TVSquad

Joss Whedon fans, take note ... you may have competition from the fans of ABC's Pushing Daises. That's the way it seemed at their Comic-Con panel on Saturday afternoon. They were so loud and applauded so frequently that it made an audience of Whedon fans seem like a group of cloistered monks taking a vow of silence.

But, that really isn't surprising since the show (whose first season comes out on standard DVD and Blu-Ray on September 16th) has such a wealth of talent both on and off screen. The audience at the Pushing Daises panel had an opportunity to see all that talent in one place as the entire cast joined creator Bryan Fuller and executive producer Barry Sonnenfeld in answering questions about season two. The tantalizing morsels appear after the jump.

ABC's hit show Pushing Daisies will host a pie-eating contest at the Orange County Fair. The contest will run for thirteen straight evenings. Each night, ten contestants will don a "Pie Hole" themed bib and compete for a special prize. No word on what the prize is or better yet, what kind of pie they'll have to eat. Also, on the first night of the contest, cast members Field Cate (Young Ned) and Sammi Hanratty (Young Chuck) will be on hand to sign autographs.

This is a cute marketing idea. A good ole fashioned food-eating contest is always a hit. However, I wish they would have gotten some bigger cast members to make an appearance. The kids are cute, but even I'd take a trip to Orange County to watch people stuff themselves for Lee Pace (*swoon*).

If you live in Orange County or are planning to visit in the near future, the dates and specific locations for the contest are after the jump.

The Saturn Award nominations are in, and many popular sci-fi and fantasy shows made the cut. Returning favorites like Lost, Heroes, and Dexter were recognized by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films, as were newcomers Pushing Daisies and Journeyman.

With seven nominations, Lost is ahead of Dexter and Heroes, which received five and four nominations, respectively. Heroes was the big winner last year, taking home awards for Best Network Series as well as acting awards for Masi Oka and Hayden Panettiere. Both actors received nominations this year, along with co-star Greg Grunberg.

This feels weird. Normally, there is a good bit of excitement around the nominees of the Golden Globes, particularly since it's the first big award ceremony of the year and a precursor to the Academy and Emmy awards. However, with the WGA strike in full swing, and the awards ceremony stripped down to a simple one-hour press conference televised by NBC, it all seems a bit anti-climatic.

But, taking a page from my heroes Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I shall press on in true television reporting style and present my prediction for winner of the Golden Globe for Best Actor - Musical or Comedy.

(S01E09) "There is an unpleasant chill in the air." - The Narrator

And we have arrived: this week's episode was the last completed-before-the-strike episode of ABC's Pushing Daisies. The quote I put under the picture may not have been the most important one said in the episode (the bombshell quote is a tad too shocking to put up front) but it does highlight the mood and tone of the episode: chilly. "Corpsicle" is not my favorite Pushing Daisies episode but it offered good reveals, some fantastic lines from Emerson and Olive, and it finally gave the aunts (at least one of them) a real purpose in the series.

(S01E08) "Am I your boyfriend?" - Ned
"Yes." - Chuck

It was announced about two months ago that Molly Shannon would guest star on ABC's Pushing Daisies and the day, err... evening, has come. I've read a lot of comments from fans saying that they were somewhat scared after hearing she would guest star mostly because they thought her acting wasn't good enough for the show. In retrospect, her acting wasn't that great but it wasn't that bad either since Daisies is over the top at times.

(S01E07) "The mere smell of it made him feel, if only for an hour, exactly like he wanted to feel: safe and warm and loved, which is why he became the pie maker." - Narrator

ABC lost a good and fun opportunity to offer Pushing Daisies viewers a chance to get up close and really personal with the show and maybe attract new people who would have been interested in a scratch 'n' sniff event! Yes, it would have been pretty much a copy of what NBC did last year with My Name Is Earl, but having a scratch 'n' sniff card to use throughout this olfactory episode would have been just as magical as the episode itself! Okay, maybe the smell of the sock and the sewer would have been terrible but it would have been interesting to smell Ned, Emerson, and "honey and death" (aka Chuck). Okay, maybe that would have been a bad idea. Let's move on to the episode instead.

(S01E06) Up until now, we've only seen Emerson as a gruff P.I. whose role was to throw a sprinkle of cynicism on the decidedly sprightly environment around the Pie Hole. But you knew that eventually we were going to either find out more about his past or see him get involved with one of the people he was investigating. Tonight we got the latter. And his dalliance did a nice job of throwing some needed darkness into what was an overly-sweet episode.

(S01E05) "Tell Ned I love... his pies." - Olive

This Halloween-themed Pushing Daisies episode has been one of my favorites so far this season. We learned more about Ned's past and we discovered who Olive used to be while being entertained by a magical and mysterious storyline that was reminiscent of stories and movies such as Sleepy Hollow.

(S01E04) Since my co-reviewer Izzy lives in Canada, she gets to see episodes of certain shows before we get to here in the States. One of those shows is Pushing Daisies, which airs on Tuesdays up there. After she saw "Pigeon" last night, she wrote me asking if this was the first episode that was shot after the now-infamous budget cuts were made. I thought last week's episode was the first under those restrictions, but I can see why Izzy might have thought that this one was made on the cheap.

To me, though, the less visual doohickeys there are in a Pushing Daisies, the better. A little bit of snazziness goes a long way with this show, and it leaves more room to actually tell the story. And this week's story was pretty good.

(S01E03) "You killed someone for me?" - Chuck

After watching last week's episode, I was as worried as Joel was/is about Pushing Daisies's future. With such a stellar pilot, it was a given that the subsequent episodes wouldn't be as great but that second episode was a letdown. Narration aside (I'll get to this later on), this week's episode reassured me that PD can survive in its current format.

(S01E02) OK, I am now ever so slightly worried about Pushing Daisies.

Oh, don't get me wrong: there was plenty to like about the second episode of the most praised new show of the season. But there were two things that got me and every person concerned about this show's long-term future: a) Would the show get too cute (or twee, if closet Brit Anna Friel was discussing it. Alan Sepinwall was the first critic to use the term for the show, and I think it fits perfectly) for its own good, and b) would Barry Sonnenfeld's rumored budget overruns sink the show in its later episodes?

After watching "Dummy," my answers right now are a) it might if it's not careful, and b) it's starting to look that way.

(S01E01) After weeks of massive advertising and marketing, Pushing Daisies has finally arrived! The result? You either love it or hate it. I've read a good number of reviews for this new ABC show over the summer and rare are the reviewers that are on the fence about this show. What seems to make them love it or hate it is the same thing: the format. If you enjoyed movies like Big Fish or Amélie, you should be inclined to liking Daisies. I fall in that category. Actually, tonight's airing marked the third time I watched the pilot of this fairytale-ish series. Every time, I'm entertained thanks to the colorful scenery, the chemistry between Ned and Charlotte, the narration style, the cutesy storylines, the procedural aspect, etc.

Actress/comedian Molly Shannon, best known for her work on NBC's Saturday Night Live, will join ABC's new series Pushing Daisies for a multi-episode arc set to air late this Fall.

The series stars Wonderfalls' Lee Pace as man who can revive the dead (and send them back to Heaven or Hell) just by touching them. He uses his power to find out the killers and collect rewards.

Small spoilers ahead!

If you've been following my posts from the New York Television Festival, you may remember my mentioning that I'd post details of the Chuck premiere the festival was going to hold on Friday. Well, that didn't really turn out as planned. The "premiere" turned out to be just a screening: no red carpet, no panel, no one involved with the show attending. So I decided to skip posting about that (though I enjoyed the pilot, which is one of the few I haven't seen) and move right along to the premiere for Pushing Daisies, which was held on Saturday night.

You've already read a little about it, as I had director Barry Sonnenfeld address stories about cost overruns on the show. But, as I also said, that wasn't the only thing I asked him that peeved him a little bit. More on that after the jump.