Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies Opinion Poll
 

So far, I am loving Pushing Daisies and I thought Wonderfalls was a great series. Based on the ratings success of Pushing Daisies, I was wondering if people felt Wonderfalls would have survived if it was on ABC?

ABC now? Maybe. ABC at that time? Nope.

I loved Wonderfalls but it was sort of a difficult show to market. It shares the same quirkiness of Pushing Daisies, but Wonderfalls doesn't have as much of an identifiable hook to its premise.

Well it didn't help that FOX expected great ratings from a show it shoved into a 9pm Friday night slot. -rolleyes- Not exactly a TV watching night...

While I loved Wonderfalls, I have to say I'm enjoying Pushing Daisies much more. Perhaps that's because it isn't looming under the dark cloud of cancellation. :lol:

I bought Wonderfalls based on all the acclaim from here. I was very disappointed. I like Dead Like Me much more and Pushing Daisies is way better than DLM. Its almost like this is the story he really wanted to tell and couldn't get it perfect till now.

I'm going to go ahead and say absolutely, because at the time ABC didn't have much going for it, as far as I recall. Wonderfalls was before the Desperate Housewives/Grey's Anatomy days that pulled ABC out of the dead last position, so I think they would have been more willing to give it a full run provided they managed to find a decent time slot for it.

They sure as heck fire wouldn't have treated it the way Fox did.

I don't like Pushing Daisies at all. It's too much like a weirdass Tim Burton film to me.

That's funny. That's exactly why I like it so much.

Isn't the premise of Pushing Daisies alot closer to Tru Calling than Wonderfalls?

I think the only comparison to be made is if the show would work on ABC now. I think it absolutely would. IIRC, the Wonderfalls ratings on Fox weren't terrible at first but it was one of the shows that got screwed by Fox taking like a whole freaking month off for baseball. ABC wouldn't have that problem, and they seem to have experience marketing offbeat shows to the right audience these days.

Nothing could survive on ABC back around when Wonderfalls came out. They wouldn't have shown the number of episodes Fox did, and they would have stood in the way of DVDs. Compare with Eyes.

I think ABC has cancelled more great shows in recent memory than any other network.

Wonderfalls was a midseason replacement. The first episode aired on March 12, the 4th and final episode aired on April 1st. The ratings were never good, a 4th place finish it's first week, and by the end of its run was losing to Smackdown on UPN. FOX tried it on Thursdays, but the ratings were no better.

Maybe they should have kept trying, but nobody was watching the show. People are watching Pushing Daisies, that's the difference.

voted 'Maybe' ? Never watched it. Don't really know anything about it.

That's a pretty high compliment :)

Pushing Daisies received rave reviews from the very start though, and ABC hyped it for much of the summer. Not excessively so, but they did hype it. I can't recall anything similar for Wonderfalls.

I think that I wouldn't have watched PD if not for the reviews calling it the best new show of the fall. The premise would have sounded a bit cheesy for me. But I'm glad that got me to tune in.

I love both shows, but Pushing Daisies seems to be a little more crowd pleasing. One of the main complaints that most seemed to have with Wonderfalls was the snarky lead (which is one of the things I liked best about the show).

I'm warming up to Pushing Daisies, but Wonderfalls had me from the get-go.

Hmm...now I'm going to have to go back and try to figure out what FOX show fits the description I gave. Maybe it was Firefly. FOX cancels so many shows, it's pretty easy to get them confused. Thanks for the clarification. I don't know what FOX didn't do that ABC could do, but Wonderfalls is IMHO a much easier sell than either Pushing Daisies or Ugly Betty.

The critical acclaim was most certainly there! I read two raves (Washington Post and maybe EW?) and decided to watch it.

The Tru Calling comparision is somewhat there the difference being that they can do it to ANYONE where as it just happened to Tru and she recycled days until she got it "right" - which IMHO would make Tru Calling more like Journeyman than Pushing Daisies.

It's not the premise that's drawing the comparison, but rather that both shows were (co)created by the same person, Bryan Fuller, who also created Dead Like Me. All three shows also share a similar sense of humor and surrealism, although Pushing Daisies is pushing both to the max.

The ratings actually were better on Thursday, an episode they re-ran the following Thursday actually did better than it did on it's original Fri showing. So FOX then decided to premiere the 4th episode on Thu instead of Fri, but then forgot to tell anyone. I think most paper guides had gone out before FOX made the change, many electronic guides had the wrong date for most of the week, and of course FOX wasn't airing any ads for the show, even to announce the date change. I remember logging into FOX's own web forum for the show the next day, and a large number of fans hadn't even known of the change. There we asking, "where's Wonderfalls?" and "wait, the show aired yesterday?"

Of course, FOX decided to use the 4th episodes dismal surprise Thursday airing as the basis for whether to continue it or not. They decided not to, and replaced it on Friday with a succession of shows that did even worse (I think one was The Swan, while the other was a Bachelorette rip-off where some of the male suiters were gay).

According to Wonderfalls producer Tim Minear, FOX clearly didn't understand the show at all, and basically did everything they could to dump it (which basically meant doing as little as they could to support it). I voted "Maybe" for ABC, since maybe ABC would've tried supporting the show at first, instead of presuming it doomed before it even aired.

I didnt care for wonderfalls, but I LOVE pushing Dasies

ABC back then? No
ABC now? Maybe

Here is the television schedule from back then.

Karen Sisco :(

You just reminded me of how Fox killed Boston Public.

Wonderfalls wasn't given a fair chance. These dumbass network execs don't realize that some shows take a while to develop a good fan-base.

Maybe, with enough advertising.

I absolutely loved Wonderfalls, and love Pushing Daisies now. I think PD is a bit more fan friendly (Wonderfalls was a bit smarter IMO). Also, PD is a visually beautiful show & HD is just now becoming somewhat common in people's homes. I know a few people who watch it just because the previews were so colorful & impressive.

I voted No.

I love PD and recently watched Wonderfalls after hearing about it last fall. I wouldn't say I was disappointed, but the show definitely had it's flaws. The cast was great, and so where the characters; the premise was good too. I liked Jane's personality and witty dialog, but a lot of the time she came off as a moody 16 year old, especially in the area of romance. I liked her, but never really understood her.

The weekly plots were uneven, and there was a chunk of shows near the end that focused on Jane and her guy that just dragged. Jewel Staite's character and the guy's actions towards her came off as written to introduce problems for Jane, rather anything natural. I think some of these problems may have just been the production rushing to close a 13 episode arc, but when you seen what many shows have done with 13 episode seasons it's not much of an excuse.

Personally, I liked it. I would put it on my Tivo list, but I don't think it would have made it regardless of promotion/placement/network (excluding cable).