In the opening scene of Pushing Daisies, a young boy runs joyously through a field of wildflowers with his beloved golden retriever, Digby. Then the dog’s enthusiasm leads him right into the path of a semi truck. The boy, only nine years old, is heartbroken—until he touches the dog, and Digby miraculously comes back to life, running off as if nothing ever happened.

That memorable opening set the stage for a series that had a huge impact during its own brief life—one that creator Bryan Fuller still remembers with great clarity. “It’s perhaps the purest expression of my creativity, as derivative as it is,” he says now. “It’s full of things that make me happy as an artist. So when anyone appreciates the show, they’re appreciating me.”

Pushing Daisies spent two powerful seasons exploring life, death, and love with a good helping of quirky humor. “I hoped in the telling of this tale about pies and dogs and love and lost childhoods and reclaimed romance, we could find respite from what was essentially death, death, death. We’re surrounded by death every day,” says Fuller. “If anything, it allows us to look with greater affection at the living moments rather than spending time wallowing in depression.”

The show’s hero, Ned (played as an adult by Lee Pace), has to learn that lesson himself when his childhood sweetheart, Chuck (Anna Friel), is murdered. He revives her with his touch—knowing that if he ever touches her a second time, she’ll die again, but this time permanently. As Fuller puts it, “There’s something touching about a man who’s shut off from his emotions finding a woman he loves, has loved, and will continue to love but will never have the satisfaction of touching. It’s a really powerful metaphor.”

A metaphor for what, exactly? Though viewers may not have picked up on it, Fuller was partially inspired by his experience as a gay man living through the AIDS epidemic. Chuck and Ned can’t have skin-to-skin contact; for a generation of people, “unprotected sex meant death for so long,” says Fuller. “There was always an interesting gay metaphor in Pushing Daisies that was at the root of my understanding of these characters. Ten years ago, there was danger associated with intimate touch. I think a lot of those things were probably at the back of my mind as I was creating a universe where something so simple, something that is common in heterosexual relationships, was something that would kill you.”

Filtering a story about death through a romantic lens brought necessary levity to what’s otherwise a rather heavy premise—but it’s not just the Ned-and-Chuck relationship that Pushing Daisies fans remember so fondly. The show’s vibrant, colorful aesthetic—inspired by two of Fuller’s favorite films at the time, Amelie and Fight Club—was also vital to its identity.