chuck: premiere approaching!
one day, they'll be able to be together. but that day is probably not this sunday. // nbc promotional photo
With the premiere of Chuck rapidly approaching–and as a non-watcher, I’d argue it’s being pretty heavily promoted–I thought it might be time to give it a real try. I’d half-heartedly watched the pilot in the past and disliked it, and I watched last season’s “Chuck Versus the Suburbs” because I’m a huge sucker for the ol’ undercover-in-the-suburbs gag. (They’re gonna do this on Bones one day, just you wait, and it’s gonna be awesome.)
Starting from the beginning, I made it through four episodes before I caved, watched the last two episodes of season two, and called it a day.
People call it a combination of Alias and The Office, but I disagree. On The Office, the supporting cast members are endearing, even at their most annoying. Chuck’s Buy More pals–and especially Morgan–are mostly just grating. And there are way too many of them. But I will say that Chuck actually does a good job of balancing work life and home life; I really enjoy Ellie, even if she doesn’t seem to have that much to do.
The Alias connection I find even more puzzling. See, Sydney Bristow? She was a really good spy.
She once stole critical bad guy intel while on board an in-flight luxury jet, depressurized the plane with a gun to the window, made her way to a closet while the contents of the plane (including the bad guy) were sucked out the open window, PUT ON A PARACHUTE, and glided elegantly to safety and the waiting arms of Agent Michael Vaughn.
I make fun of Vaughn because, relative to his superspy future wife, he sucked. He looked at the image below and exclaimed, “It’s encoded!,” even though by that point, the words “time” and “truth” were pretty clearly visible. Rather than trying to decode skip-sequence ciphertext, Sydney Bristow just ripped the paper in half and set the sequence straight: “truth takes time.”
it's encoded! // screencap by disparue.org
See, Sarah Walker would have looked at those letters and probably not been confident about which alphabet she was looking at. Arabic? Cyrillic? Braille?
That’s what I can’t get over–they’re all terrible spies. They talk way too freely about state secrets in the Buy More, never think to bring comms on ops, and way too often let their personal issues interfere with national security. Jack Bristow would have had them tortured and disposed of by the middle of the second episode.
That said, high quality spying isn’t really what this show is about, and I’m a big proponent of appreciating things for what they are. It’s true that Chuck has a truly textbook relationship on its hands–Chuck and Sarah really bring it. Longing glances, tension-filled touches, and probably the closest “thisclose to doing it” scene that’s ever been on network television, are just the highlights of what I’ve seen in the eight or so episodes I’ve seen.
And the last two episodes of season two definitely introduced the potential for new and interesting relationship developments between several characters, most notably “Captain Awesome” (think he’s related to “Captain Fantastic”?) and the spies, now that the former is aware of the spying after two seasons as a clueless civilian.
Am I intrigued over the possibility of season three? Yes. Am I bowled over with love for this show? Not really. Knowing the show’s history and the brilliant audacity of the fans who saved it from cancellation last year, I’m happy to see it get a third season, if only because it proves the importance of building and attracting a fanbase of loyal and creative viewers. They just seriously need to go to spy school.
