Flashes of Chuck
It takes just one e-mail from a buddy to change computer geek Chuck Bartowski’s mundane life.
GOOD morning, Mr Charles Bartowski. Can I call you Chuck instead?
I see you have a second season coming up. You’ve come a long way, haven’t you? The first time we saw you, you were Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi), a lowly Nerd Herd technician in a consumer-electronics chain, Buy More, fixing computers for customers.
But your good friend Bryce sent you a supercomputer called the Intersect via e-mail, and it was transplanted into your brain.
From then on, you were stuck having to help the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), simply by tagging along and “flashing” bits of information through your brain.
Guns and barcodes: Yvonne Strahovski and Zachary Levi star in Chuck, a comedy-drama about a geek who has a supercomputer imprinted in his brain.
At the same time, you had to keep pretending you were a lowly technician in Buy More so your friends and family would not suspect anything.
Then just as you were getting the hang of things, your good friend Bryce popped up again, threatening to ruin your life (again).
You were hunted down by a rogue agency called Fulcrum, and by the end of it all, your sister was about to get married and you were nearly shipped off to a secure facility, never to see your family and friends again. And all that happened in 13 episodes of the first season of Chuck. Even James Bond needed 22 feature-length films to get that far.
So what mischief do you get up to in the second season? What’s this, you get the chance to lead a normal life? They’re building a new Intersect to replace the one in your brain?
Good for you, Agent Bartowski! Oh, but I see you are still having girlfriend problems.
After that failed relationship with that cute sandwich-maker in Season One, it seems you’ll be getting some action again.
After all you’ve got an ex-girlfriend from college coming back into your life. And of course, you will still be hanging around that smoking hot CIA partner of yours – Sarah.
Ah yes, and hi to you too, Ms Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski), or should I say, Agent Walker? Why can’t you just come right out and say you love Chuck? After all, you already know he loves you, so what’s stopping you?
It’s frustrating enough watching him follow you around like a lovesick puppy without you making matters worse by acting all professional around him.
Sure, you may be the hottest secret agent on TV right now, but that is no excuse for breaking a geek’s heart.
And you better buck up, because you’ll be getting some stiff competition in the second season – Chuck’s ex-girlfriend Jill (Jordana Brewster) will be coming back into his life, and she’s no pushover sandwich-maker.
And don’t think I didn’t see you there, Agent John Casey (Adam Baldwin). Your character may be a reprise of your tough-talking brawler stint in Firefly, you’re still the glue that keeps those two lovebirds grounded.
Plus anyone who gives his guns names surely deserves more screen time.
And good news, you actually do get a lot more screen time and a lot of your past gets dredged up (much to your annoyance, I presume).
However, I implore you, can you please use one of your beloved guns to shoot Chuck’s annoying best friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez) and his even more obnoxious colleagues?
I know you don’t do this in the second season, but hey, one can only hope that you’ll finally crack and blow them away in the third season (failing that, try threatening the writers and forcing them to write out those characters instead).
But back to you, Mr Bartowski. Your second season is better and has 22 episodes – nine more than your debut season. But a lot of the episodes seem very ordinary, and do nothing to add to your reputation.
Sure, the ones with your ex-girlfriend are interesting, and so are those where you have to track down a shadowy figure called Orion. But seriously Chuck, you need to get some new stories and twists to make us want to check you out next season.
Frankly, watching you running around “flashing”, and trying to get the Intersect out of your head week after week is getting tiring.
You need a new angle, some fresh twists to keep things going, or you’ll end up being cancelled like all those good shows such as Dollhouse, Life and Pushing Daisies.
What? You’ve got that all worked out in your season finale? Ah yes, that is a pretty good and promising finale indeed. And it bodes well for your next mission ... I mean ... season.
Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Mr Bartowski. I look forward to seeing you again. This article will self-destruct in five seconds.
Chuck airs on AXN (Astro 701) on Thursdays at 10pm.