Episode: “Pilot” – Series Premiere (Season 1)
Premiere Date: Monday, September 24th, 2007
Rating: 3½ out of 4 Stars
Quick Synopsis: Saving the World at $11.00 an Hour.
Long Synopsis: A twenty-something computer geek gets sent an email from an old college roommate. It turns out the roommate is now a rogue CIA agent that has stolen government secrets. Upon opening the email, Chuck’s brain is bombarded with 1000s of encrypted photos containing top-secret data. Government agents track him down to see why he was sent the email. One of them is a beautiful woman who pretends to be new to town, to get close to Chuck. The other a shoot first, ask questions later type. They find that the info has been downloaded into Chuck’s brain and different things seem to trigger memory flashes about people and things he doesn’t understand. They all find that they will need to work together and keep him safe, since they and he doesn’t know what or when the next flash will be triggered.
Review: Chuck is shaping up to be the TVaholic’s favorite new show. It has already provided me with my new favorite quote, “Working on my five year plan, just need to choose a font.” The show is a whole lot of fun to watch. It has much the same tone as this past summer’s Burn Notice on USA, as well as, the short-lived Jake 2.0 from a few years ago on the old UPN.
For this being the first episode, there sure seems to be a lot of chemistry between the main characters. Chuck has a smooth and polished feel to it. This is not the case with a lot of “Pilot” episodes. But, McG, producer of The CW’s Supernatural
Zachary Levi (Less Than Perfect) plays Chuck, the unwitting hero. He works for the “Nerd Herd” at the local “Buy More” and lives with his sister, Ellie, played by Sarah Lancaster (What About Brian, Everwood), and her boyfriend Captain Awesome. He spends his days fixing computer problems and his nights playing video games with his friend and fellow co-worker, Morgan, played by Joshua Gomez (Without a Trace).
The agents looking for him are the beautiful CIA operative Sarah Walker, played by Yvonne Strahovski and NSA agent John Casey, played by Adam Baldwin (Day Break, Firefly). Sarah was romantically involved with the rogue agent that sends the email to Chuck. She wants to clean up the mess that has been created. She feels some responsibility for not having seen what the guy was really about.
This show’s main demographic is the 18 to 35 geek gamer generation. But, it can and should be enjoyed by anybody that likes great action comedy. I for one can’t wait until next week’s episode, “Chuck Versus the Helicopter.”
What about you, what did you think NBC’s new fall series, Chuck?
WHAT!? how the hell did you think that was any good. As you said the target is the 18to35 geek gamer generation. And most geek/gamers I know thought the premiere was utter crap
I don’t understand how people liked this show. It felt like a 10 year old wrote the storyline. Here’s a few od my observations.
1. US Government stores crucial data on a 90’s Mac with in the form of “images” with NO backup.
2. The images were “downloaded” into Chuck’s head by looking at them.
3. Computer drops and therefore the hard drives are totally destroyed with no way to retrieve the data.
4. He stops the bomb by going to a porno site that has a virus. Seriously, the bomb-controlling PC has internet access?
Those are 4 of the reasons I can think of right now of why I won’t be watching this show again. I generally love science fiction shows and was hoping this may be a better version of Jake 2.0, but I was very dissappointed.
we don’t all share the copycat love.
I saw the first episode for the first time this morning online. I thought that it was great! I immediately like the lead character, played by Zachary Levi. The supporting cast was also good. I always liked Adam Baldwin. The pace was brisk and employed many different type of genres within the episode, i,e, drama, comedy, action etc., I really liked how they ‘ripped’ off different movies and incorporated them into the opening scene (matrix, B13). That was cool! I’m not a geek by no stretch of the imagination, so I didn’t ‘trip’ on any minor mistakes that may have occurred with the hard drive and computer crashing scene. ksm’s remarks are not the only ones out there. I’m sure there are plenty of people that enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I’m going to be watching all the episodes in the next few days. Keep it up Chuck. You got a fan here.
peppersax, nice to hear from someone else that enjoyed it. If you liked the premiere, it only gets better from there, as it really picks up with episode seven, “Chuck Versus the Alma Mater.”
Jason,
Your words couldn’t have been more prophetic! I just finished watching all the episodes online ( I was watching just one a day). Now that it’s over………….I’m having withdrawals. Just as you said, each episode got better and better. I am definitely hooked on this show. I love all the players involved. I hope that more people tune in to see how wonderful Chuck is. Hurry and bring it back!
peppersax, I wish Chuck and many other shows would hurry back. But, due to the continuation of the writers’ strike, it doesn’t look like we will get any new episodes anytime soon. I just hope now that the strike will end before the Fall 2008 season is completely lost as well.
Hadn’t been able to find any info on remaining Chuck episodes and thus thought they had run their course. But, it turns out there are still two original episodes left to air, according to an NBC press release. They are presently scheduled to play before and after The Celebrity Apprentice on Thursday, January 24th. So, it sounds like we will get two more episodes of Chuck and then we’ll have to deal with withdrawals for the foreseeable future.
nice to har someone liked chuck! i mean all i read on the blogs is that people hate it, which is so not true! i mean here in the philippines, they just started airing chuck on two cable channels! and i know a lot of my friends has started watching it way back! so yeah, chuck is great! and we love it!