Chuck was a series that ran from 2007 to 2012. The basic premise was that a guy named Chuck (played by Zachary Levi) who works at a fictional equivalent of the Geek Squad (called the Nerd Herd) in a fictional version of Best Buy (called Buy More) had a supercomputer called the Intersect (basically a database with all the CIA and NSA secrets) beamed into his brain by his old college roommate who happens to be a CIA agent. He ends up with a CIA handler named Sarah (played by Yvonne Strahovski) and an NSA handler named John Casey. The theme of the show is basically a case of the week procedural in which Chuck has to use the information in his head to stop some evil plot.
The show was always on the brink of cancelation but had a massive fan campaign that managed to keep it on the air for five seasons. It did not air for five full seasons in large part due to the writer's strike that ended one of the seasons early and then having just a partial final season. So, it ended up with 91 total episodes. It was part action/adventure series, part love story (with the typical will-they won't-they get together between Chuck and Sarah), and part comedy. There are a lot of nerdy pop-culture references throughout the series including nods to Star Wars, Back to the Future, and Die Hard. It had a great supporting cast made up of mostly unknown character actors and managed to land a lot of great guest stars.
The show definitely lives up to the hype that its die-hard fans give it. Unfortunately, the year it premiered the Bionic Woman reboot series got all of NBC's promotional budget and Chuck was hardly mentioned at all. For a lot of people, the allure to the show was the commercial that featured Yvonne Strahovski in lingerie (which she was in a lot during the series), but it was really a well-written and well-acted show that should have gotten a bit longer run than it did. As far as I can tell, the complete series blu-ray set has the same extras that the individual season releases did, which, because the show was around before physical media really started to get scaled back, got a pretty good amount of extras. So, if you are looking for a unique comedy that is not a cookie-cutter sitcom, this is a good choice and holds up well even after fifteen years.
The show was always on the brink of cancelation but had a massive fan campaign that managed to keep it on the air for five seasons. It did not air for five full seasons in large part due to the writer's strike that ended one of the seasons early and then having just a partial final season. So, it ended up with 91 total episodes. It was part action/adventure series, part love story (with the typical will-they won't-they get together between Chuck and Sarah), and part comedy. There are a lot of nerdy pop-culture references throughout the series including nods to Star Wars, Back to the Future, and Die Hard. It had a great supporting cast made up of mostly unknown character actors and managed to land a lot of great guest stars.
The show definitely lives up to the hype that its die-hard fans give it. Unfortunately, the year it premiered the Bionic Woman reboot series got all of NBC's promotional budget and Chuck was hardly mentioned at all. For a lot of people, the allure to the show was the commercial that featured Yvonne Strahovski in lingerie (which she was in a lot during the series), but it was really a well-written and well-acted show that should have gotten a bit longer run than it did. As far as I can tell, the complete series blu-ray set has the same extras that the individual season releases did, which, because the show was around before physical media really started to get scaled back, got a pretty good amount of extras. So, if you are looking for a unique comedy that is not a cookie-cutter sitcom, this is a good choice and holds up well even after fifteen years.
No comments:
Post a Comment