BEST
2. PUSHING DAISIES (ABC)
Filled with mermaid divers and windmill farms, Pushing Daisies is a fantastically fantastical, bubble-gum-colored fable about a pie maker named Ned (Lee Pace), who magically brings his childhood love, Chuck (Anna Friel), back to life with his touch but will kill her if he ever makes contact again. Between solving oddball mysteries involving puppy cloning and scratch-'n'-sniff empires, Chuck and Ned banter and moon at each other. (As Ned's gruff detective buddy, wonderful Chi McBride undercuts any excess sweet.) When so many TV couples are bickery brats, there's something strangely mature about this chaste pair. It's easy to whip up a juicy drama about evildoing bastards — it takes a boatload of creativity to make all this niceness so mesmerizing.