"Chuck" (2007)
By Benjamin Blue
Rated: unknown (but it's airing in the 8/7c hour which implies a certain family-friendliness)
Starring: Zachary Levi, Joshua Gomez, Yvonne Strzechowski, Adam Baldwin
SUMMARY: An everyman…actually, a less-than-everyman accidentally has all of the US Intelligence Community's secrets downloaded into his brain.
First off, the concept is pretty cool, and the fact that Adam Baldwin is in it means, quite simply, I'm going to watch it. NBC, who last year put on two of my favorite shows ever (and then cancelled one of them), is airing this show this fall. Right now it's scheduled to show right before "Heroes," which is great for me, because I can just go right into the next show.
I got the promo DVD of three of NBC's new shows ("Chuck," "Journeyman," and "Life") and watched this one first. I really enjoyed it. The writing was funny. The actors were good. It pretty much just worked. The pilot, of course, has a lot of exposition and setting up to do. We meet all the major players. We find out how Chuck has all the stuff downloaded into his head. There is an action story, but it's secondary to set-up, which is to be expected.
My biggest concern for the show is that I'm not sure if they'll be able to sustain the stories forever. The pilot story works, but it doesn't really give a good impression of what the show will be like from week to week. The characters are quirky and the concept pretty strange. These make me doubtful of the show's success. Not it's QUALITY. I want to make that clear. A show's success often has little to do with its quality (case in point, Adam Baldwin's previous show "Firefly" which was cancelled after 11 episodes by the maliciously ridiculous Fox Television Network…but that's another story).
So, I think the show is good, but I don't hold out much hope for its success. It might last the season. It might not. Especially, considering it's going up against "Prison Break" on Fox, "How I Met Your Mother" on CBS, "Everybody Hates Chris" on The CW, and "Dancing With The Stars" on ABC. All proven shows. In fact, "Chuck" is the only new hour-drama in that timeslot on Monday. Does not bode well.
Content wise, pretty clean. No strong language that I can remember. Violence is a given considering the action genre. Some gunplay, hand-to-hand, a car chase, and a bomb. Pretty standard spy-genre stuff. Sexuality/nudity, one of the characters has two scenes played out in her underwear. Nothing can be scene. It's no worse than a lingerie ad in Sunday's paper, but it's there. Also, there's a club scene with, what some would consider, some questionable dancing. Other than that, pretty mild. I don't know what the rest of the show will be like, but its placement in the 8/7c timeslot leads me to believe that it will be pretty mild consistently.
Overall, I enjoyed it and will be watching it this fall. But my advice is to watch it while you can, because it might not last.
OVERALL: 6.5
LANGUAGE: 1
VIOLENCE: 2.5
GORE: 1.5
SEXUALITY: 1
NUDITY: 1.5
