Good Luck Chuck (You’re Going To Need It)

After a nine-month hiatus, in spite of low ratings and against all odds and sound judgment (a commodity NBC has consistently shown to be lacking), Chuck is back for a two-hour third season premiere. For the loyal army of fans that helped save the show (at least temporarily) from the chopping block with a campaign a la Jericho, this is phenomenal news. For me? I documented my feelings for the show in every (usually critical) review I wrote of every episode of the second season. And although the third season begins in the wake of a potential game changer for the show, the same strengths and weaknesses of Chuck—as a character and as a series—remain. The problem lies not with the appealing cast or the fun (if obvious) concept for the show, but with the execution.

Last season revealed that Chuck’s father designed the original Intersect, the implication being that maybe it wasn’t all an accident that Chuck was chosen by his former college roommate (and real spy) Bryce Larkin to become the human Intersect. Or something like that…I think. Let’s be honest, the plots on Chuck have never been remotely coherent. Scott Bakula—whose time-traveling nice-guy nerd on the great Quantum Leap was clearly a big influence on Chuck’s character and probably even the casting of Zachary Levi—played Chuck’s father. He was a welcome guest presence on the show and I hope he comes back. And although the original Intersect was removed, a new and improved version ended up in Chuck’s head in the finale…a version that included not only all of the intel from the old one but also kung fu and spy skills. It seemed that Chuck was destined to go from ultimate nerd to ultimate spy. Until he got fired.

The premiere opens with Chuck surrounded by baddies in an interrogation room. He is all alone and yet he is strangely calm and confident. This is not the Chuck of old. As General Beckman buzzes in his earpiece, Chuck vaults into the air and dispatches all the goons with the martial arts poise of Jean Claude Van Damme in his prime. The only problem? Beckman commands Chuck to shoot the head honcho and Chuck can’t do it. He then botches a stylish zip line rooftop escape because the Intersect malfunctions in his head and he can’t visualize doing it. The bad guys close in to kill him. The good news? All of this is a controlled training simulation (a fun setup even though it was obvious from the first frame) and Chuck isn’t actually in danger. The bad news? Beckman fires Chuck for not having the all-business temperament of a real spy. Chuck protests, telling her that she should consider what he gave up to become a spy. She responds by having him tranquilized. Cue the dream flashback!

We learn that six months prior, Casey had Chuck cook up a cover story for his sister Ellie (something about a last-minute trip to Europe) so that he could go to a top secret covert government voodoo training facility in Prague and become a real spy (I won’t make a Pinocchio joke here, though the temptation is strong). However, Chuck’s top agent superbabe protector/ladylove Sarah urges Chuck not to go through with it, telling him that becoming a spy means that nothing in your life is real. She urges Chuck to meet her at a train station in Prague after she sets up their new identities so they can run away together and have a real life.

This is what Chuck has wanted for the entire show, and now he has done the impossible. The underachieving but likable schlub nerd has gotten the dream girl way out of his league. But you know something, I have a feeling that Chuck won’t be getting on that train with Sarah and fleeing to Paradise, because then there wouldn’t be a show. Unless they did away with all the spy stuff and converted the show into a sitcom about Chuck and Sarah adjusting to a new domestic average joe life. That might be kinda cool actually. Has there ever been a show that radically changed plot and format after three years?

We don’t get the answer to what happened right away though, because Chuck has ventured into Non-linear Land for the hour. The narrative structure, underlying thematics and character dynamics of the episode are very much reminiscent of Casablanca, as is the whole doomed rendezvous between two lovers at a train station thing. All we know at this point is that Chuck somehow lost Sarah and made her hate him in addition to losing his spy gig. So what does Chuck do? He does what any of us would do: he lapses into depression, sleeping all day and watching mindless tv on his sister’s couch, eats an impossible amount of cheesy puffs and grows a Grizzly Adams wildman beard. (Actually, in my case I’d replace the cheesy puffs with beer floats and Scooby-Doo fruit snacks and I wouldn’t grow the beard because facial hair drives me nuts). But when he runs out of cheesy puffs, he has to go back to the Buy More to…buy more. Even looking the way he does, he is recognized by Emmett Milbarge (Tony Hale) and all of his old cronies, and this spins Chuck’s life into a new direction. Convenient plotting? You betcha!

See, while at the Buy More, Chuck learns that Sarah is still working with Casey at the yogurt shop across the street. Why I don’t know, being that Chuck was fired and no one heretofore seemed too concerned with protecting him anymore. Again, I have to try to train myself to not look for coherent plotting in this show. From here, Chuck becomes privy to a mission that Sarah and Casey are going on and tries to jump aboard, seeing it as his opportunity to win back both his job and Sarah. The details of the mission aren’t important, just as they never have been in the history of the show. All you have are a bunch of cartoony villains after some McGuffin that is never really explained or articulated and Chuck flying by the seat of his pants, the ultimate fish out of water.

Don’t get me wrong, the fish out of water motif is always a fun concept, and Zachary Levi is great at it. What continues to irk me about the show is that the writers don’t even try to make the bad guys seem credible and threatening. The tone of the show is consistently wrong. By having the bad guys ham it up and by having them not have comprehensible agendas, the result is that everything feels like a joke. We’re talking about national security, spies, the fate of the free world…that’s as high stakes as it gets, but the writers never treat it that way. I think Chuck should still be the same character doing the same unintentionally hilarious things, but the stakes should feel real. You never feel that Chuck or Sarah or Casey or anyone is ever in real danger, so it’s hard to get emotionally involved.

I’m not saying turn the show into some dark, nihilistic spy saga…but just tip the tonal balance away from complete and unrelenting ridiculousness and toward tongue-in-cheek fun with real characters in extraordinary situations. Moonlighting got it right; the Chuck team should bone up on that show, I’ll even lend them my DVDs. And stop doing the incessant MTV-hyper flash cut montage editing and wall-to-wall obnoxious pop songs. If that aesthetic is supposed to be borne out of and geared toward my generation, then boy was I born in the wrong era.

The second hour focuses on a mission brought about by Sarah’s visiting spy/sex bomb friend Karina, who is posing as the fiancée of an arms dealer in order to steal another McGuffin, some unexplained weapons golden case thingy. I guarantee you that’s how the writers described it in the script. I liked Karina. She’s tough and all-business and keeps trying to remind Sarah that the cardinal rule of espionage is that spies don’t fall in love. Again, the mission isn’t important and the stakes are almost non-existent. But it is compelling to watch Chuck and Sarah try to work together in the aftermath of the emotional mess they recently made, and Levi and Yvonne Strahovski do strong work.

We also get the rekindling of the friendship between Chuck and Morgan, who returned from Hawaii after losing his girlfriend Anna (only because the writers had to scrap her character to trim the budget in order for NBC to greenlight the third season) and failing to achieve his dream of being a Benihana chef. They’re living as roommates now because Ellie and Captain Awesome moved across the street. Oh yeah, which reminds me of my other big complaint about the show: Captain Awesome is a sketch, not a character (and an unfunny one at that) that has always gotten way too much screen time. If the writers were going to pick one person from Chuck’s personal life to learn that Chuck is secretly a spy, why did they pick that idiot instead of Morgan?

They should have picked Morgan, because the character is more important to Chuck and the show, and because it would have allowed their relationship to grow and deepen and provide opportunities for great spy hijinks with the two best friends. By keeping Morgan in the dark about Chuck’s real life, it cheats the character out of feeling like a real part of the show and not just an addendum on the side. Plus, it forces Chuck to remain anchored to the Buy More because that’s the only place where he and Morgan would naturally interact, and all the Buy More crap hasn’t been funny for a long time and should also be scrapped. I’m not the only one who thinks that; USA TODAY’s Robert Bianco agrees.

In closing I’ll say that the premiere does lay a solid groundwork for the third season and I will keep watching for the time being. The cast is appealing and the concept is fun, I just think the writers have consistently been going about the tone of the story in the wrong way. They need to create not stand-alone cartoon villains but a serialized villain or group of villains that are scary and evil and threatening and real. That way, the team can be battling them throughout and the stakes can build, and the humor will be funnier because it will contrast with the intensity of the situations. They tried to do serialized villains with Fulcrum and now they have this Ring group, but no one knows who those guys are or what they are about. Those two nefarious and nebulous circles of henchmen make SPECTRE from James Bond seem credible! Villains. Need. An. Actual. Agenda.

Okay, I lied, that wasn’t the last paragraph. This one is. My one final complaint is in regards to the “Eye of the Tiger” boxing sequence at the end of the first hour that ends with a freeze frame of Chuck and Casey punching each other. This is clearly a riff on Rocky (Rocky III to be accurate), and while I understand that imitation and allusion are supposed to be forms of flattery, Rocky Balboa and Stallone need to be left alone and off the table. Stallone found Survivor off the street in 1981 and got them to write “Eye of The Tiger” for Rocky III. The lyrics of that song reflect the plot and themes of Rocky III…leave it alone! I can’t take seeing any more non-Rocky III uses of “Eye of the Tiger.” I know it’s irrational, but please! I’ve already been through the wringer with Rocky. I spent more than ten years pining for Rocky Balboa to be made and nearly had to be committed during the period between Stallone getting the movie greenlit and the release on December 20, 2006, because I would get so upset listening to everyone in print and in person making fun of the movie and the guy’s age. Then the movie came out and it was a triumph and even all the naysayers couldn’t dispute that it was great and that Stallone was right for wanting to make it. So please, everyone, I know it’s all in good fun, but please leave Rocky and “Eye of the Tiger” montages off the table for the rest of time. Thanks for your cooperation.

Season 3, Episodes 1 & 2: Chuck vs. The Pink Slip & Chuck vs. The Three Words (originally aired January 10, 2010)

For more on Chuck, click here.

Mondays at 8/7C on NBC

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Mike Ansell, and Justin Lubin.