Pushing Daisies: A possibly unpopular opinion

In a way, I really really want to love this show. It's from Bryan Fuller who, thanks to Dead Like Me and especially Wonderfalls, I'm a huge fan of. I mean, it's quirky and different and has a ship to root for in Ned/Chuck. It's smartly written and well acted by a really great cast, and it can be really funny and sweet. And I mean, I do like it. But something is holding me back from really loving it. And I think it's the cuteness factor.

Now I'm not against cute. And I know that on this show, it's all intentional, that this candy-colored world of pies and honey and mermaids and silly alliterative names is supposed to be fanciful and over the top. And I know that it's supposed to be balanced by the fact that it's essentially a murder mystery show. But I find the full effect of it to not just be cute, but aggressively cute.

I think this manifests itself the most in the mystery-of-the-week component. I just can't seem to stand all the perky babbling people involved with the mysteries each week. They sort of remind of precocious children, which is bizarre because they're all adults. And I guess it doesn't help that I don't find the mysteries all that engaging and I think they all get solved somewhat predictably.

This is kind of unfortunate because I really do like most of the main cast. I think Emerson Cod is hilarious, I like the aunts, I like Digby (and Pigby!) and even Olive has grown on me (though the Sound of Music stuff in the season premiere was way too much for me). Oddly enough, Ned and Chuck are the ones that I'm the least sure about. Their not being able to touch strikes me as sad and almost annoying instead of romantic, and individually, while Ned is adorable and awkward he's just too fragile and damaged for me to be like swooning over him, and while Chuck is likable enough, I too often see her through Emerson's eyes: a perky busybody.

So I don't know, it's definitely worth watching and is a pleasant enough way to spend an hour, but I'm not in love with it the way I thought I might be...