Fall TV Preview - Chuck - Pilot Training

Chuck - Pilot - directed by McG
Premieres Monday September 24th, 8pm on NBC and Citytv

Oh...THIS is the show that is directed by McG (Charlie's Angels) and from Josh Schwartz (The OC). That explains the fast paced zippiness of it all. Truth be told, I wasn't sure what to expect and forgot the details about the show, so the only thing that really made me want to watch was that the title character, Chuck, was played by Zachary Levi, who stole every scene he was in on the show Less Than Perfect.

Boy, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Chuck, about a computer nerd who gets sent a message from an old college roomate with all the encrypted information both the NSA and the CIA are trying to attain. Except, the encrypted information is in the form of images that gets into Chucks head, so in essence, he himself becomes the hard drive storing all the information. There's also his regular life where he lives with his caring sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster, Everwood) and hangs out with fellow nerd best friend Morgan (Joshia Gomez). Both NSA agent John Casey (Adam Baldwin, Firefly) and CIA agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strzechowski) need to get Chuck to retrieve the information, and this Alias set up of Chucks regular life and the spy world hes thrust into leads to the comedy and adventure for the show.

Again, like Pushing Daisies, the main reason people will keep coming back to the show is the appealing lead, this time with Zachary Levi bumbling his way through things that are way over his head in the world of espionage and its a beautiful opposition to the cool smartass he played in Less Than Perfect. Add in favorites Sarah Lancaster and Adam Baldwin, and a so-far-one-episode-appearance-though-I-hope-there-is-more Ryan McPartlin (Life with Fran, below with Sarah Lancaster) as Ellie's fiance Captain Awesome (yes, that's how he's billed), and Vik Sahay as another member of the nerd posse, it rounds out a pretty diverse and fun cast.

The show is filmed in almost a monotonously realistic tone (think cheap indie movie filmed in LA, made me think of You And Me And Everyone You Know for some reason), which counter balances the proposterous plot and fast action sequences and someone grounds the show and makes me like it even more.

So 4 Stars (****) for Chuck and it left me really wanting to see the next episode.

Here's a video clip of the promo for Chuck:
Chuck extended Promo NBC

Yvonne Strzechowski

Adam Baldwin

Joshua Gomez

Sarah Lancaster

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