After months of delays, the Pushing Daisies season 1 original soundtrack CD is finally set for release in time for Christmas – barely – with a in-store date of Dec. 23. The disk features original music composed and arranged by Jim Dooley.

Many Daisies fans have been looking forward to the CD because it would feature three season 1 highlights: "Morning Has Broken," performed by Ellen Greene in "Smell of Success" (1x07); "Hopelessly Devoted To You" from Grease, performed by Kristin Chenoweth in "Dummy" (1x02); and the They Might Be Giants classic "Birdhouse In Your Soul," an excerpt of which was giddily performed by Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene in "Pigeon" (1x04).

In fact, over Thanksgiving Chenoweth and Greene went into the studio to record full, complete versions of these three songs specifically for the CD. Both stars are Broadway belters (Greene is Tony-nominated for Threepenny Opera, and Chenoweth won for You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and was nominated for Wicked) who obviously enjoyed a chance to add music to their Daisies performances. (Hey Chenoweth lovers: she also has a Christmas CD out.)

The CD also features a full version of the opening credits theme and 31 more tracks of Dooley's atmospheric scoring for the show, many of them in an extended form, as performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony.

Originally slated for release Oct. 21 to promote the show's second season, the CD has been pushed back more than once. As there will now be nothing to promote – Daisies was recently canceled by ABC – a soundtrack CD of the second season is looking extremely unlikely.

The Pushing Daisies original television soundtrack is being released by the soundtrack/compilations label Varèse Sarabande, which is accepting preorders on its website. The CD includes a lovely booklet featuring images from the show, full credits, and notes from both Dooley and show creator/executive producer Bryan Fuller.

Best of all, the CD itself is a big ol' cherry pie.

The complete track listing is as follows. Read more...

Season 23 of the original Doctor Who came out on DVD recently after a gap of over two decades – and that lapse of time has given the key players in the twisted story of Colin Baker's last season some interesting perspectives on what happened to the show and why.

"The Trial of a Time Lord" on DVD is the ideal resource for fans of classic Doctor Who who want to know the whole story behind the show's most controversial Doctor, Colin Baker, and the twists and turns of his final season on the air.

Though the 14 episodes of season 23 are of varying quality, they contain many of Baker's best moments in the show and some of the entire series's most indelible moments, including the death of Peri Brown. The commentaries and extensive featurettes on the "Trial" DVD set are impressive, making it fun for Who fans and a must for those who appreciate Colin Baker's turn as the Doctor.

Sci Fi has released a trailer for the final ten episodes of Battlestar Galactica. The 90-second clip teases the conflicts resulting from the first half of the season, which ended in mid-June and climaxed in a human-Cylon alliance to find an "Earth" that seems to have been destroyed and abandoned.

As in the past, Sci Fi has mixed in old footage from the first half of the season with new stuff not yet seen. In addition to all of the regulars, the trailer, interestingly enough, gives facetime to Richard Hatch's character, Tom Zarek. And it has an exchange already being extensively quoted around the net, in which Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) says to Adama (Edward James Olmos), "If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know." And Adama replies, "If I'm a Cylon, you're really screwed." Well, yeah.

The biggest mystery, of course, is who the twelfth Cylon is and how that revelation will impact both races. The secret was originally intended to be revealed during the mid-season finale in June, but its was decided to push it back to the final ten episodes – so expect the revelation to come early in the slate of episodes, with the the balance of the season dealing with repercussions and the resolution of the human-Cylon-Earth storylines. (The net is rife with rumors that the twelfth Cylon's cover has been blown, but it's clear to me from past encounters that Battlestar's creators are more than capable of planting a red herring or two. Your best bet, folks, is to wait and see.)

The final ten episodes begin airing on Friday, January 16.

E! Online is reporting that creator Bryan Fuller has confirmed the (more-or-less expected) cancellation of Pushing Daisies, the highly regarded but low-rated fantasy-comedy that has been under a Hollywood deathwatch for the last few weeks.

Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money also are said to have gotten the axe, though so far the word is unofficial.

Creator Fuller is philosophical about ending Daisies, which has had a bumpy road. "To be honest," Fuller told E!'s Kristin Dos Santos, "I'm really not feeling very boo-hoo about it. I am so proud of the show. We put together 22 really good episodes, and there is a lot to be proud of. I'm sure I'll be working with a lot of these people again, and I would love to do so."

Kristin Chenoweth, who plays the bright-and-shiny Olive Snook on the show, said Thursday night she'd already gotten the bad news. "I just found out about an hour ago," she said. "Pushing Daisies will probably forever be one of my most happiest times of my career. I loved being a part of that show, such quality, and I'm very sad." Chenoweth speculated the writers' strike, which interrupted and truncated the first season, had a lot to do with the show's failure to find an audience despite sharp scripts and innovative production.

The orphaned storylines for the unmade "back nine" episodes of this season are slated to be covered in a comic book, and Fuller has joked about the possibility of a feature film.

I'll miss Pushing Daisies a great deal, but I also agree with Fuller – perhaps a show this unique is better off, in a way, being represented as a handful of gems. Eli Stone, however, has, I think, run its course. My review of the second-season premiere noted how the show had, in deliberately casting aside the mystery involving Eli's visions, damaged its own appeal considerably, and the ensuing episodes tracking the disintegration of Eli's firm haven't changed my mind.

Goodbye, Daisies. Bryan – thanks for the pie. It was delicious.