Chuck vs. The First Date

Chuck emerged last year as one of NBC’s few successful new shows, and after cultivating a respectable stable of fans and surviving the strike, it looks like it is here to stay.  NBC apparently likes the show so much that they already ordered a full second season, before they could even gauge the Nielsen ratings on the first few episodes.

For newcomers to the show, Chuck stars Zachary Levi as the title character, an endearing and nerdy Everyman type who works at Buy More (an electronics chain a la Best Buy) with his ultra-nerd best friend Morgan after having been set up and kicked out of Stanford by his roommate Bryce Larkin.  In the pilot, Chuck’s safe, simple, and underachieving existence is shattered when Chuck receives an encoded email from Bryce, who is revealed to be a (double?) agent on the run.  This email contains a program called the Intersect, which is basically a visual database of all of the U.S. government’s secrets.  When Chuck opens the email, all of these secrets and images are downloaded into his brain, and he remains the sole link to this information.

The government assigns the beautiful Sarah Walker (newcomer Yvonne Strahovski) and the amusingly hostile John Casey (Adam Baldwin shined in a similar role in Firefly) to protect Chuck and to access the information he holds as needed.  To do this, Casey takes a job working at the Buy More alongside Chuck, while Sarah gets a job across the street as Weiner Girl at some unbelievably tacky hot dog joint.  Chuck and Sarah live in very different worlds, and mixing them is never easy…nor is fighting off the impossible romantic chemistry between them.  That’s the foundation of the show; it uses the fish-out-of-water trope constantly, placing mild-mannered Chuck into dangerous espionage situations.  Sarah and Casey are the action heroes, with Chuck always providing comic relief and serving as the point of connection for the audience.

Last season ended with the discovery of a new Intersect, thus making Chuck obsolete and causing Casey’s handlers to order him to kill Chuck now that he is no longer needed.  This season picks up with Casey struggling to carry out his order (he has started to develop a certain fondness for Chuck, though he would never admit it) while Chuck unknowingly begins to look forward to returning to his normal life.  He even persuades Sarah into going on a real date, as opposed to only pretending for the sake of cover as they have until now.  The date is interrupted by a sinister guest baddie played by the hulking Michael Clarke Duncan, who controls a vital part to the new Intersect and is after the rest.

From there on, Chuck does what it does best: it blends fun action sequences with humor, specifically a great stunt involving Casey catching Chuck when he falls, and an impressive fight sequence between the nimble Sarah and Michael Clarke Duncan’s rogue mountain of evil.  Needless to say, Casey doesn’t kill Chuck and Chuck doesn’t get his old life back, otherwise there would be no show.

The premiere seems very consistent with the overall quality of the first season.  The strength of Chuck has always been the high concept and the ability of the three principal actors to imbue their archetypal roles of nerd, beauty, and angry guy with real emotional resonance.  As a result, viewers get to enjoy the entertainment value that is inherent in those archetypes while simultaneously feeling that they are watching real people.  My only complaint would be that, at times, the show actually doesn’t quite take itself as seriously as it should, namely whenever Chuck’s sister Ellie‘s fiancé-whom Chuck refers to as Captain Awesome-is onscreen.  If his character was ever funny last year, he isn’t now.  His presence on the show is just plain stupid, and it makes Ellie seem stupid for being with him.

Season 2, Episode 1: “Chuck vs. The First Date” (Original Airdate 9/29/08)

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Photographs courtesy of NBC