BURBANK, Calif. — Lee Pace has the magic touch.

Relaxing on the set of his critically praised series, "Pushing Daisies," Pace taps the air teasingly with his forefinger. It's how Pace's character, Ned, makes others live or die with a single stroke on the darkly whimsical ABC drama.

It's also how Pace keeps British actress Anna Friel, his lively co-star, in line during long production hours. Friel plays Ned's longtime love, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles.

"When Anna acts up on set, I just touch her like this," Pace said, pointing a magic finger.

The finger-tap is a joke on Ned and Chuck's deadly dilemma on "Pushing Daisies." In the show's pilot, Ned resurrected Chuck after she was murdered. Now they live together. If Ned touches Chuck once more — directly, skin-on-skin — she's back in a casket, pronto.

"Just sitting together in a car, it's life or death stakes for them," Pace said of the seemingly doomed (or at least physically frustrated) couple. "Every day when we block scenes, I think, 'Now how should we hold our bodies?' "

In fact, the physical intimacy of Ned and Chuck is chaperoned on the Warner Bros. lot, especially by executive producer Barry Sonnenfeld ("Men in Black"), who also directs the series.

"Barry's always going, 'Oops! Don't you dare touch Anna,' " Friel said. "It's hard, trying to fit together into a tight two-shot."

"We actually did try going for a week with no touching at all on set," Friel said of her co-star. "We didn't do too good. We're both — particularly me — incredibly tactile. By day three, I was dead three times."

If "Pushing Daisies" carries a message about sexual abstinence, "that was never the intention, but you can certainly read it in," Fuller said. "I suppose the show is really about the dangers of any kind of intimacy, not just physical intimacy."

Fuller previously created "Dead Like Me," the Showtime series about grim reapers, and "Wonderfalls," the short-lived Fox series in which inanimate objects talked. With "Daisies," he meshes fantasy, comedic romance, comfort food and murder.

Ned investigates homicides, with help from Chuck and private eye Emerson Cod (Chi McBride). Zap, and Ned revives victims long enough for them to reveal their killers. Zap, and they're dead again.

"Ned's real gift is the understanding of the value of life and death," Pace said. "He's not careless with his powers. But after he brought Chuck back to life everything is different for him. It's like his life is happening for the first time."