Love is forever. Death eh, it depends. As a boy, Ned (Lee Pace, right) discovers that he can revive dead people (and dogs and flies) by touching them. There are two catches: if they stay alive more than a minute, someone else dies in their stead, and if he touches them again, they die again permanently. Ned grows into a shy, touch-averse man, making extra cash by asking murder victims who killed them, then re-icing them and collecting the reward. When one victim turns out to be his boyhood love, Chuck (Anna Friel), Ned can't bring himself to re-kill her. And he can never touch her again.
Pushing Daisies (ABC; Wednesdays, 8 p.m. E.T.) comes trailing the kind of descriptives quirky, unique and, yikes, critically praised that usually spell cancellation. So why is it getting pegged as the fall's biggest potential hit? Perhaps because at heart it's a fairy tale for grownups. Ned is a boy-man with a Midas curse; Chuck, a Sleeping Beauty who died trying to escape a stultifying life. The script from Bryan Fuller (Wonderfalls) is nimble and instantly charming, and director-producer Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) bathes it in fanciful saturated colors, with over-the-top sets out of a Tim Burton yard sale. Wry and winsome, Daisies may turn out to have the touch of life.
JAMES PONIEWOZIK