Chuck: Season 1 (complete)
Kicked out of Stanford after his roommate, Bryce, framed him for cheating on a test, Chuck Bartowski is a slacker nerd seemingly destined to spend the rest of his life one step away from lower management at the local Buy More and living with his sister, Ellie, and her boyfriend, Devon (who we will call Captain Awesome, since everyone but Ellie does). Except that then Bryce, now a CIA agent, goes rogue and sends Chuck an e-mail containing all the files of the Intersect, a computer containing all of the government’s intel gathered from all of it’s organizations, compressed into millions of images. Chuck opens the e-mail, effectively downloading the entire computer into his brain, resulting in “flashes” any time he sees anything related to international espionage or government secrets. With Bryce having blown up the computer itself, Chuck’s brain is now the only place where all the files can be found. As a result, Chuck is given two handlers-Sarah Walker, a CIA agent who was Bryce’s partner (and girlfriend) and John Casey, the NSA (I think) agent who shot and killed Bryce when he stole the Intersect- to keep an eye on him while he continues about his daily life.
Yeah, I have a little trouble buying that he wouldn’t be immediately carted off to a safehouse myself, no matter how much I suspend my disbelief.
The vast majority of my interest in the show was Adam Baldwin as Casey, and for the first few episodes, that’s really the only interesting thing going on. Sarah is pretty cool, but the show a bit too caught up in her being in love with Bryce but falling for Chuck, and doesn’t seem to really know what it wants to do with her. I hope it’ll be like Psych, where they didn’t seem sure what to do with Juliet in season 1, but figured it out in season 2 and changed the character from “good” to “awesome.” Ellie and Captain Awesome are adorable, but don’t seem to serve much purpose. The entirety of the Buy More staff was irritating. Chuck himself is sweet, but not very interesting. I am also mildly concerned by his being so hung up on Sarah despite knowing that, by necessity, everything he knows about her is a lie.
But then there’s Casey, who is a super-tense, grumpy, anti-social, detail oriented, paranoid spy forced to work retail and babysit an irritating (to him) geek. Played by Adam Baldwin. I don’t think it’s humanly possibly to not be entertained by that. I admit, despite my usual disinterest in such things, I spent a while thinking about how spy hate!sex would be fun, or even Casey/Ellie. Except that I would never do that to Chuck or Captain Awesome. Not even a fling. Casey also has awesome spy ex-girlfriends, one of whom is essentially a female James Bond.
Thankfully, Chuck started to come into his own mid-season, which helped the show as a whole. I still have trouble with the idea that he’d be able to continue on with his normal life, and wish I thought he was falling for the “real” Sarah, instead of a fantasy version of her based on his knowing that nothing he knows about her is real, but his actual crush is adorable, as are his puppyish attempts to become friends with Casey later in the season. I’m still irritated by the Buy More staff, who I don’t find particularly entertaining or endearing, though Anna is OK, and I can at least tolerate Morgan, Chuck’s best friend who has a crush of Ellie, by the last two episodes. The actual spy bits, though, are usually pretty great, and the actual show entertaining once it gets going.
Did I mention the part where Jayne Adam Baldwin is a spy who has to work retail?
PS-Fandom, why do you appear to have generated no icons of Sarah and Casey pointing their guns at something?
Yeah, I have a little trouble buying that he wouldn’t be immediately carted off to a safehouse myself, no matter how much I suspend my disbelief.
The vast majority of my interest in the show was Adam Baldwin as Casey, and for the first few episodes, that’s really the only interesting thing going on. Sarah is pretty cool, but the show a bit too caught up in her being in love with Bryce but falling for Chuck, and doesn’t seem to really know what it wants to do with her. I hope it’ll be like Psych, where they didn’t seem sure what to do with Juliet in season 1, but figured it out in season 2 and changed the character from “good” to “awesome.” Ellie and Captain Awesome are adorable, but don’t seem to serve much purpose. The entirety of the Buy More staff was irritating. Chuck himself is sweet, but not very interesting. I am also mildly concerned by his being so hung up on Sarah despite knowing that, by necessity, everything he knows about her is a lie.
But then there’s Casey, who is a super-tense, grumpy, anti-social, detail oriented, paranoid spy forced to work retail and babysit an irritating (to him) geek. Played by Adam Baldwin. I don’t think it’s humanly possibly to not be entertained by that. I admit, despite my usual disinterest in such things, I spent a while thinking about how spy hate!sex would be fun, or even Casey/Ellie. Except that I would never do that to Chuck or Captain Awesome. Not even a fling. Casey also has awesome spy ex-girlfriends, one of whom is essentially a female James Bond.
Thankfully, Chuck started to come into his own mid-season, which helped the show as a whole. I still have trouble with the idea that he’d be able to continue on with his normal life, and wish I thought he was falling for the “real” Sarah, instead of a fantasy version of her based on his knowing that nothing he knows about her is real, but his actual crush is adorable, as are his puppyish attempts to become friends with Casey later in the season. I’m still irritated by the Buy More staff, who I don’t find particularly entertaining or endearing, though Anna is OK, and I can at least tolerate Morgan, Chuck’s best friend who has a crush of Ellie, by the last two episodes. The actual spy bits, though, are usually pretty great, and the actual show entertaining once it gets going.
Did I mention the part where Jayne Adam Baldwin is a spy who has to work retail?
PS-Fandom, why do you appear to have generated no icons of Sarah and Casey pointing their guns at something?