It's about a man who learns as a boy that if he touches something dead (animals, people, fruit) they will come back to life. But if he ever touches them again after that, they will die again, permanently. And if he lets them live for more than a minute, somebody else, nearby, will die to take their place.
You might ask yourself: What would you do if you had such a gift? But what you should be asking is: What would you do if you had such a gift and needed to make it into a workable TV series?
That's right, the man goes into business with a PI buddy to solve murders by simply reviving the victim, asking them who did it, and "putting them down" again. As one would.
To be fair, it's not really the premise of the series that I find such fault with (another one of my minority opinions). Although, it is a rip off of "Tru Calling," which had its own problems but at least offered the fantastic sight of Eliza Dushku running.
Plus an element of "Torchwood" (about which series I can only repeat: Don't get me started). And oh yes, a little "Final Destination," which I haven't seen but I know the gimmick.
But it's the production and writing that really put me off.
The visuals are admittedly rich...too much so. It's like being force-fed a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts. It might sound fun, but after the first couple you'd be coughing and choking.
See what I mean?
The heavily sprayed-on music doesn't help either.
I want to be kind to the actors, so the worst I'll say about Lee Pace, as the man with the gift, is that he's mostly blah. I want to believe he could do better, but who knows?
One series star who I do know can do better is Anna Friel, who plays Pace's childhood love whom he revives and then can never touch again. Friel is a sexy young woman who is also capable of fine work as an actress (see the very engaging "Me Without You").
Another is Chi McBride, as the PI. He's the best thing here. McBride can always be relied upon for killer performances. But if "Daisies" lasts longer than his previous series ("The Nine")...there is no god.
Completing the trio of actors who are better than this material was Swoosie Kurtz (of "Dangerous Liaisons" and more than a few others) as Friel's aunt.
And then there's Kristin Chenoweth, who plays a waitress in the pie shop Pace's character owns who is also sweet on him. I know Aaron Sorkin loves Chenoweth both as an actress and as a woman; I know she inspired (at least in part) Sarah Paulson's Harriet on "S60." But I have yet to fall under her spell.
As for the writing, well, one of the things nearly every book on screenwriting tells you to avoid is voice-over narration. I don't believe that's a hard-and-fast rule, and narration can work (see certain episodes of "The West Wing," "Sports Night" or "M*A*S*H" for TV examples). But 99% of the time, it's a good rule to keep to, and the reason is so you avoid using it for the cheap exposition this show does.
(Even when the narration doesn't cover it, the dialogue has great big lumps of exposition floating around in it.)
There was not one moment in the pilot-not a single one-which we were allowed to discover for ourselves as an audience. Instead, we're hit over the head by a narrator telling us who the characters are, their backstories, and why they're doing what they're doing.
That the narration is spoken by Jim Dale-a great childhood favorite of mine for his performances onscreen in "Pete's Dragon" and onstage in "Barnum" makes it nostalgically relaxing. But it's still one of the laziest, cynical-because of its implied assumption that the audiences are idiots-pieces of writing I have ever seen.
And I've seen "Spider-Man 3" and "Dr. Doolittle 2."
What a release, then, an hour later, to watch the second episode of "Life" (preceded by the announcement: "An all-new 'Life' starts...right now!" If only.)
One or two of the issues I had last week seem to be correcting themselves and yes, that does include letting
Sarah Shahi's gorgeousness show more.
I liked it at least as much as the pilot if not more so.
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