News broke last Friday that the suit-bots at ABC cancelled “Pushing Daisies.” Oh excuse me, they “didn’t order new episodes.” Which is like saying, “I didn’t shoot you in the head. I just injected it with a large deposit of lead.” Note to ABC suit-bots, if you’re going to cancel the best show on your Disney-fried network, please have the decency to be blunt about it.
Yes, “Pushing Daisies” was the best show ABC had (okay, I don’t watch “Lost,” but if I wanted constant, painful cock teasing every week I’d visit Mistress Alexis on the corner of Wilson and J street). In fact, “Pushing Daisies” was arguably the finest hour-long show debuted in the last several years. To sum it up in a lazy chain of descriptions: It was charming, funny, heartfelt, inventive, and visually brilliant. And I loved every minute of it.
Well, at least I can take comfort in that series’ creator Bryan Fuller doesn’t plan to abandon his creation like a teenager in Nebraska. He’s talking to DC Comics to finish out the quirky adventures of Ned, Chuck, Emerson, and Olive in amazing ink-on-paper vision–the last episode will end on a cliffhanger. On top of that, Fuller is trying to sell Warner Bros. on a “Pushing Daisies” movie. Possibly, with a little time for DVD sales to add up, “Pushing Daisies” could develop into the next “Firefly,” a good TV show cancelled too early, which was eventually resurrected for the film Serenity. We just have to grow the cult of Pie-Eaters (yes, I came up with that name for “Pushing Daisies” fans at this very moment), and maybe we’ll get our own film that will probably under-perform at the box-office. Haha, I kid Warner Bros., I kid. “Pushing Daisies” will make the profits reaped from The Dark Knight look like a penny jar.
However, where does this leave ABC? Shit out of luck, that’s where. ABC has crapped the bed. With “Pushing Daisies” gone, the channel is utterly worthless. I guess ABC can fill the time slot left by “Pushing Daisies” with another hour of “Dancing with the Stars.” From my count, 75% of ABC’s schedule already consists of “Dancing with the Stars.” What’s another hour? However, as I remember it, when the network overloaded its programming with the Regis-taculuar “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” people stopped giving a shit. Yet, that’s a discussion about ratings, which is sort of pointless in this context since “Pushing Daisies” didn’t reel in enough viewers to meet ABC’s standards. I just felt like mentioning this is a network banking its future on a lame-ass show about purported celebrities kicking their toes up and spinning around the room like a Michael Bay camera. How can that not get old after a few years?
Well in terms of artistic legitmacy (which is a relevant topic when talking about “Pushing Daisies”) at least ABC still has “Grey’s Anatomy,” right? Aren’t the critics wild for that bastard? Yeaaah, no. My wife still watches it despite the fact it officially jumped the shark after the second season. And by default I still catch the show since I’m usually in the room when she’s suffering though it (I like to think of it as a silent suffering since she refuses to admit the show sucks). And holy Jesus at a Waffle House, “Grey’s Anatomy” seems to circle around and find a new stunt to jump over the shark every week. The other week it had a robot on it. Yes, a fucking robot! And then I noticed the other night they’re telling a ghost story with the dude who died from a bad heart a few seasons ago. It’s time to retire the phrase “jumped the shark.” We’re now in the era of “Grey’s Anatomy” and when a show screws itself beyond repair I’m saying it’s either “gone robot” or “ghosted Denny.” And don’t even get me started on the mind beatings that garbage such as “Boston Legal,” “Private Practice,” “Ugly Betty, “Brothers & Sisters,” and the crime against humanity that is “Desperate Housewives” savagely punish America with on a weekly basis.
So good for you ABC. You’re now the most irrelevant network on television. You’re like watching Titanic without Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, just doom and gloom and no warm center–although it’ll still remain entertaining watching you sink.
