Westies14
Master Member
Hey guys & gals! Anyone excited for the Chuck finalé this evening, or for the 13-episode pickup for the 2011-2012 season?
My wife and I love this overachieving little show. Out of the gate, it was always so much more than it could have been. They took a show with a ridiculous concept, gratuitously attractive people, in-show sponsor advertisements, some goofy comedy, some physical comedy, and Community style self-aware pop culture references and tropes and infused it with so much heart that it's kind of staggering to me. There's no reason why this show should have worked, but it did.
We're re-watching the first season now. It was luxurious for the writers. Chuck and Sarah had chemistry in spades and each was lovable in their own way. The writers obviously had a blast working with them, pushing them together and pulling them apart. The devices mostly worked really well, like Chuck asking Sarah about her true feelings while they were affected by sodium pentothal (she was trained to resist its effects and lied about them not having a future - and so she had to suffer watching Chuck move on to happiness with Rachel Bilson's sandwich girl, Lou) or Sarah kissing Chuck when they thought they were about to die (what they thought was a bomb was actually a preservation tank for Bryce Larkin), and then having those feelings put on hold by Bryce's return.
Season two was even better. They'd found a rhythm with the show and the characters. It continued to be hilarious, heartbreaking, and heartwarming all at once. The highlight for me was the Christmas Die Hard episode, in which Chuck gave Sarah his mother's bracelet during their Buy More hostage situation. Later, he witnesses her killing an unarmed man in order to protect Chuck and his family and friends - and lies about having arrested him when Chuck asks about it, not knowing what she did in the moment. She doesn't want him to carry that weight, and he doesn't know if he really knows or can trust her. This season also introduced Scott Bakula as Chuck's dad (doing a great Zach Levi impression at first!) and hit some great emotional moments with him.
Ultimately, of course, the two lovebirds got together (and back and forth a bit from there), and when the main focus of a show is its love story, it will suffer from that union. Season three continued to expand the "Bartowski saga" and tell some of Sarah's backstory, but also had to try and contrive motivations other than love for Chuck. All of sudden we were told that Chuck "always wanted to be a spy" and that was made his focus. Season three was entertaining, but a thin shadow of what the show had been. It also suffered from receiving half-season pickups, a fate which it would never escape. It had to be written such that every half-season could serve as an ending to the series OR as a springboard for more Chuck, and that had to be a challenge. It did create a choppy feel for the audience, and I'm sure some landmark moments were used ahead of their proper time for some of these episodes. Something was just off, all year - especially as the season began with Chuck choosing his job over Sarah. It was contrary to his character and to everything we'd seen to that point, and just didn't ring true. After that, we were treated to a cardboard cutout of a new team member (the awful soap actor Brandon Routh) whose journey to the dark side was less convincing than Anakin's.
Season four has been a pleasant uptick. With Routh thankfully gone, we were given a really fun performance from Timothy Dalton as the new baddie. This has been closer to the tone of first seasons - and it included a great mid-season episode that ended with an engagement and a baby. I would have been very happy if the series had ended with that one. They did get a back order for 11 episodes though, and we're seeing the end of that tonight. Will Chuck and Sarah's wedding happen, assuming she lives through last week's attack? Can Chuck amend for his father's mistakes and return Alexei Volkoff's life to him? Can he put Vivian back on the right path? Will Ellie gain some insight into the intersect's functionality through Orion's computer and her own research and become an asset to team Bartowski?
I'm glad that Chuck was picked up again, and I'm glad that NBC is billing it as the "final season." Let the writers write towards a true conclusion, and know that it's really ending. The show started as a love story, and even if it's dragged out we've seen the resolution of that for the most part. Chuck gets the girl; she's agreed to marry him. We enjoy spending time with the characters still, but the main story has ended. I hope we get 13 more episodes leading up to closure for everyone and a great series finale next year, but for tonight I hope we see them get hitched. Those kids deserve it!
Chuck VS the Cliffhanger airs tonight on NBC at 8PM EST. :cheers
My wife and I love this overachieving little show. Out of the gate, it was always so much more than it could have been. They took a show with a ridiculous concept, gratuitously attractive people, in-show sponsor advertisements, some goofy comedy, some physical comedy, and Community style self-aware pop culture references and tropes and infused it with so much heart that it's kind of staggering to me. There's no reason why this show should have worked, but it did.
We're re-watching the first season now. It was luxurious for the writers. Chuck and Sarah had chemistry in spades and each was lovable in their own way. The writers obviously had a blast working with them, pushing them together and pulling them apart. The devices mostly worked really well, like Chuck asking Sarah about her true feelings while they were affected by sodium pentothal (she was trained to resist its effects and lied about them not having a future - and so she had to suffer watching Chuck move on to happiness with Rachel Bilson's sandwich girl, Lou) or Sarah kissing Chuck when they thought they were about to die (what they thought was a bomb was actually a preservation tank for Bryce Larkin), and then having those feelings put on hold by Bryce's return.
Season two was even better. They'd found a rhythm with the show and the characters. It continued to be hilarious, heartbreaking, and heartwarming all at once. The highlight for me was the Christmas Die Hard episode, in which Chuck gave Sarah his mother's bracelet during their Buy More hostage situation. Later, he witnesses her killing an unarmed man in order to protect Chuck and his family and friends - and lies about having arrested him when Chuck asks about it, not knowing what she did in the moment. She doesn't want him to carry that weight, and he doesn't know if he really knows or can trust her. This season also introduced Scott Bakula as Chuck's dad (doing a great Zach Levi impression at first!) and hit some great emotional moments with him.
Ultimately, of course, the two lovebirds got together (and back and forth a bit from there), and when the main focus of a show is its love story, it will suffer from that union. Season three continued to expand the "Bartowski saga" and tell some of Sarah's backstory, but also had to try and contrive motivations other than love for Chuck. All of sudden we were told that Chuck "always wanted to be a spy" and that was made his focus. Season three was entertaining, but a thin shadow of what the show had been. It also suffered from receiving half-season pickups, a fate which it would never escape. It had to be written such that every half-season could serve as an ending to the series OR as a springboard for more Chuck, and that had to be a challenge. It did create a choppy feel for the audience, and I'm sure some landmark moments were used ahead of their proper time for some of these episodes. Something was just off, all year - especially as the season began with Chuck choosing his job over Sarah. It was contrary to his character and to everything we'd seen to that point, and just didn't ring true. After that, we were treated to a cardboard cutout of a new team member (the awful soap actor Brandon Routh) whose journey to the dark side was less convincing than Anakin's.
Season four has been a pleasant uptick. With Routh thankfully gone, we were given a really fun performance from Timothy Dalton as the new baddie. This has been closer to the tone of first seasons - and it included a great mid-season episode that ended with an engagement and a baby. I would have been very happy if the series had ended with that one. They did get a back order for 11 episodes though, and we're seeing the end of that tonight. Will Chuck and Sarah's wedding happen, assuming she lives through last week's attack? Can Chuck amend for his father's mistakes and return Alexei Volkoff's life to him? Can he put Vivian back on the right path? Will Ellie gain some insight into the intersect's functionality through Orion's computer and her own research and become an asset to team Bartowski?
I'm glad that Chuck was picked up again, and I'm glad that NBC is billing it as the "final season." Let the writers write towards a true conclusion, and know that it's really ending. The show started as a love story, and even if it's dragged out we've seen the resolution of that for the most part. Chuck gets the girl; she's agreed to marry him. We enjoy spending time with the characters still, but the main story has ended. I hope we get 13 more episodes leading up to closure for everyone and a great series finale next year, but for tonight I hope we see them get hitched. Those kids deserve it!
Chuck VS the Cliffhanger airs tonight on NBC at 8PM EST. :cheers
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