Facing the Fate of ‘Pushing Daisies’
October 30th, 2008
Last night may have been Pushing Daisies’ last stand. After weeks of dwindling ratings, dangerous for a show that ended its strike-shortened first season already down considerably from its original premiere, ABC made a decision (their hand forced by Obama’s decision not to buy airtime on the network) to air the season’s fifth episode up against the aforementioned Obama infomercial. On network television, your options are simple: Obama or Ned, Olive, Chuck and Emerson; the American Dream vs. a dream-like television series unlike anything else out there.
But until about 12pm EDT today, we won’t know for sure whether or not this matchup will kill or revive the struggling series; and while I’d like to say that there’s great potential for growth, at the same time numerous qualities lay doubt on such a strategy. At the same time, I think that calls for the show’s immediate cancellation seem premature by half: the show has been a success in at least some qualities thus far this season, and the show’s quality remaining high does count for something.
Whether it will be enough to govern the fate of the show, however, remains to be seen: in the meantime, let’s weight the upsides and downsides of the show’s current position.
Cultural Learnings 