January has always been a bit of a dreary month, coming as it does after
all the excitement and wonder of Christmas, and usually feeling like
one long stretch of piercingly cold weather. But in recent years, I’ve
come to look forward to January as a time for my family – including my
brother, who’s home for the first two weeks of the month before heading
back to college – to hunker down and spend our evenings bonding over
great stories, especially those stretched out over the course of one or
several television seasons. These days, I associate January primarily
with TV-on-DVD marathons, so when I was browsing Amazon shortly after
Christmas and found a killer deal on the first three seasons of Chuck,
I took a leap. After all, I loved the one episode I saw a couple years
back, and not just because of Dom Monaghan. Plus, I trust the taste of
those I know who have praised the show. I figured I was past due for
getting swept away in it myself, and by the end of the first scene I was
confident I’d made a sound investment. So I now present my 2900th post…
Chuck, created by Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz, stars Zachary Levi
as Chuck Bartowski, a geeky, sweet-natured computer technician who
lives with his sister and works at the Buy More, a fictionalized version
of Best Buy, as a Nerd Herder (a label that simultaneously spoofs the
Geek Squad and tips a hat at The Empire Strikes Back). There’s
not a lot of excitement in his life until he opens an email from his
former roommate and finds his brain embedded with millions of coded
images containing thousands of government secrets. Now, he’s got two
secret agents on his tail at all times, and it’s not enough for them to
just keep an eye on him so that valuable information is protected. Chuck
is in a unique position to help them track down the baddies and rescue
their victims, so he soon finds himself caught up in a wild world of
espionage, full of danger and deceit. And he still has to keep up with
his day job and keep his nearest and dearest from becoming too
suspicious.
When it comes to the action, the intrigue, Chuck’s
insatiable desire to help people and the need for secrecy wreaking havoc
with his personal life, I was reminded a lot of the first season of Smallville,
in which Clark Kent is always rushing off to save the day and leaving
his friends in the lurch. It’s a painful position to be in, but it’s the
price you pay for being a superhero. Chuck’s “superpower” is his
ability to draw unconscious connections between people and events. He
never can tell what may cause a flash of realization, but the
thousand-yard stare is a dead giveaway that something strange is cooking
in his mega-processor of a noggin. Beyond that, Chuck has nothing but
his own wits and charm, along with two very capable wingmen, to help him
escape life-threatening situations week after week. There’s a lot of
action, and sometimes it can get pretty tense. At the same time,
however, the main tone of the show is humorous, and even much of the
violence has a comical edge to it, whether it’s engaging in a deadly
duel with mops and plastic forks for weapons or knocking a guy out with a
microwave oven.
The show deftly juggles genres while almost
invariably keeping a light-hearted tone. Even the most touching or
dangerous moments are soon punctuated by some element of humor. Chuck is
an incredibly lovable character, a fundamentally decent guy who cares
deeply about his sister and best friend and who always wants to do the
right thing, even if he knows it will come at a cost to his personal
happiness. But he’s also incredibly funny, and a lot of that comes down
to Levi’s expressive performance. He’s got a remarkably pliable face,
and just a glance at his goofy grin or panicked jaw drop can be enough
to set off a case of the giggles. Chuck also has the tendency to stammer
and babble when he’s jittery, which is often. Sometimes just his way of
wording things cracks me up; I think my favorite line of the season
from him is when he asks, after a heart-to-heart with his sister, “How
would you feel about a brother-sister hug situation right now?”
At
first, I didn’t think I was going to like Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) very
much, as our first introduction to her is when she finds Chuck hiding
from his own birthday party, to which she has invited all of her doctor
friends in hopes that he will find a potential love interest. While it
was a nice gesture, it seemed like she was going to be the kind of
sister who’s always nagging her brother to be something other than what
he is. But that really doesn’t turn out to be the case at all. They move
in different social circles, certainly, but Ellie loves Chuck just the
way he is, and she’s really a very good sport most of the time. It soon
becomes clear that these two would do just about anything to ensure each
other’s happiness and well-being.
The dynamic among Chuck’s closest companions reminds me a lot of Freaks and Geeks,
the short-lived but exquisite high school dramedy about high school
students in the beginning of the 1980s. It’s so easy to imagine
27-year-old Chuck as a grown-up version of Sam Weir. He’s good-natured,
kind-hearted and just awkward enough for it to be endearing. Many of
Chuck’s passions appeared on that very show or probably would have if it
had lasted long enough, since the 1980s was such a hotbed of geeky
activity. There are more recent references, such as various video games
and, much to my delight, a blink-and-you-miss-it allusion to LOST, but most it dates back a while. We’ve got nods to, among other things, TRON, Dune, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Star Wars. Indeed, it was Star Wars
that really made me notice how compatible Sam’s world is with Chuck’s.
At one point in the season, Chuck’s best friend from childhood, Morgan
Grimes (Joshua Gomez), appeals to him with, “Help me, Chuck Bartowski.
You’re my only hope.” In Freaks and Geeks, Sam uses the very same tactic on Neil, who sadly responds, “You had to go and quote the Star Wars…”
Like
Neil, Morgan is much shorter than his best friend. He has a tendency to
wear out his welcome, and he overestimates his own comic abilities.
Instead of making people laugh, he often winds up making them want to
throttle him. This is especially true of Ellie, since Morgan’s crush on
Ellie is every bit as intense as the one Neil has on Sam’s sister
Lindsey, and despite the omnipresence of her buff boyfriend, he’s not
afraid to show it. But Morgan and Chuck have been friends so long and
are so compatible that they are truly in sync with each other, and for
all of Morgan’s shortcomings – he’s easily the most annoying character
on the show – this is a guy who will always have Chuck’s back, even at
great inconvenience to himself. The friendship is definitely a two-way
street.
Ellie and Chuck are both as different from each other
and as close as Sam and Lindsey. Meanwhile, though they couldn’t look
less alike, in his interactions with Chuck and Morgan, her boyfriend
Devon (Ryan McPartlin), otherwise known as Captain Awesome, reminds me a
lot of offbeat guidance counselor Mr. Rosso. He’s so easy-going that it
seems nothing could ever possibly faze him. He’s a little cheesy and a
little overinvolved, but this is a guy you really want to have in your
corner when you’re in a jam, even if his solutions are sometimes a bit
uncomfortable.
The show’s romantic element comes in mostly with
Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski), a CIA agent who has been assigned to
Chuck’s case. Tough, pretty and kind, she wins Chuck’s heart
immediately, and it seems pretty clear that she has taken a shine to him
as well. But even though they’re posing as a couple for the sake of
their cover, genuine romantic involvement doesn’t seem to be in the
cards for them. I find Sarah to be extremely likable and an even better
sport than Ellie. But my favorite character on the show next to Chuck is
surly NSA agent John Casey (Adam Baldwin). It wasn’t until after I’d
watched a few episodes and checked him out on IMDb that I realized
Baldwin had played antagonistic redneck outlaw Jayne on Firefly; he reminded me more of Frederic Lehne’s single-minded Marshall Edward Mars on LOST.
This is an unsmiling, ruthless assassin who always seems to be in a
foul temper, and yet I find his sarcastic, deadpan humor consistently
hilarious, and as someone who is often most interested in characters in
need of redemption, I love those moments when we get to see his buried
sensitivity break through his carefully built-up armor.
While
part of Sarah’s cover involves working at the hot dog shop across the
street, Casey works with Morgan and Chuck at the Buy More, along with an
assortment of oddball employees, including power-hungry Harry Tang (C.
S. Lee), who nobody seems to like; skeezy buddies Lester Patel (Vik
Sahay) and Jeff Barnes (Scott Krinsky); and wild child Anna Wu (Julia
Ling). By far my favorite member of the Buy More supporting cast,
however, is the boss, Big Mike (Mark Christopher Lawrence), who is
grumpy and sardonic but ultimately a softie. He likes to hear himself
yell, but his outbursts are more funny than threatening, and he has an
amusing obsession with fish and Danish.
Because this is a spy
show, there is a certain amount of violence involved, and while there’s
never anything too graphic that remains on the screen for more than a
brief moment, there are multiple injuries and a few deaths as well.
However, nearly all of the deaths occur at the hands of the villains,
usually not in the presence of the main characters. There are scenes in
every episode to get the adrenaline pumping, but they are generally
handled with a careful balance of action and humor so that even the
tensest situation doesn’t seem too dire. I also appreciated that while
there is innuendo on the show, it’s pretty understated for a spy comedy,
and there’s little overt sexuality on display. There’s not much
profanity to speak of, either, and for the most part, the show feels
pretty wholesome, especially because of the way it lauds close bonds of
friendship and family.
Nathan’s back at college now. Meanwhile,
my parents and I still have two seasons to go and a dilemma as we
consider whether we want to wait for him to finish playing catch-up. I
suspect that any resolve we have on that score won’t last long; this
show is just too addictive to leave it hanging for several months, and
I’m sure that when he does come back this summer, I won’t mind watching
those episodes with him again as he enjoys them for the first time.
Neither my dad nor brother had any interest in the show when they saw it
advertised, but by the end of the first episode, they were just as
hooked as I was. We’ve found a new series to add to our list of
favorites, and that’s cause for celebration. Three cheers for Chuck!
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