A Question about "Pushing Daisies"

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 1/9/09 at 4:16pm

"Pushing Daisies" and for that matter "Lipstick Jungle" are both being canceled and both shows seemed like they had built up a loyal audience...but apparently not enough.

Do you think these shows would have benefitted from being on a cabel network like HBO or Showtime? "Sex in the City", "Sopranos", "Six Feet Under" and "Weeds" are all shows that are on cabel and I'm not so sure they would have lasted as long if they were on a regular network.

P.S. I think some of my television terminology is wrong...so correct me if it is :)

[Plum]

Posted: 1/9/09 at 6:22pm

In the case of Pushing Daisies...maybe. Maybe. It couldn't have gone into the Weeds or Dexter sort of slot because it's essentially a very sweet (if morbid) show - the corpses can be sort of horrific but there's no real gore, no sex, and barely any swearing. That's not just because the show is on network TV, but because of the nature of the thing - PD doesn't need that explicit stuff. That's why the few times it does sneak in a dirty joke (the silly MILF bit in "The Norwegians", for example, or "Come" in "Dim Sum Lose Some") it's extra hilarious.

I actually think PD's niceness in regards to the stuff that'll get you censored may have hurt it, because that made it one of the few shows suited for an 8pm slot and ABC kept sticking it there even though, being new, it wasn't particularly suited for being a prime time lead-in.

Maybe PD could have survived better in the USA area and tried to be one of the Monks of the world, but I don't know. For a procedural, it was awfully off the wall, and not so much about someone with a super-brain solving the mystery every week as about a group of sad, funny people putting together a puzzle.

[xoangel2789xo]

Posted: 1/10/09 at 9:12pm

Who knows if it would have been any different? And correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that all HBO and Showtime shows are there because of their adult content, and since Pushing Daisies is dark but with an innocent touch to it, then what place would it have had there?

[pab]

Posted: 1/10/09 at 9:37pm

"And correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that all HBO and Showtime shows are there because of their adult content"

There have been shows on both Showtime and HOB that don't necessarily have enough adult content that would keep them off of Network television.

[Plum]

Posted: 1/10/09 at 10:14pm

I could maybe imagine a sweet thing like PD getting paired up with, say, Flight of the Conchords for a night. But here's the thing- PD was down to something like 2 million viewers a night when it was on a major network. That's maybe a sustainable number on HBO, but HBO's audience base is smaller. Who knows if it would ever have found as many people to watch it if it aired there?