Pushing Daisies - Season 1

The unique premise of this delightful 2007 ABC series? Ned (Lee Pace), a pie maker by trade -- he operates a store called the Pie Hole -- can bring dead things back to life with a single touch. The only problem? If he doesn't touch whatever he has revived within one minute, something else has to die to take its place. Ned discovered this as a child, when he touched his dead mother, brought her back to life, and then inadvertently killed the father of his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel). However, if he touches the revived being a second time, it dies again, permanently -- which Ned learned when he kissed his mother goodnight. Now grown up, Ned reunites with Chuck when he learns she has been murdered. With a touch he brings his beloved back to life but realizes he can never hold or kiss her, lest she die permanently. Their love, unrequited by supernatural intervention, is what drives the series; and series creator Bryan Fuller (co-creator of the equally charming Wonderfalls, which also featured Pace) has fashioned a candy-colored, dreamlike world around the characters. Rounding out the cast are: Ned's co-worker, Olive Snook (the amazing Kristin Chenoweth), who secretly loves him; private investigator Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), who gets Ned's help to revive those recently murdered and then collects the reward money; Chuck's eccentric aunts, Lily (Swoosie Kurtz) and Vivian (Ellen Greene); and the unseen narrator, Jim Dale. Criminally cut short because of the writers' strike in 2007, these nine episodes are definitely worth a look.