Chuck - Just Go With It

Man, how much can a person love a tv show? And I say this knowing full well that I've become enamoured in years past with The X Files, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, BSG, Alias, Bones, etc, etc. But Chuck is new breed of show. Chuck was created by Josh Schwartz, the genius behind The OC. Yes, that show got to be incredibly stupid, but you can't argue with the first season's awesomeness. I must admit, tho, that Josh kinda pisses me b/c he's MY age and he's this crazy mad creative guy while I'm, well, I'm just Jeanine. :o)
I stumbled upon Chuck from reading one of my favorite tv columns, TV Gal on www.zap2it.com. Amy would go on and on about this little show and I'd read all these great one-liners that she would quote in her column and I would think, "Damn, I gotta see this!" Of course, the fact that Adam Baldwin of Firefly and Angel fame was in it didn't hurt. Unfortunately, Chuck premiered in September of '07 and I was living in Italy at the time. Thus, no NBC for me. And Hulu wasn't up and running then, either. Those bastards. Didn't they know that I needed them? But anywho, I kept reading about it and when I did make it back to the good ol' U S of A in April of '08, I was able to catch a few eps of reruns and then I was able to catch a few more on Hulu. I finally got around to renting Season 1 on DVD just today and watched all 4 eps on the first disc in one glorious Chuck-filled go. I admit, it had a shaky start. It was very unbelievable and I wasn't invested into the show yet to allow it to slide. But of course, from the eps I had seen and from all of Season 2 that I've faithfully watched, I knew it would improve. And improve it did! While the first ep had only a few fun moments, the second was chuck (heehee) full of them!
For the uninitiated, here's a synopsis of Chuck:
Chuck Bartowski is your everyday slacker. He lives with his sister and her fiancee, who are both doctors, and spends his nights playing video games with his childhood best friend, Morgan, and his days working at the Buy More (like a Best Buy) fixing computers. He hasn't dated since his college girlfriend dumped him for his roommate, and this was 5 years ago. He got kicked out of Stanford b/c said roommate also turned him in for cheating, even though he wasn't. So he's been at the short end of the stick for years, but isn't a bitter asshole about it. He's just a nice, albeit nerdy, guy with no real goals.
Enter Bryce Larkin. Bryce is currently a CIA agent and is also that same college roomie of Chuck's. Bryce has gone rogue and has stolen the "Intersect". This Intersect is actual a computer program that's a huge pot of information from the CIA and the NSA. ALL the information. Every file, every image, every secret operation, it's all on this Intersect. Bryce downloads the Intersect onto his handy dandy (I watch too much Blue's Clues) Blackberry, blows the original computer to shreds, emails the file to Chuck and then is shot and killed by John Casey (Adam Baldwin). Chuck opens the email and all that data is downloaded into his brain. (Now here is a sticky part for me. Would you really remain standing for 12 hours while being bombarded with images and information? And how would you be able to retain all that info? Hell, I can't even remember the name of my 1st Grade teacher. But this is what I'm talking about when I say you gotta just suspend your disbelief and go with it.) After the download, his computer is fried and Chuck wakes up on the floor. (C'mon, who hasn't had that happen before?) Now, whenever he sees anything that was on any of those files, he "flashes" on that file, and it basically opens in his brain and he knows everything about it. At first, there's some confusion, but then a hot blond comes into the store and everything melts away. Until he finds out that she's a CIA agent trying to protect him from being killed by the NSA. It ends with the CIA and NSA deciding to join forces to protect Chuck, aka The Intersect, in the beautiful forms of Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and John Casey (Adam Baldwin), respectively.
This show works on multiple levels. First and foremost, there's the great humor! Chuck is so lost in this world of spies and espionage and Casey is, well, he's a dick, but he's funny at it. Much like his Jayne character on Firefly. Sarah is sweet and lethal. She has such a crush on Chuck, as he does on her, yet they can't really be together b/c her job is to protect him, not date him. Secondly, this show has some great action scenes. Be it blowing up the random car here and there, having Sarah get into a raging fight with Casey, or even the pratfalls that Morgan has to do when getting mercilessly shoved aside by a tunnel visioned Casey, it all works and it's never cheesy or overly CGI, nor does it rely too heavily on stunt doubles (which seriously pissed me off on the early seasons of Buffy before SMG got her tae kwon do on).
I love this little show and it's rare to have a show that I can actually Laugh Out Loud at during every episode.
For some escapist fun (don't think too hard, just go with it), I recommend Chuck.