I honestly don't know why I'm typing this - none of the people who will actually read this even watch Chuck, and the people who see this but not read it either don't care about Chuck or just ignore it anyways. But I have Strong Feelings about Chuck and, just like all children who have Strong Feelings, I need to write them down so strangers on the internet can understand I'm a huge shitlord
Chuck was billed as an action/comedy show, although it took about 3 episodes into the first season for the melodrama to start and it really ramped up the melodrama as it went on. I started watching it not long after Season 2 ended, so really it was more like 3 years but that is irrelevant to this matter
I'll try and shorten the overall plot to a bare minimum - a nerdy guy who works with computer gets sent an e-mail by an old friend of his on his birthday. It ends up his old friend is a rogue CIA spy, and the e-mail consists of every government secret that then uploaded itself into the nerdy guy's brain. The CIA and NSA send agents to look after the nerdy guy, and one of them is a woman and the nerd fall in love and every cliché you can imagine takes place
It starred Zachary Levi as the title character, and credit where credit is due, he did a good job. For the show to work it needed a likable lead; too nerdy and you'd alienate most of your target audience but he needed to be a decent person as well without being boring. Levi manages to walk the tightrope well, and does a good job in being a likable character who you root for
Yvonne Strahovski is Sarah, the female spy he falls in love with, and she does a decent enough job. If you were unaware I'm gay as hell for her because she is incredibly beautiful (UNRELATED - if you google Yvonne Strahovski then the second thing google gives you is her video game character from Mass Effect 2. The fourth is her feet. Thanks internet!) The main problem stems from the fact a lot of the melodrama surrounds her, but I'll whine about that later, and it isn't really her fault
The NSA agent John Casey is played by Adam Baldwin, the Baldwin brother who isn't actually a Baldwin brother. For the first two seasons he is easily the best part of the show, as his antagonistic relationship with Chuck is where most of the humour happens. From the third season onwards he is just sort of there. He goes on missions, he gets the odd line or subplot, but by and large he doesn't do anything at all
Joshua Gomez is Chuck's best friend Morgan, as he is awful in the first few seasons but after he finds out Chuck is a spy he becomes alright, until the last season when he's insufferable again. Sarah Lancaster plays Ellie, Chuck's sister, and she doesn't do anything of much note either. Early on she plays the role of someone Chuck tries to protect, but in Season 4 she ends up being a research specialist who knows everything about top secret government projects. Cool
Ryan McPartlin plays Ellie's boyfriend/fianceé/husband, and he's fairly great. Portrayed early on as nothing but a good looking jock, when he's actually given development in Season 3 it really fleshes him out and he becomes a solid supporting actor. Vik Sahay and Scott Krinsky are Jeff and Lester, who work with Chuck, and are used mostly as comic relief that is very hit and miss, and Mark Christoher Scott as Big Mike, Chuck's boss and mostly comic relief. Later on he's used primarily to shill for Subway, the show's sponser, which starts off as funny but ends up being eye rollingly bad
Jesus, that was a lot of words to type about the characters, especially since most of them don't really do anything or have much impact on the story or even develop in any logical way
Season 1 starts with Chuck clearly out of his depth but he tries his best. Sarah and Casey take him out on missions, he doesn't do too well, he talks to his best friend or sister (sometimes both!) who motivate him to do better inadvertedly and then the mission goes well. That is basically season 1. People defend it by saying it got gutted due to the writer's strike (remember that?) but that's barely an excuse when the show wasn't really going anywhere with what they had
Chuck falls for Sarah really quickly, which makes sense, and she likes him but not really in that way. Oh yeah, did I mention she was in love with the rogue agent who sent Chuck the e-mail to start all this? Because nothing says melodrama like needless complications! Nothing of note really happens in Season 1, but it was a decent enough show
Season 2 starts, and Chuck gets back together with his ex because Sarah isn't interested in him. Oh yeah, Chuck's ex broke up with him years before to get with the rogue agent who sent Chuck the e-mail to start all this. The rogue agent? He was in one episode at the end of Season 1 where he does nothing, he's in one episode early season 2 and does nothing, and then is in the last episode of Season 2 where he dies. They build all these inroads for them and never really follow through with any of them. Cool. That's cool
One common complaint about The X-Files is that the "Monster of the Week" stories are usually better episodes than the ones that carry on the story arc for the season. Chuck is pretty much exactly the same. The common theme of the first two seasons is trying to get the secrets out of Chuck's brain, but nearly every episode where that theme is front and center are boring. Without the secrets the show wouldn't exist, so why focus so much time on trying to invalidate the show when the audience already knows it isn't going to happen?
To be fair to Season 2, Chuck and Sarah get most of their development here and it is mostly good. Sarah slowly opening up to him is done well, and Chuck's growing confidence in himself is also done nicely. It finally does start a will-they-won't-they scenario which lasts for the second half of Season 2, but the second half of Season 2 is easily the highlight of the show. The comic relief is pasable at worst, the ball gets rolling in the story, most of the build up from the first two seasons comes to a head and it is 9 or 10 episodes of very enjoyable television. Sarah seems to be ready to tell Chuck how she feels, Chuck finally gets rid of the secrets in his brain and things look good
Then in the lat few minutes of Season 2 the rogue agent gets killed and Chuck gets a new version of the government secrets which basically makes him become Goku. Surrounded by bad guys? He knows kung fu now. Talking to an ambassador from China? He can speak Chinese now. It may open up a lot of possibilities, but it also starts the downfall of the series, which I'll go into later
Another problem that came about now was that Chuck got cancelled. It took a huge fight from the fans to bring it back for a third season, and despite the fact it never was a ratings hit, it might have been the strength of the back end of Season 2 which ended up saving it
Season 3 starts, and the reset button has been pressed. Chuck and Sarah, who looked like they were going to get together, end up having a falling out in between Seasons that we see through flashbacks. So now he has to win her back all over again! Hope you weren't sick of the needless melodrama from Season 2 since we get it all over again now! Also, the new Goku Powers he has are controlled by his emotions, so if he's feeling stressed out over, say, being in love with Sarah but won't do anything about it, then he can no longer Goku it up. Season 3 made melodrama a fucking plot point
Brandon Routh, aka FUCKING SUPERMAN, came in for the Season, and he's a pretty solid actor overall and he did the job well. Until he gets sucked into the melodrama too! Ends up the people after Chuck had his wife as a sleeper agent, but she got killed so he swears revenge. A few episodes after we find that out, Brandon Routh starts dating Sarah and Chuck starts dating some woman who I can't remember but she was on Smallville or something
Now, the Christmas break started around this point. After spending the first two seasons building up the will-they-won't-they far past the breaking point, they then pull a won't-they. The episode ends with the two of them talking to each other about how happy they are in their relationships, and then for 2 months no new episodes were shown
The fans went ballistic
After spending so much effort into saving the show, the very same fans were furious the two lead characters didn't get together. It reached a point where the series creator had to come out publically to tell them to calm down, the season wasn't done yet and they should get some fucking patience. When the fans of the show start to have a say in the direction of the show is around the time you should stop the show, because it will all go downhill from there
After the Christmas break, the very first episode (or maybe the second, I don't remember) shows Sarah killing Superman's wife on her very first mission and Superman finds out. Also in the same episode Chuck dumps his new girlfriend and starts pining for Sarah again. Amazingly, the fans were placated by this, because they are fucking stupid
So yes, Superman ends up a bad guy and Chuck saves Sarah and they get together about halfway through Season 3. At the end of Season 3 Superman kills Chuck's dad but then Chuck beats him again and arrests him. The season ends with a recording of Chuck's dad telling him to look for his Mother
A cliffhanger ending which, the creator said, was to try and convince NBC to give it another season. It ends up NBC's lineup was doing terrible, so Chuck got Season 4 without much fanfare. The fans were happy, after years of shipping the two of them they were finally together. Who cares if there really isn't anywhere to go after this? They were together!
So, Season 4. This is where the show starts to tread water. Sarah isn't used to a normal relationship, and Chuck tries to help her with that. Casey, who becomes less relevant with each passing season, gets a daughter he didn't know existed to try and round out his character. And by round out his character I actually mean "Haha he was a badass for the first few seasons, now he has to adjust to having a daughter! What wacky situations can come from this!?"
Midway through Season 3, Chuck's best friend Morgan finds out he's a spy so now he was part of the team too, and most of Season 4 has Caey with his daughter and also tyring to train Morgan like he did with Chuck. HIJINX ENSUES! Morgan also starts dating Caey's daughter because, and this is a serious thing the show has, MELODRAMA
Timothy Dalton, a good Bond in bad Bond movies, is the bad guy for Season 4 and, as you'd expect, he does a good job, aside from his terrible Russian accent. Linda Hamilton plays Chuck's mother, who is a sleeper agent inside James Bond's group but James Bond is in love with her and...hey, this sounds familiar? It also ends up James Bond has a daughter and Jesus I'm feeling deja vu all of a sudden what the hell?
Midway through Season 4 Chuck loses the government secrets again, but at the end of the Season Morgan gets them. Season 5 gets given to them, and the creators said this is the last one, two seasons too late. Morgan has the secrets for about 3 episodes when he loses them, which is a great use of your comic relief character. Superman comes back for an episode, then gets arrested again. Then a fat dude is the end of season bad guy. Sarah gets the secrets put into her brain, she loses them two episodes later as well as all her memories (fucking seriously) then she kills the fat guy and then Chuck gets the secrets again. The entire series then ends
Despite the fact this is far too fucking long as it is, I want to show each of the main character's progression through the show
Chuck - Start as a nerdy loser. Gets all the secrets, spends nearly 3 years gaining confidence and chasing Sarah, wins her, watches his dad die, finds his long lost mother, gets married and then has an OPEN ENDING!
Sarah - Start as hardass spy pretending to be Chuck's girlfriend to stay close to him. Begins to like him, spends 3 years saying no to him, says yes to him, gets married, gets the secrets, loses the secrets and all her memories, OPEN ENDING
Casey - Hardass spy, does nothing for 3 seaons, gets a daughter, is relegated to comic relief but occasionly does something cool to keep him as a threat
Morgan - Starts as bigger nerdy loser, comic relief for 4 seasons, gets the secrets, loses them
Those are your 4 main characters. After 5 years, development is only in 2 of them. Fuck, Cyril got more development in the latest episode of Archer than Morgan did in 5 fucking years
So, problems with the show. I've already mentioned the melodrama, which you could drown in easily. There's far too much of it and a lot of it isn't neccesary at all. I really don't need to say how bad "I lost all my memories" is a a fucking plot point but apparently I do because it's still being used! Fuck!
But the major problem is there is no sense of urgency in the show at all. You always know they will save the day. The only time they don't is when Superman kills Chuck's dad, and even that doesn't really accomplish anything. It doesn't matter how many guys with guns there are, they will always win. This becomes especially apparent from Season 3, where Chuck becomes Goku on a whim. What possible threat can stand up to that?
The secrets themselves are a MacGuffin that gets changed constantly. In the first two seasons its a tool of infomation you can pull up anytime. From the third season it lets him become Goku as well. Alright then. Then it starts not working if his emotions aren't in line. Melodrama as a plot point. Alright, fine Then the secrets start to affect his brain, giving him migraines and causing him to collapse. Fine, whatever. Then he loses the secrets, and Morgan gets them. Then it starts making him forget things. Then he loses them, Sarah gets them, then she loses all of her memories. Then she loses the secrets, Chuck gets them again. Then the show ends
So, what? Will Chuck lose his memories too? They make a big deal over the last two episodes that Sarah doesn't remember Chuck at all, but at the end Chuck recaps the entire show to her (in a musical montage, thank fuck) and then they kiss. Does she regain her memories? Time and time again it is reiterated that she feels nothing for him, but she remembers bits and pieces. What does any of it mean? A vague ending is fine, but this seems more like the writers had no clue what they were doing and just made it vague to avoid having to explain anything. When everyone else gets a happy ending why would you make the main characters ending vague?
For the last two years, I watched Chuck almost out of routine. The back end of Season 2 was really good, and I wanted the show to be that good again. The kicker is, its been years since I watched the back end of Season 2. If I rewatch it now, will I end up hating it? Maybe the show never was that good, and it was a younger and different me that liked it? Maybe the characters in the show didn't change because it was me all along who changed! That's fucking deep man
