Yippie Kay Aye, Maddie Hayes!

Getting back the the Fall TV season, I do indeed think the crop of new shows are pretty weak (I'm looking right at you 'Gary Unmarried'--and I've noticed you too 'Worst Week').  I think the best new shows of this season will actually be the best new shows of last season.  The programs that most people never even saw due to the writer's strike induced hiatus.  This strike especially hurt new shows that were already fighting to find an audience (Bad news for you 'Journeyman'--we hardly new ya).  

But fear not loyal couch potatoes, some of the networks have decided to roll the dice (really they didn't have much choice due to the writer's strike also affecting pilot season) to bring back some of those shows in the hope that this time they can attract an audience.  So, I am now going to tell you what you should have been watching last year, and how that is also what you should be watching this year.

 1.  'Pushing Daisies'

Easily the best new show of the last few years.  It's art direction alone makes it unlike anything else on TV.  It is produced by Barry Sonnenfeld (you know, the guy that did 'Men In Black') and is the most fun show I've seen in a long time.  The show is about a pie-maker named Ned with an unusual gift; with a touch he can bring people back from the dead.  But like with most unusual gifts there is a catch.  One touch brings the living back, while a second touch makes them dead again--forever.  Also, if the revived dead person is alive for more that about one minute, someone else in close proximity will die.  Got the rules.  Great; because there is also a subplot about the pie-maker bringing back his childhood love from the grave, and choosing to keep her alive--yet never being able to touch her again.  Isn't that both sad and romantic at the same time!

This show works on so many different levels and is able to wind through several different genres at the drop of a hat.  Ned the pie-maker and his childhood sweetheart Chuck, they banter back and forth like they're in a romantic comedy.  The pie-maker often partners with a private-eye who uses his gift to solve murders, finding clues and suspects in an unfolding mystery.  The basic premise and the high-glossy color scheme presents the show as if they are in a fantasy world.  Plus it also stars Kristin Chenoweth (I've been a fan of hers since her days on 'The West Wing') and given her background in musical theater, she often bursts into songs like she is in a musical (Her singing "Hopelessly Devoted to You" from 'Grease' was one of last season's highlights).  All the characters and plots combined exist in some sort of crazy screwball comedy.  

So there you go.  It's a romance/mystery/fantasy/musical/screwball comedy.  

Why wouldn't you want to watch that?  For some reason the show reminds me a little of the first couple seasons of 'Moonlighting', back before Bruce Willis was John McClane.  I think it is the combination of both comedic and emotional relationships between the characters together with the weekly murder mystery the group must solve that hearkens back to the 'Moonlighting' glory days.

'Pushing Daisies' season 2 premieres on ABC on October 1st! In the mean time, you can catch up by getting the shortened first season of 'Pushing Daisies' on DVD. It just came out just this week, so put it in your queue right away!

Stay tuned for my number two and number three picks of the best new shows for fall; that are really the best new shows of last fall.