Bryan Fuller makes elaborate fantasy work when its rules give people recognisable problems. We recommend Pushing Daisies for the longing beneath its whimsy, with a warning that the sweetness can be exhausting.
Fi1m perspective
Ned can bring the dead back to life, but he cannot touch anyone he has revived again. In Pushing Daisies (2007), Bryan Fuller makes that prohibition matter more than the gift: the piemaker still wants a relationship, and ordinary romantic hesitation now has a frighteningly practical cause. We were moved by Ned’s longing, because the rule makes the simplest wish to be close to someone dangerous. We rate Fuller most highly here, giving an impossible premise a consequence that needs little explanation.
His writing career began with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1997) and Star Trek: Voyager (1997–2001), before he created Dead Like Me (2003) and co-created Wonderfalls (2004). Those series led towards the character-driven fantasy of Pushing Daisies. With Hannibal (2013–2015), grotesque imagery and culinary horror became central to the work. That darker turn makes sense for a writer who had already found both romance and dark humour in bringing people back from the dead.
Fuller has worked with writing and showrunning partner Michael Green, and his programmes need performers who can make their peculiar rules feel consequential. Lee Pace, Anna Friel and the cast of Pushing Daisies do that by taking the silliness seriously. The romance works because Fuller keeps the longing close to the fantasy, rather than treating the relationship as a pause between inventions. Our reservation is about how insistently sweet it can become. The central predicament needs less encouragement to move us than the programme sometimes seems to think.
American Gods (2017) continued the fantasy work, with Fuller writing and running its first season. Dust Bunny (2025), his feature directorial debut, brought horror and fairy-tale elements into another format. There is no reason to ask him to become less peculiar, though we would want any new rules to be as clear in their consequences as Ned’s. Start with Pushing Daisies, provided its sweetness is unlikely to wear you down.
Biography
Bryan Fuller is an American writer and television producer. He created the series Pushing Daisies (2007–2009), on which he also served as writer, and contributed the story for the series Crystal Lake (2026).
Fuller began his career writing for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995), later becoming a writer and co-producer on the latter. He is the co-creator of Star Trek: Discovery (2017) and has written for Heroes (2006). Other series he created include Dead Like Me (2003), Wonderfalls (2004), Hannibal (2013) and American Gods (2017). He made his feature directorial debut with Dust Bunny (2025).
