Friday, October 26, 2007

If you're referring to the touching thing, I see it as more of an obstacle than a problem

Wherein questions about my second favorite show on Wednesday. Life is first.


XWL has a question about Pushing Daisies:
Given that the dog hasn't apparently aged in more than a decade, can we assume Chuck won't age until Ned touches her again?

If Ned dies before touching his honey or his dog again, do Chuck and Digby become immortal?

I was wondering about that, too. I think these are all the ground rules we've been given:
  • If Ned touches a dead person/animal/plant it comes alive.
  • If he ever touches the reanimated person/animal/plant again it dies, forever.
  • If he doesn't touch the reanimated with 60 seconds, then something else must die.

Let's look at Digby, the dog. As a child, Ned reanimated Digby. Now 19-20 years in the future Digby is still looking fresh and spry. I think immortality is a fair question.

Another possibility is perhaps if the reanimated being dies again of its own accord (natural causes, car crash, shot during a robbery) and not by Ned's second touch, then Ned is free to reanimate it again.

But it would be an odd sort of immortality if the clock didn't start over. Let's say that Digby first died when he was 5-years old when Ned resurrected him. Then it lived for another 10 years and died of natural causes at 15-years old. If Ned touches it, is he reanimated as a 15-year old dog with all the problems he had when he died? So Digby eeks out another year or so before dying again; Ned touches Digby, again, Digby lives another 6 months; Ned touches him again, he lives 5 months, etc... This quickly becomes really sad and a lotta gross.

So if Digby is a dog of 20+ years, then immortality does seem the more likely answer. Perhaps we'll see a flashback where young Ned tests the lifespans of reanimated flies and give us an answer.

Aside from the immortality question, can Ned reanimate those dying of natural causes? Or just those whose lives were ended prematurely. Die of a unknown birth defect or old age and Ned is of no help. Run over or shot and Ned's there for you. For the next 60 seconds. This might have an easy answer if I could remember how Ned's mother died.

It is also interesting that those were killed by traumatic means are reanimated without feeling any pain. There's the guy who died in a plane crash with giant shards of glass sticking out of his face -- come on, that doesn't hurt? I want at least one episode where someone is brought to life screaming "OH MY GOD WHERE'S MY LEG! OH THE PAIN! COULD SOMEONE PLEASE JUST PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY!"

Because that would be funny.

Another issue to explore is what is the minimum barrier Ned can employ between himself and the reanimated. We've seen Ned and Chuck kiss with plastic wrap between them, so I'm thinking with a latex suit and condoms sex shouldn't be a problem. Maybe if the show is canceled and then picked up by HBO or Showtime.

4 Comments:

Blogger XWL said...

[imagine the following as read by that narrator guy on the show on the occasion of the final scene of the final episode of Pushing Daisies]

Upon realizing that Digby is indeed immortal unless touched again by the piemaker, in a fit of rage inspired by the recently obtained knowledge that the piemaker inadvertently killed her father, Chuck decided that the plastic wrap they used for kissing would also make an excellent tool for snuffing out the life of the murderous and miraculous pieman. [Cue Seal's A Kiss Before Dying] And so ends the life of the piemaker as Chuck gives him one last eternal kiss as she covers his piehole with their prophylactic plastic wrap and avoids his attempts at touching her skin as she snuffs out his life.




(too dark?)

10/26/2007 02:00:00 PM  
Blogger Tosy And Cosh said...

I thought Ned's Mom just had a random storke or heart attack or some such - didn't she just collapse for no reason?

10/26/2007 03:45:00 PM  
Blogger bill said...

Could be. I checked the wiki episode descriptions, which weren't clear.

10/26/2007 04:03:00 PM  
Blogger Icepick said...

Ned's mother died from a stroke.

Immortality is kind of implied in some of the comments about the piemaker's ingredients. He generally touches them and they attain maximal freshness. It's either implied or stated outright that the ingredients stay fresh.

10/27/2007 10:16:00 AM  

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