ITV Saturday nights saved by hit US series!

I just watched the first episode from last night, and whilst I enjoyed it a lot, Jean-Pierre Jeunet should sue!

The look, feel and - in particular - the narration style have been lifted wholesale from Amelie! (they even had the cheek to play 'Guilty' half way through, although I'm sure they would claim it was a homage!).

The thought also occurs that whilst it's short term future looks good, how long can a show go on when the romantic interest is doomed from the start?

It manages to really play on that whole concept rather beautifully - I've very much enjoyed the series over here.

Oh, you'd be surprised. I think it's got some reasonable mileage yet. I know what you mean though - but even if it ends up only at a couple of seasons, I'll be happy. Unless they have a barrl-ful of ideas, I'd rather they curtail the story sooner, than stretch it along for too many years. Either way, it's a superb show and one of the most refreshingly different things I've watched in many a moon. I loved it, and have been itching to see it on UK TV. And you're absolutely right about the Amelie-stylings (one of the main reasons I fell in love with the show so) - I made the exact same comparison a while back!

Incidentally, where didst thou watch episode 1? ITV.com? Like a total plum, I forgot to set my VCR on Saturday morning. So if it's repeated at any point this coming week, somebody please me know!

I'd say that it owes more to Barry Sonnenfeld (who directed the pilot) and Tim Burton than it does to Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

I can see the Sonnenfeld and Burton influences as well, but there are definitely direct lifts from Amelie - the afore mentioned narration, the look of The Pie Hole is very similar to the Two Windmills and the music was very reminiscent in places as well.

I'm not knocking any of this, but if I were Jeunet I would probably be feeling slightly aggrieved!

Ade: I taped it on Saturday, and it was repeated yesterday afternoon on ITV1 - I don't know if it is going to be on again, but you should be able to watch it through their web site.

Sod's law I was out all day, argh. I'll check oot that thar webbysoite.

ITV2 would be the most likely place it'd be repeated, my man.

Episode 1 repeated tonight on ITV2 @ 9pm.

The pilot was pretty bizarre in a cool way, but I'm not quite sure whether I like it or not yet. The next few episodes will tell.

Damn my poxy useless Freeview box, I can't get that. Damn it, I say.



In fact, no. Not damn the Freeview digibox. Damn the Craplington Stanley signal we have in North West Norfolk - it's the shit end of the stick we are dealt when it comes to telly reception.

To be honest, 'Amelie' never really crossed my mind when I was watching it. I'm with Ed, in terms of its influences. There was a lot of 'Big Fish' in there (that was much more the vibe I got from the narration).

I thought it was delightful.

Yay! Stick with it. It gets sooooo much delightfuller.

I completely missed it but I will check out episode 2 for sure.

Sorry...

Fo sho.

No, you won't . . .

ITV drops Pushing Daisies episode.

What a load of cock - they could at least make the episode available on their web site if they are going to do that.

I could understand that decision if one of the home nations is playing, but they're not even in the tournament.

How about a double-bill one Saturday? Or possibly putting an episode on mid week, if it's going to clash horribly with the football?

Or, just don't put the football on. How many people can honestly say that they'd watch a full 90 minutes of an international that has no effect on their country?

Would it be so bad if for once, sport took a back seat where scheduling is concerned?

I remember watching the whole of Turkey vs. Croatia in Euro 96! (to be honest, the lack of any home interest in this tournament actually makes it more appealing to me because we won't get all the usual "Will England win?" crap, but that's discussion for another thread).

My point is though, given the choice, what would you watch?

I realise that football is very important to many people, and that ITV1 makes a bundle from the sponsorships of showing it, but I'd venture a lot more people would be interested in watching Pushing Daisies than watching the footy.

Personally, I'd rather watch Pushing Daisies, but I realise that it is unrealistic of me to expect that ITV will show a drama they can easily reschedule instead of a live sporting event that will probably get them higher viewing figures.

I'm just waiting for the nerd riots that will ensue when the Beeb, inevitably, starts moving Doctor Who around in the schedules for this (episodes 10 through 13 will be screened over the course of the tournament, I’ll be amazed if one of the doesn’t get moved or postponed . . .).

It could get changed even further, if they do what they did last year and have a week off due to Eurovision.

That is a load of cock. If they knew that why didn't they just start the series a week earlier? They'd been trailing it for ages.

That is a load of bollocks. What next, getting rid of the programmes all together because they get in the way of the adverts. In fact they should cut the end of every film they show just so it fits in a ninety minute slot. Cunts.

They pretty much do that already - I remember when they used to show the end credits of movies. They don't do that anymore.

This is ridiculous!

ITV give you a bit of hope by something half decent and then giving it a decent timeslot on their main channel, then pull a stunt like this!

All for fucking football. I can just about stomach the all prevailing power it must have when England are playing but, as was said earlier, these games are nothing to do with us!

I am absolutely spitting feathers here. They'd never drop any of their reality shit, that might upset a few morons.

I really hope this is a publicity stunt.

Actually, to be fair to ITV, they do shift other more popular programs around for sporting events - Coronation Street, for example, quite often gets moved for the football and F1.

It is disappointing though.

Given that they knew the length of the series well before they started showing it, and that it was only nine episodes long, you would have thought they would have made the effort to show all of it.

Blaming the US writers strike is a bit of an odd excuse.

It's balls is what it is. What a shambles. There's plenty enough dross shown on ITV that could be dumped for one hour to reschedule the rogue episode.

Coronation Street, for example.

For one.

They moved Coronation Street from the weekend so as not to have to move it for sporting events...the sneaky bastards.

F1 is moving back to BBC1 next year anyway.

I'm completely behind major international tournaments getting the same treatment, regardless of whether home nation has qualified. That certainly doesn't mean there's suddenly no interest in it, and any sports fan will tell you there's still plenty of enjoyment to be had. I don't support any team, but I can still really enjoy watching a good match, last Tuesday's Champions League match, for example, was just fantastic. And in terms of supporting someone, there's nothing to say you have to be nationalistic. I don't think I've ever supported a Brit in Wimbledon. As for football, 1994 was still fun as I recall.

Regardless of the above, and the earlier (very good) point about live sport vs TV shows that can be shown anytime, this still seems like an utterly bizarre thing to do. It's almost insulting to the audience (and the show's producers). The notion you can drop an episode from a TV series because it won't leave us lost in terms of plot, is ludicrous. What if it helps define tone, or character, or is important because of a million other things? I find it nearly impossible to believe that episode two of a series is disposable.

It paints ITV as hacks with no respect for the audience or the shows they are importing.

As others have said, have a double bill, start the series earlier or finish it later. This is a completely shit 'solution' to a problem - a scheduler deserves the boot (pun intended).

Very well said!

That's because they're hacks with no respect for the audience or the shows they're importing.

Otherwise Pushing Daisies et al would have gotten much better treatment than they have, and shite like I'm a Celebrity and Love Island would be pushed out of the schedules like the trash they are.

This has put me off watching the series to be honest, I was going to catch up on ITV online but I won't bother now, I'll wait for them to repeat the series in full.

Just managed to catch the last half of episode 1 on ITV2 yesterday before watching all of episode 3 ( ) later. Really rather enjoyable I thought. It put me in mind of a grown up version of Eerie Indiana and a touch of Sam Raimi's film Crimewave.

And absolute bollocks ITV saying the 2nd episode wouldn't be missed too much by the audience. The leap from episode 1 to 3 was too obvious and I felt I'd missed a little something of the character development/dymamic.

I have to say, it didn't grate as much as I expected. If I hadn't known, I don't think I would have noticed anything.

Their decision is still a shower of shit, but luckily they got away with it. I'll catch episode two some other time.

Ned is so fuckable it's ridiculous. If I was Anna Friel, I'd have to deliberately bump into him, better to be dead than that sexually frustrated.

Then again, she goes home to David Thewlis. Lucky cow.

Mmm-hmmmm. I envy and pity the pie-man in equal measure.

Okay, I've already seen the series, so the jump didn't seem too blatant to me either, but to my recollection, the second episode didn't have that many crucial plot points that wouldn't be missed in the short term (although there are some nice scenes that fans will no doubt like to see in due course).

The Burton-esque quality of the show was also more apparent to me this time too. I'm really loving watching this show again - best thing currently on the telly by a long chalk.

I just realised too that the funeral director twin(s) was played by none other than Officer Parkman's brother.

It wasn't so much that I felt I'd missed any plot, just a little bit of the settling in of the characters and their dynamic to each other. Maybe that was from the benefit of watching the first episode just a couple of hours before the 3rd. Had it been a week, I might not have noticed it.

I agree with those who've said that the shift from episode 1 to 3 wasn't that jarring. Apart from the fact that the ''previously on'' montage at the start of the episode featured a few images and exchanges that weren't in 'Pie-lette' I thought that there wasn't really a sense that anything was being missed out on.

Of course, that doesn't excuse the fact that ITV have been pretty stupid about the whole thing, but at least the episode they chose to skip did not leave the audience is as much of a lurch as it could otherwise have done.

Silly me forgot to watch it last night. Will it be repeated again sometime this week?

It was repeated this afternoon on ITV1. If you've got ITV2 you can watch it tomorrow night at 9pm.

Thank you! I'll have to see if I can steal the digi-box remote from my sister tomorrow.

Not bad, although I kept getting distracted by chilli con carne in the kitchen.

You're all wrong, Parloe. You should have eaten at 7pm.

Ah, but the other half was making it at the time. More than my life's worth, etc.

I'm 2 and half episodes into this and it's fair to say I'm hooked now. It's just so bloody enjoyable.

Is Ned's dog's name of Digby a reference to narrater Jim Dale or just a coincidence?

The Biggest Dog In The World? Yeah, I wondered that.

What a smashing dog it is. I want one.

I have now watched the first 3 episodes (including the unscreened 2nd) and I must say it is pretty darn good.

It's a nice mix of Burton and Juenet. The only irritant is the narration always giving peoples age down to the minute.

The second episode (that wasn't shown) is so far, for me, the best. Not only about daisy powered cars, but it does feature their first kiss.

And now two statements that will probably harm any reputation I may have for being "manly":*

a) damn they are putting Friel in some lovely outfits

and

b) its quite refreshing to have a series which is about romance






* to counter-balance this I would like to state that I love tits!