I’ve been watching episodes of Pushing Daisies online. I still don’t know why the title is what it is but it’s a delightful romantic comedy about Ned, a piemaker with the gift of bringing dead people alive, but with certain caveats.

The show is presented in a narrative style, almost fairy-tale like and everything looks sunny and juicy with oodles of ridiculous bright colours. Central to the story is Ned’s romance with his childhood sweetheart, Chuck, who he brings back to life. Theirs is a simple separated-when-kids-and-reunited-as-adults love story. Except his healing gift works such that the first touch brings life and the second, permanent death, meaning he and Chuck have an improbable relationship in which they can never touch, unless there’re gloves or clingfilm or beekeeping outfits on hand. It makes you wonder how long people in real life (because this show is really, anything but real. it doesn’t even pretend to be real) can last without hugging or kissing or holding hands or just leaning into each other.

Anna Friel is a lovely Chuck. She wears the prettiest party dresses and looks and sounds like a total doll while Digby the resident dog is also a strong contender for the award for best pooch on tv. Unfortunately the series has now been suspended at episode 9 following the Hollywood writers’ strike. I hope it resumes soon.

Before Pushing Daisies I was hooked on The Office and it wasn’t because I loved Dwight K Schrute. Rather, after watching a few random episodes on Star World, i was dying to find out what happened with Jim and Pam, or as they’re known in Office fandom, Jam. So I started watching everything chronologically from seasons 2 through 4, which is now also suspended because of the strike. And if season 3 was dire for Jam, season 4 was a complete turnaround and made me very happy indeed. Along the way, the show had its hilarious moments of course. The network NBC has a lot of entertaining behind the scenes clips and webisodes online which keep one busy until shooting continues again.

I wish we had more tv choice here.