dreamloom

Tag: abc

  • Pushing Daisies: “Dim Sum Lose Some”

    Barack Obama secured the votes of every fan of Pushing Daisies the moment he declined ABC’s offer of airtime for the Obama Half-Hour Flower Power Variety Hoe Down. Although I don’t know if the twenty or thirty of us still watching this marvelous little exercise in quirkiness are enough for him to be picking china patterns just yet. Speaking of china patterns…

    One of the small pleasures of this show is seeing how the vivid palettes are manifested in costume and set decisions. I normally wouldn’t gush about a cowboy shirt or an earth tone sweater, but look in the image above how Ned’s shirt ties in the red lacquered finishes of the restaurant, Chuck’s dress, and even the fan in her hair. Note how the two-tone sweater Emerson’s wearing picks up the beige and goldleaf accents on the walls behind them and the pattern on Chuck’s dress. Think back to earlier in the episode when Chuck wore a bright red coat.

    Every detail is carefully considered, right down to the Chai Emerson’s wearing with around his neck.

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  • Pushing Daisies: “Frescorts”

    Sorry he was unable to write a review for the previous episode, the Blog Maker made a silent vow never to miss one again.

    Yeah, really. Sorry ’bout that. For the tens of you who come by, here’s my drive-by of last week: at first it seems incredibly bold to dispense with all the Lily-is-your-mother NUNsense in the third episode of season two, until you realize it was probably slated to go down late in the strike-shortened season one. But it’s out there and it’s now time for Olive and Chuck to figure out their friendship.

    Which, I might add, is a lot easier when you’re not stuck in a locker with someone who uses freesia hair detangler.

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  • Life on Mars – F**k you ABC.

    A few months back I watched the pre-air for ABC’s first attempt at translating Life on Mars to our shores. It was a rough experience, mildly ameliorated by the participation of Colm Meany and the lovely Rachelle Lefevre. ((I’m convinced this redheaded siren is going to take her sly, knowing smile and husky voice to great heights someday. This was not to be that day.)) My feeling at the time was that Jason O’Mara – another in the long line of British Empire expats clogging up our airwaves – was a black hole from which not even the charisma of those around him could escape. My first thought was that he was too focused on his ‘R’s to worry about acting, but Ireland’s mostly rhotic. Some other complexity of the Amercan accent, then.

    Seriously. He was bad. It didn’t help that I was comparing him to John Simm who brought a lot of intelligence and wit to to his original version of the character. It helped him even less that Meany played Gene Hunt much quieter and calmer than Philip Glenister and still blew O’Mara off the screen.

    So when LoM was retooled I figured for sure O’Mara was going to get tossed aside for an American who could really sink his teeth into the character and stand up alongside a great character actor like–

    Oh. Everyone and everything else was tossed? Meany, Lefevre, David E. Kelley? Gone. The LA setting? Gone. But Jason O’Mara and his leather jacket stayed.

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