wonder, an invented universe introduced to newcomers in fairy-tale fashion, complete with narrator. “Daisies,” which debuts in October, fits the category of magical realism alongside such recent film explorations as Tim Burton’s “Big Fish” and the French fable “Amélie,” and in the vein of literary creations by Gabriel García Márquez.

Clearly, the desire to detach is driving a recent uptick in magical stories. Distinct from sci-fi and devoid of time-travel or standard-issue superheroes, works of magical realism tend to be rooted in mundane reality but with leaps of the fantastical. Characters in “Pushing Daisies” don’t fly; they bake pies. But they live in an amped-up, fairy-tale setting.

The Lord of the Rings tales, the Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series attest to the strength of the fantasy genre (possibly to be joined by this weekend’s “Stardust,” another fairy-tale movie about a quest in a magical realm packed with A-list stars such as Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro).

“Pushing Daisies” plants an overarching mystery at its core, then romps around a love relationship with a fantastical (metaphorical?) overlay: Mild-mannered Ned has the ability to bring his childhood sweetheart back to life.He loves her, she loves him, but if he touches her again, she dies. In fact, by the rules of this universe, anything dead that he touches comes back to life, but if he touches it again, it dies for good.

The show’s creator is already talking about Saran Wrap kisses.

Lee Pace (”Wonderfalls”) as the well-intentioned pie-maker Ned, and Anna Friel (on Broadway in “Closer”) as his oddly named girlfriend Chuck, are adorable in the roles.

Deflecting a question about the script’s underlying allusion to celibacy, Fuller said the dilemma is really about intimacy.

Like a sunny version of “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events,” the distinct universe created here is rooted in reality, with heightened, oddball elements, blurring the line between the actual and the fantastical.

“Daisies” is light and bright, self- consciously so, but it’s not all sweetness.

The tone, Fuller said, will strike a balance between sweetness and “a little bit of darkness, but darkness not in any way that is too morbid or depressing.” There will be murders for Ned and Chuck to solve, but they’ll be closer in style to “Beetlejuice” than “CSI.”

A number of shows this fall will deal in fantasy. NBC and Fox have time-travelers in “Journeyman” and “New Amsterdam,” the CW has an imaginative dramedy titled “Reaper” in which the devil is prominent, NBC has “Bionic Woman” - but “Daisies” is the most light-hearted of the lot.Todd Sodano, who teaches in Syracuse University’s television-radio-film department, believes the emotional aftermath of 9/11 has played a significant role in the recent surge of fantastical/magical stories on television.

“Stories and plots imbued with escapist fantasies have become more prevalent. They’re fresher … but also safer,” Sodano says.

Beyond the fact that they provide an escape from an uncertain world, Sodano suggests, “the escapism we are seeing on broadcast television is also an escape, perhaps, from having to try to tell the stories that the cable networks are unafraid of telling.”

That is, the broadcast networks can’t match the “edginess” of Tony Soprano the mobster, Tommy Gavin the firefighter or Dexter the serial killer of HBO, FX and Showtime. So magical realism is a smart alternative.

Like “Desperate Housewives” and “Ugly Betty,” two other series on ABC that successfully serve hyper-colored, escapist and mostly sweet entertainment, “Pushing Daisies” is a break from television’s thrillers, cops, secret agents and terrorist cells.

If it clicks, phantasmagoria may be the new dramedy; fairy tales may be this year’s serials.

While the network likes to call “Daisies” a procedural with a closed-end story each week, that’s just a marketing ploy to ease viewers weaned on “Law & Order” and “CSI.” The creator rightly nails the series as a fairy tale.

“We can use that style of the fairy- tale show to tell thematic, metaphoric stories,” Fuller said.

His early influence was “The Twilight Zone,” he said.

“That was a show that went to all sorts of different places and never felt the obligation to ground it in our reality but told stories about characters - most of them were one-act plays that had fantastical elements.”

Because they are less afraid of the word “procedural,” ABC is pumping the show that way. Still, the network seems to have found a defining style in magical realism: Escapist, artfully directed fairy-tales with distinct, bold looks. From the brilliantly colored offices of Mode magazine on “Ugly Betty” to the eye-popping palette of Wisteria Lane on “Desperate Housewives,” to the storybook landscape of “Pushing Daisies,” they’re banking on the audience’s desire to disconnect from grim reality.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld (”Men in Black”) said the color palette is “saturated,” intentionally cranked off the normal scale.

“Daisies” goes so far as to use a narrator - Jim Dale, the famous voice of the Harry Potter audio books - to emphasize the surreal storytelling style. The cast is overloaded with Broadway talent, namely Kristin Chenoweth, Ellen Greene, Swoosie Kurtz and Anna Friel.

“There is something a little bit theatrical, I think, about our show. It takes place in the real world, but a very special version of the real world,” said producer Dan Jinks. And, yes, these musical theater pros may sing at some point.

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