frelling_tralk | (no subject)

Bryan Fuller shows can be a bit mixed for me in that I LOVED Dead Like Me, while Wonderfalls I was more meh on. But after enjoying Hannibal I decided to give Pushing Daises a shot. The visuals were certainly beautiful, but I found that I couldn't really connect to it. Everything seemed a bit too unreal and artificial, especially with the narration. In fact the narrator listing everyone's age down to the minute really got on my nerves!

I wouldn't say that I hated it, and I can certainly see why people would find it charming (hee it was quite jarring to go straight from watching Breaking Bad season 4 to this show), but I wanted to like it more than I actually did I suppose. The premise and how it was all put-together was interesting, and I did like the characters, but at the same time I don't really see myself watching any of the episodes again. Just a bit too whimsical for me I'm afraid. I think I just related more to how miserable and cynical George was on DLM to be honest :P

It has made me want to rewatch Dead Like Me actually! Hmm Pushing Daises had similar themes with Chuck being unable to contact anyone from her previous life, although I understood it less in the case of Pushing Daises as her aunt's would surely have accepted it if they saw Chuck with their own eyes? At least DLM had George attempt to contact her mother, and the show giving us the explanation that she looked completely different now and wouldn't be able to find the right words anyway, but with PD it just felt a bit Idk..mean? to not let the aunt's know that their beloved niece was still around. There were several moments they played as gasp-worthy with the aunt's about to find out, but I was rooting for them to actually see Chuck in those moments, which seemed to go against the grain of what the show wanted you to feel?

Oh and totally random, but I am distraught that they killed off Reggie's character on Hannibal!! The character crossover from DLM is cool, but it's so sad to think of Joy losing both of her daughters. I always really liked Reggie too ("I was told there would be cookies"), her scenes with George were about the one saving grace of the DLM movie.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

aw I never watched Dead Like Me, but I always sort of wanted to! I liked Pushing Daisies, but I feel like I barely remember it, lol. It definitely had a specialized feel to it, not to general tastes.

(I did love Wonderfalls, though)

It was disappointing because I could appreciate what a beautifully done series it was and why it was so special to people, but I just wasn't feeling it at all

And I highly recommend Dead Like Me! It's a wonderful show that combines comedy and tragedy as we follow recently killed 18 year old George growing up and finding herself through becoming a Grim Reaper. Plus exploring the impact her death had on her parents and her little sister

I miss Dead Like Me so much. I like most of Bryan Fuller's shows. But I don't have a real interest in watching Hannibal. But I'm a fan of Wonderfalls,Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me.

I loved DLM, but I just can't seem to connect to the other two shows for some reason

Hmm. :/ I guess there isn't much you can do though if you can't seem to connect with the other two shows. You can't force yourself to get into those shows. You know?

Yeah I did give it until the end of season 1, but it just wasn't clicking for me

Yeah. That's okay though. I tried to watch Downton Abbey twice and nothing. lol. So I figured Downton Abbey just wasn't for me.

Ugh, you too? Thank. I got through a few episodes of Pushing Daisies and just had no desire to see any of it ever again, lol? It's not that it was bad at all, but SO saccharine jfc. I also didn't care for how much the show kept pushing the ~epic love~ of Chuck/Ned. Just, too sentimental for my taste. DLM FTW, end.

Exactly the same for me! I could appreciate that there was a real undercurrent of darkness underneath all of that with Ned's character having such a tragic backstory, Chuck being brought back from the dead and her Aunt's grief etc, but the surface level sweetness just really left me grasping for any character to relate too when it felt more like I was watching some cutesy storybook or something

Whereas I *adore* Wonderfalls (my parents live about forty minutes from Niagara Falls, above and beyond my adoration of Caroline Dhavernas in the lead role) and quite like Pushing Daisies, with its very deliberate and charmingly stylized feel. Hannibal shows such a different side of Fuller's work, though I'm really liking it too -- looking forward to rewatching the whole season with my husband, who's been putting it off but claims enthusiasm. Saw Dead Like Me once, didn't get it; might rent it at some point in the future.

I'm trying to remember why I didn't like Wonderfalls much. I liked the characters, but I wasn't crazy about a lot of the quicky episode plots from what I recall. It was another show I didn't hate, but have no real urge to watch the episodes again. I did enjoy Caroline's performance though, I was thrilled to see her again on Hannibal

I would recommend giving Dead Like Me another shot if you enjoyed both PD and Wonderfalls :) The main character George isn't all that dissimilar from Jayne in that they're both pretty aimless and searching for direction in life, and learn to appreciate the world around them more and helping other people through the supernatural event that happens with them

Edited 2013-06-11 11:45 (UTC)

Dead Like Me is my all-time favorite show & I loved Pushing Daisies (so of course it got cancelled lol). But I can get why people don't connect with PD, it sort of chokes on its own whimsy. I've never watched Wonderfalls, I should probably check it out, I've always been curious about it. I just cannot with Hannibal (I have this irrational...~thing~...when it comes to the mere idea of cannibalism lol), but I would've liked to have seen Reggie, it seems like forever since I've seen her in anything.

There's an interview with Bryan Fuller on the extras of one of the Pushing Daisies DVD's where he said he initially planned to have Ned the Piemaker be a character on DLM...he'd bring people back to life & mess with the reapers (and I *think* he mentioned that Ned would be a love interest for George, but don't quote me on that), but he never got the chance since the show was cancelled so unexpectedly, so he saved the character for PD. /fun useless factoid lol

It actually wasn't the same actress playing Reggie, it was an actress who played the little girl in My Girl. But the character was called Reggie Lass and Bryan confirmed on twitter afterwards that she was meant to be the same character

And that's interesting! Honestly I'm not sure how much influence Bryan had on DLM after the first few episods, he seems really annoyed about all of the ideas he couldn't carry out before he left (or was removed?) from the project

They killed her off without even using the same actress?! That's really sticking it to the show and the fans. That's it, no more Bryan Fuller shows for me.

They killed Reggie!? Well, that just has me lose patience entirely with Bryan Fuller. Particularly after that sickly-sweet Pushing Daisies crap and his turning to dreck like the Hannibal Lecter franchise.

The DLM movie was awful.

Which shows of his have you been a fan of?

And yeah I appreciate that he wants to do tie-ins with all his shows, but it was too sad to me to kill Reggie off after her sister already died young as well

Wonderfalls and DLM. But I'm done with him after this. Genuinely going to boycott his work.

I can see why a person would like any one of these and not the others. Dead Like Me could seem very bleak, Pushing Daisies was definitely too sweetly-presented for most, and Wonderfalls was just very surreal. But I have to confess, I adored all three. Wonderfalls possibly most because I watched it when it first came out and was whining very loudly about it being cancelled at the time. Then I got the DVD and really liked that they managed to give it resolution in 13 episodes.

I remember watching the DLM movie and not enjoying it much with the recast of Daisy and no Rube and the way the characters were so disjointed and separated. The post-its raining down at the end was a cool moment, though.

Yeah all I remember enjoying of the movie were George's scenes at happytime and the scenes with her little sister (even if it didn't fit with the shows continuity), but they completely lost the family feeling with the Reapers. Roxy was completely out of character to consider breaking the rules, Mason was written way too obnoxious, and Daisy was just a caricature of herself...

And with both the other shows I wanted to like them more than I did because I really liked the characters, it was mostly a case of the episode plots not clicking for me at all most of the time