With its pastel color scheme and fairy tale screed, Pushing Daisies is quickly shaping up to be one of the biggest hits of the new television season, but is its unlikely premise and demand of nearly child like suspension of disbelief Wonderfalls 2.0? Both shows benefited from an amount of critical fore flashing that was nearly as absurd as their plot lines.  However, unlike Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies is finding positive hype flowing from a new and growing contingent of the media:  illegal downloaders.

Screeners for new shows have made their way onto the Internet ahead of release for years now.  With the proliferation of the concept of ‘bit torrents' into even the most innocent computer users vocabulary, the spread of pilots and screeners has reached a dangerous level.  Instead of the usual slow leak of hype through trusted media outlets, networks now have to contend with the reactions of the hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide who download the latest shows well in advance of their premiere.

This is not always a bad thing.  Last year, positive buzz from the pirate scene was invaluable to Heroes and Jericho.  Heroes, in particular, was approached nervously by NBC, stuck in a time slot that saw the death of a similar high profile serial, Surface, last year, the premiere was hardly billed as the event that the finale was.

With Reaper, Dexter, Weeds, Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Bionic Woman at its side, the pilot for Pushing Daisies has achieved wide circulation through bit torrent downloads, many of which allow visitors to rate the program on video, audio, and story quality.  Amongst these fine citizens, the shows to watch out for are Weeds and Pushing Daisies.

Despite the fact that these reviews come from the viewing of unauthorized screeners, studios can hardly afford to ignore the feedback.  While there is damage, to be sure, torrent downloaders are sort of like the world's largest focus group of the target audiences. 

Of course, in some cases the hype from pre-releases doesn't settle very well with studios at all.  The release of 24's first four episodes onto the net last season generated plenty of hype for the show, but also resulted in criminal charges for those who helped proliferate the misappropriated screener.


- Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Couresy of ABC)