In earlier Pushing Daisies spoilers, we took you inside episode two.

Now, here are a couple pictures from the hour entitled “Dummy,” courtesy of Pushing-Daisies.com.

Chuck (Anna Friel) and Ned (Lee Pace) are on the case!

Ned and Emerson (Chi McBride) appear to be visiting someone in a hospital.

Pushing Daisies is unique. There’s no doubt about that.

Recently, a few involved with this incredible show commented on the appeal, and challenges, of working on such a series.

- Anna Friel plays a character that can’t ever touch the man she loves. That’s certainly a change from most programs, which are centered around sex and bed hopping… or at least hand holding. But Friel finds this kind of romance sweet.

“It makes it more exciting not to be able to touch,” she said. “[It's] the longest foreplay ever in existence.”

Friel also joked about her tenuous status on the show: “I’ve behaved myself extremely well on set because a simple touch and I’m out of the series.”

- Then there’s Barry Sonnenfeld, the director behind movies such as Men in Black and Get Shorty. He’s been behind the camera on other TV pilots before, but then left to focus on a film. Now, however?

“I’m much more involved in the continuing of the show than I used to (be),” he said.

Sonnefeld plans to direct three of the first 13 episodes. He talked about the special tone of the show, one that’s a whole lot brighter than most.

“There’s a dial that if you turn to 11 instead of 10, just makes it that much more colorful.”

- Finally, longtime actress Swoosie Kurtz finds her daily life affected by this unique palette.

“I find myself thinking in primary colors,” she said.

Paul Reubens isn’t the only goofy personality joining the cast of Pushing Daisies for a few episodes.

Sources confirm that former Saturday Night Live star Molly Shannon will come aboard the new show for a multi-episode arc staring in November.

She’ll play Dilly Balsam, the owner of a salt-water taffy emporium that’s set up shop across the street from the Pie Hole.

Sounds like a perfect piece of casting to us.

Previous Pushing Daisies spoilers have taken you inside episodes two and three.

So it’s time for episode four, “Pigeons.” During this upcoming hour…

- Jayma Mays (from Heroes, pictured below) will guest star as Elsita, a woman who lives and works in a windmill.

- Emerson, Ned and Chuck (Anna Friel) take on a case of stolen jewelry, while also solving a murder/suicide. They also find out about a missing prisoner who may play a role further down the line.

Funny.

Sentimental.

The best new show on television.

Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller (pictured) is hearing the sort of praise all writers wish to receive about a new series. But can he handle the pressure of such expectations? He was recently asked this, among a few other questions…

Pushing Daisies doesn’t premiere until Oct. 3, but critics love it and the network is pushing it like crazy. How much pressure is on the show to live up to expectations?
Really no more pressure than I’m already putting on myself. It’s kind of nice to have so much support. It’s a big hug.

Are you surprised by the negative rumors people want to spread about the show, such as its struggles to stay on budget?
No, the currency in this town is information for a lot of folks. I had to giggle at [a report the first episode was $1.5 million over budget]. That number was so violently exaggerated it is hard to take it seriously. But we are over budget on a lot of episodes. If you talk to any show in town, they are going to be over budget. I read that Bionic Woman cost $4.3 million, but other people are just trying to shove that show under a bus, too.

How is this show’s budget situation similar or different to that of Heroes [on which Fuller was a writer last season]?
On Heroes, we were over budget before we started because studios under-budget it to increase the margin of profitability with the network. They want you to do it for a certain number, they realize you can’t, then they change the numbers. We were more over budget on Heroes than we were on Daisies. So the third episode we cut back to try to catch up. Then the network and the studio saw it and gave us more money to keep it in line with the first two.

Is Pushing Daisies the best of a pretty average bunch of pilots this fall?
I don’t think so. I loved Chuck, I think it’s fantastic, it is already on my TiVo. So is Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Reaper is fantastic

The following is an ABC press release, regarding the streaming of Pushing Daisies episodes on its official website:

Disney-ABC Television Group’s ABC Entertainment and the Warner Bros. Television Group announced today that they have reached an agreement regarding the digital distribution of “Big Shots,” “Men in Trees,” “Notes from the Underbelly” and “Pushing Daisies.”

Under the terms of the experimental deal… ABC has the ability to distribute all four series as non-permanent offerings, which includes streaming episodes online and retaining the advertising revenue generated on ABC.com’s Emmy Award-winning broadband player, as well as utilizing the pilots on alternative platforms to launch the shows.

The episodes will be available at ABC.com the day after their broadcast premieres.

The unique two-year deal allows ABC.com to stream each episode up to four weeks after its broadcast, and in return, Warner Bros. will have the same rights the following year with respect to past episodes previously streamed on ABC.com, and in addition will be able to offer digital downloads of the prior year’s episodes, as well as DVD boxed sets. While Warner Bros. will be able to stream the episodes to unlimited outlets, the episodes will be branded ABC and promote back to the network.

“This announcement reiterates our commitment to keep our viewers and their needs front-and-center as we continue to lead in the digital arena,” said Anne Sweeney, co-chair, Disney Media Networks and president, Disney-ABC Television Group.

Stephen McPherson, pictured, is the President of ABC. He recently spoke with The Los Angeles Times about a bevy of new shows on the network, most notably Pushing Daisies.

ABC is rolling out the most new shows this fall. How does the upcoming season look?
We’re excited to get going. We’re in a more stable place than in years past and it’s nice to go into September with a lot of hits - Ugly Betty, Grey’s, Lost” and Dancing With the Stars. We have Sunday, Monday and Thursday working well. And we’ve got some great shows coming up where we really took some chances - Dirty, Sexy, Money and Pushing Daisies.

Pushing Daisies already has made an impression with the critics.
My hats off to Bryan Fuller, who created the show. It’s his vision from beginning to end. Barry Sonnenfeld brought a great touch to the premiere episode. It’s a truly unique, interesting, touching procedural show with romance, intrigue and comedy to it.

Visually, it’s the most stunning show put on television in years. We’ve had a lot of success taking chances - whether it was Lost or Ugly Betty. Pushing Daisies is one of those shows that stands out in a crowded market. It’s wonderful doing shows like this and not just trying to copy what’s already working out there.

The following interview with Lee Pace is taken from the same E! Online feature that named the actor as a Newbie We’ll Love…

How did you get involved with Pushing Daisies?
I’ve been doing movies for the past five years, and I wasn’t really looking at doing television until this year, but I did work with Bryan Fuller on Wonderfalls, and I heard through the grapevine that Bryan Fuller had a new show, so I got a script from the manager. I read it, and I thought, this is actually really, really good.

Then I talked to Bryan, and he told me, “You know, I kind of wrote the character with you in mind.” And I was like, Oh, wow, that’s never happened before.

That’s so amazing.
Ned reads like the way I speak; we have the same speech patterns. So, I called my agents and my manager and I said, “I think this is really worth doing.”

So, they fought you, or you fought them, or both?
Both. I remember one of them saying, “Doing television right now would be a deeply regrettable move.” I just kept thinking, You know, if I’m tied up not doing movies for six years that means the show is a massive hit. And if that’s the problem I’m dealing with six years from now, then I’ll take it. I’ll take it. But what really kind of tipped the scale is that it’s good. Barry Sonnenfeld is directing it!

And the cast is great.
Every element has fallen into place. Everyone on the cast and crew gets along really, really well, we enjoy working together.

This show is love!
It’s about love and life. It’s about someone who can bring people back to life, but who can also inadvertently kill people. What I think we’re going to see Ned gain through the course of the series is an appreciation for how good it is to be alive. That’s the addition that Chuck makes to his life - it’s good to be alive, it’s good to be out of the Pie Hole, solving these cases. He learns how good life can be, how important this gift is.

In Pushing Daisies parlance, the show does not premiere in a little over two weeks.

It starts in 18 days, five hours, forty-five minutes and 20 seconds.

That’s because, more than anything else on the show, Pushing Daisies savors every second of life. That’s evident from the opening voice-over, in which Ned (Lee Pace) is described as being “9 years, 27 weeks, 6 days and 3 minutes old.”

Later, he’s “”19 years, 34 weeks, 1 day and 59 minutes.”

Why the details? Because this forensic fairytale - as ABC describes the series as - centers around the concept that every minute matter. As Chuck (Anna Friel) says in the opening episode, “Pie-lette,” dying is as good a reason as any to start living.

“I just thought that every minute was precious,” said Creator Bryan Fuller, who spent last year on the writing staff of Heroes. “So when the narrative talks about how old somebody is, the motivation is that at the end of your life, down to the minute, you look at every minute as precious.”

Overall, is the show a bit far-fetched? Sure. But maybe that’s on purpose. Perhaps it’s meant to help you focus on your own world, as Chi McBride says:

“It’s a fairy tale, man. If you want reality, you have your own life.”

Previously, our Pushing Daisies spoiler section took a close look at episode two, “Dummy.”

Along the same lines, here are a few details on episode three of the upcoming season, entitled “The Fun in Funeral.” Read on if you wish to learn more:

The aunts (played by Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene, pictured) will be folded back into the story during this hour. Here’s how: Chuck follows through with the threat she made in the pilot by baking anti-depressants into her aunts’ food (i.e. Ned’s pies).

Olive (Kristin Chenoweth) delivers one of these treats to the sisters and stumbles upon Chuck’s plan. This provides Ms. Snook with dirt on Chuck - because her aunts think she’s dead - so the question becomes: will Olive use it against her nemesis to lure in Ned?

Also, Ned and Chuck speak to a dead man named Donald Funk, who worked at the same funeral parlor as Lawrence Schatz, the man they find out died one minute after Ned brought Chuck back to life.

Donald and Lawrence acted together in stealing flowers from graves and jewelry from the bodies of clients of the funeral home.