I am – Hercules!!

Our Canadian friends get to see “Pushing Daisies” on Tuesdays. Several supply their verdicts on 1.2:

“L-Prime” says:

What’s it called?
“Dummy”

Who’s responsible?
Peter Ocko writes, Barry Sonnenfeld handles the cameras yet again.

What does TV Guide say?
“Ned suspects foul play when an automotive expert dies in a mysterious traffic accident. Meanwhile, Chuck presses Ned about how he revived her.”

What is TV Guide not telling us?
Not much hidden. Not really a show for a ton of surprises.

Anyone new show up? Anyone missing?
No one new, and no Swoozie Kurtz or Ellen Greene.

What about this week’s mystery?
Elaborating on what’s above, the mystery involves the testing phase of an experimental alternative fuel car, involving a meek scientist, an anorexic display model, a room full of hanging corpses, the sleazy professor from the third season of Veronica Mars, crash test dummies and the soundtrack to Grease.

Where do we think criticism (if any crops up) of the show/series is going to come from?
Some people didn’t like the narration or the tendency for overly detailed cutesy cataloguing of names, dates, ages, etc. This trend does not wane here, if anything picking up a bit of steam at times. I still enjoy Jim Dale and all he offers, but I can see it wearing thin for some.

Performances?
As good, if not better, than last week. If this is a cast that could make such a good impression in only a pilot, we see them take off and run this week, all four principals equally, with Kristin Chenoweth in particular being allowed to expand on where she was a week ago and sink her teeth in with bravado.

What’s good?
A classroom prank involving frogs to be dissected; “Like dessert spoons.”; “Coming through.”; “This is such a small cheesebox.”; “There’s a surprising lack of physical contact. Oh crap.”; “Is that a question?” “Government safety place.”; “What’s the poop?”; “I mean regular ones.”; “The Jarlsberg is on the table.”; “I think I just did.”; Kristin Chenoweth sings Olivia Newton-John; “We’re closed.”; “And Digby considered how much he liked salt.”; “My upper body distracted him while these things I call hands took this off his belt.”; “Why is it always a mixture?”; “There are skeletons in the closet.”; “You went to art school?”; Crazy Janine’s eyes on the pies; “Dead. Again. Forever.”; “We are up. We are walking.”; a mylar-covered encounter; the killer’s secondary choice of vehicle (just a nice subtle touch of irony); “He lied. She lied too.”

Not so good?
The lengthy recap/exposition felt tacked on for the morons out there, not only covering the initial prologue, but half of the first act or so -- though to be fair, there is a decent amount going on after just a single episode that probably isn’t clear to a casual viewer as much as to TV nerds who’ve been following and anticipating this series for months.

Rating for 1.2 (out of five)
****1/2 – a constant smile ear to ear, punctuated by some hearty laughs and a damn near wistful pang of longing towards the end. This damn thing can really hit all the right notes, seemingly without effort.

“RichieIce” says:

What’s it called?
Dummy

Who’s responsible?
Writing credit goes to Peter Ocko. Direction from regular “Notes from the Underbelly” contributor Barry Sonnenfeld.

What does TV Guide say?
“Ned suspects foul play when an automotive expert dies in a mysterious traffic accident. Meanwhile, Chuck presses Ned about how he revived her.”

So Ned tells Chuck the whole story of his childhood rebirthings?
Ned tells Chuck of how he brought her back to life. But leaves out the tale of how him bringing back his own mother, killed her father.

Anything else learned from Ned’s childhood?
Ned killed a whole bunch of one animal by bringing back a whole bunch of another animal for the purpose of a prank of revenge.

Is Chuck, played by the lovely Anna Friel, still super hot?
Yes.

Does Olive Snook, played by the one-of-a-kind Kristin Chenoweth, still like-like Ned?
She may or may not be hopelessly devoted.

What does the title, “Dummy”, refer to?
The victim of the week, Bernard Slaybaugh , believes that he was killed by the crash test dummy of the hottest new car, the Dandy Lion SX.

What else does resurrected Bernard tell us?
He asks for his love to be proclaimed to Jeanine, his girlfriend from the crash-test facility, who loves pie more then the pie maker, and is prominently featured this week.

Would you purchase the Dandy Lion SX?
No.

What’s good?
The resolution to the crime, bringing back a few memories from a recently cancelled show. The skeletons in the closet. Chuck’s use of Ned’s minute. Olive’s song timing. Emerson’s reaction to Chuck’s use of Ned’s minute. The rubber glove and the glass window. The general thoughts, feelings and reactions of the four leads in responding to every moment of the show.

What’s not so good?
... I’m thinking …

One of the biggest concerns about this show, was that the projected mostly procedural series was not going to be able to live up to the highly serialized nature of the pilot, are these concerns warranted?
In this reviewers opinion, no. Although the show will clearly be procedural in the sense that the protagonists will solve a crime in every episode, this is a high quality type procedural like Law and Order: SVU, where you care enough about the characters that the show evolves like a classic serial around them.

RichieIce’s Rating for 1.2 (out of 5) Assuming that 1.1 was a 5 star affair,
****1/2

“Buckydude” says:

Ahoy from the frozen north. Looks like we Canadian folk are again paid our dues by having the best new show of the year shown a day early before the rest of the world. Last year was Studio 60 and this year I am making it my mission to let you know if a show you’re gonna watch anyway in a day is worth your time, unless of course you have satellite.

The facts are these:

Episode Title: Dummy
Writer: Peter Ocko
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Plot Summary: Ned (Lee Pace) and Chuck (Anna Friel) investigate the hit and run of a crash test safety employee while Chuck’s presence begins to be a problem for Emerson (Chi McBride). Meanwhile, Olive (Kristin Chenoweth) feels her chances with Ned slipping away.

What Works: Every performance is solid, dialogue is still one of the shows strongest aspects, murder mystery works on a Scooby-dooish level, the shows commitment to its Dr. Seussical universe makes it more believable, it’s still charming as hell, Digby is the greatest tv dog since the guy from Frasier.

What Doesn’t Work: Comes close to being a cuteness overload, a weird musical bit in the middle, show hasn’t decided if its sci-fi, romance or mystery.

Overall “Dummy” is a solid second episode. The obvious standout is the repartee which flies as fast as every with Pace and McBride alternating between who has the line of the night. The story works well, the characters are developing well and It feels like the producers are going somewhere with this. The show is in a universe completely in its own and the episode is constantly interspersed with weird cutaways and dream sequences. Some are just throw-away gags for character background but others, like Olive’s big musical number, feel a little forced and unbelievable. If nothing else these moments remind the viewer that this is a fairy tale of a show. The problem is that it’s hard to tell whether I should be laughing, be intrigued or be going “awwww”. It looks like Peter Ocko saw this show as a romantic comedy when he wrote it so there’s lots of Ned and Chuck dancing around each other. Instead of a “will they, won’t they situation” it’s more of a “if they did it, she’d die” situation which is entertaining but at the end of the episode you want there to be some kind of interaction between the two other than rubber glove huggin. Still, it’s a good sophomore outing that definitely makes me look forward to the next episode, even if part of that is just wanting to see the dog do something silly.

8 p.m. Wednesday. ABC.

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