Just saw the pilot for the new hour-long spy series "Chuck". It has a pretty amusing premise: The title character played by Zachary Levi lives with his sister and her boyfriend. This sister (Sarah Lancaster who I remember from "Everwood" as Madison) tries to get her brother to date again after a long-ago breakup he hadn't gotten over. Also hanging around is best friend and fellow worker in the Nerd Herd of Buy More, Morgan (Joshua Gomez). Then one day, Chuck gets an e-mail from his old college roommate Brice Larkin (Matthew Bomer) who's not an accountant as Chuck thought but a spy who gets killed before sending his message. Suddenly, Chuck has images in his mind. And a woman named Sarah (Yvonne Strzechowski) and a man named John (Adam Baldwin) start appearing in Chuck's store...This was a pretty fast-paced and humorous start for what I'm sure will be a clever and exciting new action series for NBC and should attract many Heroes fans (like me) wanting to watch something as entertaining while waiting. Should be another hit for the Peacock network! Directed by McG (Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle).
5 Reviews
An amazing pilot to a very solid TV show
pooz_the_gun2 May 2021
Let me preface this review by saying that even though I enjoyed this show the overall story quality gradually but slowly declined over the years.
However, this pilot encapsulates everything great this show stands for. The chemistry is amazing. The plot, even though ridiculous seems believable. The action and Comedy bits are enjoyable and the most important part: it has a lot of heart. You feel with the characters which is astonishing after roughly 40 minutes of runtime.
If you enjoy this pilot you'll enjoy most of the show, even if there are minor hiccups.
However, this pilot encapsulates everything great this show stands for. The chemistry is amazing. The plot, even though ridiculous seems believable. The action and Comedy bits are enjoyable and the most important part: it has a lot of heart. You feel with the characters which is astonishing after roughly 40 minutes of runtime.
If you enjoy this pilot you'll enjoy most of the show, even if there are minor hiccups.
The One With The Wrong Title (no "versus"!)
orbitsville-128 January 2011
When the most beautiful woman in the world (on a scale of one in a million) pesters the biggest nerd in the herd for a first date, after he fixes her phone for her where he works in a Buy More superstore, it's a TV show. However, audiences are not stupid, and naturally would expect some kind of believable explanation for how such nonsense could actually happen. The writers of the Chuck Pilot were obviously concerned about that, and so have it that the blonde goddess is actually a CIA assassin--or spy, to use a nastier word--who wants to pick his brain and see if he knows government secrets he shouldn't. If he gets wise and runs, she is ordered to kill him--possibly with poisoned needles sticking in her hair, or the knife strapped to her chest. No, her ankle. The knife is at her ankle.
This premise helps ground the frankly ridiculous and implausible idea that this walking uber- example of pure pulchritude would go on a first date with a goofy slacker working in retail. While the stunner is at the Buy More, Chuck does, arguably save a ballet dancer's father from being murdered by his wife--in a kind of a roundabout way, I grant you--but basically he's not in her league, and if the producers of this show really wanted their little romance series to seem credible, it's good that they realized something as absurd as this Sarah woman asking this Chuck geek out for dinner and dancing had to be grounded in something we could believe--like a rogue spy having earlier downloaded a secret government program right into Chuck's head via an illicit email. Personally, I can think of no other reason that this first date would ever happen, and obviously the writers of Chuck realized that this had to become a spy show or no one was going to buy the romantic angle.
So, Sarah dates Chuck to pick his brain, because Chuck's old friend from Stanford, Bryce, picked Chuck's brain first--picked it for an illegal download of a stolen computer program that ends up literally implanted into Chuck's noggin, via email out of the blue. This immediately makes hapless Chuck a potential threat to United States security, but on the plus side, the CIA beauty is willing date an oblivious Chuck, and give him quite a dance on the dance floor, before possibly killing him. If you saw this dance, you might not feel this would be so bad, as first-last dates go. I might go on this date, even knowing what Chuck doesn't know up to that point.
It's very difficult for me to focus on the plots used in episodes of this series, but in terms of the Pilot, Chuck of course does get wise to the fact that something ain't kosher, when he has strange visions that seem to warn him of an impending assassination. Weird visual cues make his brain go shazam! and suddenly he's deduced a terrorist plot. If it was me, I would ignore all this and try mighty hard to have nothing ruin the date. But, suddenly there are the other assassins, and the car chase, and the explosions, and the rooftop Mexican stand-off, and something tells Chuck that this not how you get to a first kiss. Soon, he must get the bombshell to a bomb, where a specific US General is unwittingly speechifying towards his doom.
Clearly, someone was digging in some gold-mine somewhere and found Yvonne Strahovksi. What the heck, I'm on board. But besides that, this is a charming, funny show, with a stupendously successful pilot. It's very difficult for me to notice the supporting characters, but Chuck's best friend Morgan is severely amusing at all times, and Chuck's sister Ellie, perpetually worried about her brother's self-esteem, is the sister we all want.
The show is a nerd's fantasy, obviously dreamed up by nerds who took all the memories of all the cheerleader types they pined away uselessly for at school, and decided that, in fiction, there had to be a way to get the goddess to start falling for the nerd. I'm glad they didn't grow up to be rock stars who, at a live concert, belted out "This song is dedicated to SARAH, who wouldn't give me the time of day in school, even though I WORSHIPPED HER!!!", but instead channelled the pain into the Pilot of Chuck. Even with the credible scenario of ninjas and assassins and bombs and emails that download government secrets directly into the brain joined to the ridiculous first-date sequence, a nerd would not be so gullible as to believe that someone like Sarah would ask a nerd out. But it's TV! And it's almost believable, as presented here. And it's extremely entertaining to watch!
This premise helps ground the frankly ridiculous and implausible idea that this walking uber- example of pure pulchritude would go on a first date with a goofy slacker working in retail. While the stunner is at the Buy More, Chuck does, arguably save a ballet dancer's father from being murdered by his wife--in a kind of a roundabout way, I grant you--but basically he's not in her league, and if the producers of this show really wanted their little romance series to seem credible, it's good that they realized something as absurd as this Sarah woman asking this Chuck geek out for dinner and dancing had to be grounded in something we could believe--like a rogue spy having earlier downloaded a secret government program right into Chuck's head via an illicit email. Personally, I can think of no other reason that this first date would ever happen, and obviously the writers of Chuck realized that this had to become a spy show or no one was going to buy the romantic angle.
So, Sarah dates Chuck to pick his brain, because Chuck's old friend from Stanford, Bryce, picked Chuck's brain first--picked it for an illegal download of a stolen computer program that ends up literally implanted into Chuck's noggin, via email out of the blue. This immediately makes hapless Chuck a potential threat to United States security, but on the plus side, the CIA beauty is willing date an oblivious Chuck, and give him quite a dance on the dance floor, before possibly killing him. If you saw this dance, you might not feel this would be so bad, as first-last dates go. I might go on this date, even knowing what Chuck doesn't know up to that point.
It's very difficult for me to focus on the plots used in episodes of this series, but in terms of the Pilot, Chuck of course does get wise to the fact that something ain't kosher, when he has strange visions that seem to warn him of an impending assassination. Weird visual cues make his brain go shazam! and suddenly he's deduced a terrorist plot. If it was me, I would ignore all this and try mighty hard to have nothing ruin the date. But, suddenly there are the other assassins, and the car chase, and the explosions, and the rooftop Mexican stand-off, and something tells Chuck that this not how you get to a first kiss. Soon, he must get the bombshell to a bomb, where a specific US General is unwittingly speechifying towards his doom.
Clearly, someone was digging in some gold-mine somewhere and found Yvonne Strahovksi. What the heck, I'm on board. But besides that, this is a charming, funny show, with a stupendously successful pilot. It's very difficult for me to notice the supporting characters, but Chuck's best friend Morgan is severely amusing at all times, and Chuck's sister Ellie, perpetually worried about her brother's self-esteem, is the sister we all want.
The show is a nerd's fantasy, obviously dreamed up by nerds who took all the memories of all the cheerleader types they pined away uselessly for at school, and decided that, in fiction, there had to be a way to get the goddess to start falling for the nerd. I'm glad they didn't grow up to be rock stars who, at a live concert, belted out "This song is dedicated to SARAH, who wouldn't give me the time of day in school, even though I WORSHIPPED HER!!!", but instead channelled the pain into the Pilot of Chuck. Even with the credible scenario of ninjas and assassins and bombs and emails that download government secrets directly into the brain joined to the ridiculous first-date sequence, a nerd would not be so gullible as to believe that someone like Sarah would ask a nerd out. But it's TV! And it's almost believable, as presented here. And it's extremely entertaining to watch!
Enough to Hook This Viewer for A While
NoDakTatum12 October 2023
Chuck (Zachary Levi) works in the computer section of a big box store, and lives with his sister (Sarah Lancaster) and her boyfriend Devon (Ryan McPartlin). His old college roommate and nemesis Bryce (Matt Bomer) sends him an email that downloads national security secrets into Chuck's brain, turning him into a walking computer. CIA agent Casey (Adam Baldwin) and NSA agent Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) are assigned to track down Chuck, and then to eventually protect him. Fun enough pilot episode, Levi carries the new series, but the supporting cast is game and seem to be having as much fun as the viewer.
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