I have to disagree a bit with this assessment: "but the difference might be that 'Once' is able to wear its dark side much more explicitly". By its Halloween episode in season one, "Pushing Daisies" was already going to darker places, with the characters' motivations and interactions with each other much more problematic than the initial few episodes. Since episode one, the show had gotten away with more gruesome deaths than most "Law & Order" corpses, specifically because of the honey-sapped saccharinity that made up its color palette. And by the end of its run, especially w/r/t Emerson Cod's episode with the waterworks, no one was feeling the same joviality. "Once Upon a Time" is interesting, and ABC are definitely pushing it harder than they did "Daises" (in no small part, I'm sure, that ABC Studios are responsible for its production, while Warner Bros. handled "Daisies"), which means it could have a chance to go somewhere great. It still feels like a consolation prize to me.