Chuck

I picked up a few DVDs last week. One of those was the first season of Chuck. This was one of the shows that I was interested in last season, but managed to miss and completely forgot about.

Chuck is about a regular guy who inherents the government's special secrets when his old college buddy emails him the information contained within the Intersec (a visual database of all government secrets). Both the CIA and NSA assign agents to watch over him, while having him go on missions that cause him to 'flash'--looking at something will frequently bring up mental flashes relating to what he is looking at.

Chuck is played as a light-hearted action/comedy adventure. It follows his life as a somewhat bumbling spy; and his life at home and at work. Chuck finds himself more and more caught up with his secret life, which begins to impact his relationship with his friends and family (his only family being his sister).

Over all, the show is surprisingly good. Even if the premise makes absolutely no sense. The show can be a bit spastic, switching from goofy comedy, to angst filled romance, to action-adventure in seconds. But then again that's also part of it's charm. None of these elements overpower the show, and it attempts to play a lot like a light-heated Alias more than anything else. Unfortunately, Alias eventually ditched the stories regarding main character's personal life and friends, something which caused show to loose a lot of it's charm, and lets hope Chuck doesn't make the same mistake.

At this point I've seen all of the episodes of the first season, and most of the ones of the second. I was expecting the show to be a bit more serialized than it actually is--normally that's a turn-off to me but honestly so far it's been fun. There hasn't been a lot of actual character development in the show yet, but hopefully that will change as the show continues to air.

The only downside with the show IMO is the will-they-or-won't-they romance between Chuck and Sarah. The two honestly make a great couple, there is a lot of good chemistry there, but they've already overplayed it too much. I honestly think the two would work together as a couple better than the on-again-off-again swingsaw that they are currently on. Though TV shows are rarely able to sustain a long-term relationship on a show like that so we'll see what happens.