'Chuck' recap: Standing tall on the wings of Chuck's dream

 Some of my favorite "Chuck" episodes over the seasons have been "bottle shows," or episodes that are confined to a handful of sets, usually sets the show has on hand, like the Buy More or CIA castle sets. The Season 2 Christmas episode -- where Chuck and the Buy More gang were trapped inside the store with an evil henchman (or two or three) -- remains one of my two or three favorite hours of the show ever, and last season's "Chuck vs. First Class," featuring the beleaguered spy battling evil doers on an airplane and having a meet-cute with Kristin Kreuk was one of the best episodes of last season. Both of these episodes gained a certain amount of excitement from confining their characters to one or two primary locations. Usually, having to keep the budget down will force the show's writers to be more creative, pushing them toward finding ways to confine things on certain sets and use only major cast members. But sometimes, it can lead to an episode that feels weirdly anemic.

"Chuck vs. the Cubic Z" is one of those episodes. There are a few good moments and a few good fights, but it concludes with a moment so stupid that it actually made me ask myself when the show had turned into "Perfect Strangers." Wed that to a Buy More plotline that didn't make a lot of sense and reduced Morgan to an idiot far too often and a spy plot that relied a little too heavily on the acting talents of Nicole Richie, and you have a recipe for an episode that just didn't work. It wasn't terrible -- there are always some laughs in any episode of "Chuck" and it moved the storyline of Chuck looking for his mom just far enough along to not be a total loss -- but the whole thing felt slightly boring and messy. It very much felt like a show in its fourth season, trying to find some way to repeat past glories and yet still find new ways to push the story forward.

'Chuck' recap: Sarah gets committed

The reason "Chuck" has worked so well for as long as it has, despite having a bunch of unwieldy elements in it, is because the show typically nails the emotions it's going for. When Chuck and Sarah finally fell in love, it really felt like two longtime crushes giving in to their feelings for each other. When Casey found his daughter, it felt like a man who'd shut out most of the world getting a second chance to feel something. The Chuck-and-Ellie relationship has always been the base of the show's soul, while the Chuck-and-Morgan relationship often provides the show its heart. Even when other stuff on the show isn't working, the emotions are giving the audience something to invest in, which is why the show has likely attracted such a small but mighty fanbase.

So although there were times in "Chuck vs. the Suitcase" when I rolled my eyes, I thought the show stuck the landing very nicely. The final five minutes, in particular, were well done, and most of the humor at the Buy More was very, very funny (like Jeff and Lester walking toward the camera, wind from a fan Morgan was holding blowing in their hair). So long as the show figures out a way not to introduce needless drama into the relationship of Chuck and Sarah, I can handle episodes where they get into occasional spats (all couples do). This spat, as a matter of fact, got to something very basic in the romance between the two: Sarah has no real desire to settle down -- hence her suitcase -- but Chuck wants nothing but. He and Ellie never had the dream family other people had growing up, so perhaps they're overcompensating now. When Chuck muses about marriage and a baby while drifting off to sleep and it terrifies Sarah, it's a nice character moment and a believable disagreement these two would have.

'Chuck' recap: How we met Chuck's mother

I enjoyed the fourth season premiere of "Chuck," for the most part, but I wish it hadn't undone so much of its new storyline so quickly. Obviously, Chuck and Morgan going out and pursuing their own missions on the way to finding Chuck's mother wasn't going to work as a season-long setup, since it didn't involve so many of the characters in any way. This is a TV show, and at some point, the series has to set a status quo that involves most of the people that live in its universe. But there's taking your time to explore the characters in new situations and then there's backing rapidly away from anything not having to do with the status quo. By the end of the premiere, Chuck is again a CIA employee, again lying to his sister about his job, again working at the (reconstructed) Buy More as a cover and again working with Casey and Sarah. Heck, he's once again searching for a missing parent (though at least in this case, we in the audience know where she is).

That sense of hurrying up to get back to the status quo mars a premiere that's pretty fun otherwise. The pre-credits sequence of Chuck and Morgan racing all over the world and running up giant credit card debt in their pursuit of Chuck's mom is very funny and tells the whole story without expensive stunts or anything like that. For the most part, it's just Zachary Levi's eyes, looking worried, a cartoon map on the opposite side of the screen. The whole thing was a goofy riff on old spy movies, and it really got the episode off on the right foot. Since this was an episode that had a lot of different things going on, that was probably for the best. It would be easy to overwhelm the audience.

There's one thing "Chuck" didn't bother undoing, and I'm glad it didn't: Chuck and Sarah are still together and celebrating their anniversary (which they end up celebrating on a bus in Moscow). In general, the emotion in this episode was very well deployed, from Chuck and Sarah missing each other while they each pursue separate assignments to Casey's look of sadness when he thinks he's heard Chuck die over the radio. It's a great moment for Adam Baldwin, who can play so many different emotions, yet rarely gets asked to go beyond generic tough guy stuff. Casey's cared for Chuck for a long time now, though he rarely shows it, and it was wonderful to get a very overt nod to that. Another emotional beat that worked? Chuck deciding to save Sarah and his friends instead of get the identity of his mother.

Emmys 2010: Winner Aaron Paul gets the best birthday present of his life

Happy Birthday, Aaron Paul.

Not only did the "Breaking Bad" star win for best supporting actor for his outstanding (and we do mean outstanding) portrayal of Jesse Pinkman, but it means he beat his idols, Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson of "Lost."

Paul is a huge "Lost" fan.

Memo to "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan: Forget about killing Jesse off now! We know you changed your mind after the first season, but just in case.

Paul said he can't believe he gets to go home with "her." By her, he meant his Emmy.

So cute!

 

--Maria Elena Fernandez

twitter.com/writerchica

Photo: Aaron Paul celebrating his win. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

COMIC-CON 2010: Linda Hamilton signed to play mom on 'Chuck'

At a very short (half-hour) panel for NBC's "Chuck," producers announced that former "Terminator" babe Linda Hamilton has been signed to play Chuck's spy mom.

For Season 4, Hamilton will play a recurring guest-star role as Mary Bartowski, who vanished mysteriously from the life of Chuck (Zachary Levi) when he was a boy.

"Hamilton will appear throughout the season, leading Chuck to discover that her life was shrouded in secrets," according to a news release. "She was a spy, a CIA agent ... and that's just the beginning."

Hamilton, 53, is best known for originating the role of Sarah Connor in the "Terminator" films, but she also starred in the 1980s hit "Beauty and the Beast" on CBS.

Meanwhile, another "Chuck" mystery: Why Warner Bros., the studio that makes the series, decided to cut the Comic-Con panel short. Attendees in the packed house exited complaining that the presentation, which featured cast members triumphantly entering to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," was just too short.

-- Scott Collins
Twitter/@scottcollinsLAT)

Photo: Zachary Levi in "Chuck." Credit: Jordin Althaus / NBC

'Chuck': Say hi to the bad guy

 If I were going to make a gift registry of things that I'd like "Chuck" to pick up for me in the off season, one of those things would be a villain. Actually, that would be the only thing on the list. "Chuck" is a very good, very fun show, most weeks, but it has a severe stakes problem, and episodes like this two-hour extravaganza or the earlier "Chuck vs. the Other Guy" show just how good the show could be if it figured out a way to bring in someone who could give Chuck and his other pals a run for their money. The Ring, this season, hasn't been that. They've felt pretty inept throughout, and there's never been a real sense of danger.

'Chuck': Hush little Chucky, don't say a word; Papa's gonna get you an Intersect

 

After watching almost a full season of "Chuck" and thinking about it critically -- something I've never done before -- I think I've reached a conclusion about what I like "Chuck" to do best: I like "Chuck" best when the show does crazy stuff. I like insane plot twists and random turns into darkness and big, operatic moments. I feel like the show could afford to be a whole lot weirder much of the time, as though the fact that it's just generally likable and enjoyable and cute is what's keeping me from really loving it, even as I do vastly enjoy the show as it is. "Alias" burned out quickly, but, man, it was good with just completely random stuff happening and then the writers vamping to justify it. It often feels to me like "Chuck" isn't really risking anything, I guess, and while I think that keeps it consistent -- the show rarely has a bad episode -- it can also make it kind of boring.

So all hail episodes featuring Scott Bakula as Chuck's dad. Bakula is just playing your standard tortured genius, but he plays that part very, very well. You really feel his concern for his son and daughter, even in the gooier, overwritten scenes, and you also feel like he's completely nuts, like he might do anything at any moment. "Chuck" is at its best when it's being unpredictable, and Bakula introduces a big old note of unpredictability into the show every time he turns up. By the end of the episode, I was really psyched for the finale next week, and I was getting into the story of how Chuck and his dad are going to stop a resurgent Ring that Ellie is inadvertently helping by letting them keep tabs on her dad and by taking out Casey with a frying pan.

Upfronts: Scripted shows on NBC - a reversal of fortune

NBC has fallen in love with scripted shows again.

In a bid to slash costs last year, the beleaguered network put a record-low seven hours of scripted programming on its weekly prime-time schedule. Nearly one-quarter of the lineup was devoted to an ill-fated and now-defunct 10 p.m. talk show with Jay Leno.

But after a bruising year of low ratings and bad headlines, NBC has raced back to traditional dramas and comedies with a lineup that executives in New York officially released on Sunday. The network is nearly doubling down on scripted formats, which will now occupy 12 hours a week (out of a total of 22) on the schedule. Among the eight new shows slated for fall are splashy action hours from star producers Jerry Bruckheimer and J.J. Abrams and a legal drama starring Jimmy Smits.

"This new schedule brings NBC back to basics with its commitment to quality scripted programming," Jeff Gaspin, chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment, said in a statement.

It’s a near-complete reversal from last year, when NBC insisted that the new economic model required  slashing program costs by scheduling cheaper alternatives, such as Leno’s show.

"One thing we learned from this year: If you’re going to compete at 10 o’clock, you have to put your very best content on," Gaspin told reporters in a Sunday conference call. "There’s just too much competition from cable and DVRs."

NBC renews 'Chuck' and orders four more new series for the next TV season

"Chuck" fans, you're in business, and this time Subway had nothing to do with it.

NBC has renewed "Chuck" for another season. Creator Josh Schwartz took to Twitter the second he heard the good news: "Thank you Chuck fans for getting us a 4th season! Thrilled to keep working with amazing cast & crew."

The network also ordered four more new shows:

"The Cape" is a one-hour drama series starring David Lyons ("ER") as Vince Faraday, an honest cop on a corrupt police force, who finds himself framed for a series of murders and presumed dead. The rest of the cast includes: Jennifer Ferrin ("Life on Mars"), Ryan Wynott ("Flash Forward"), James Frain ("The Tudors"), Keith David ("Death at a Funeral"), Summer Glaur ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"), and Dorian Missick ("Six Degrees of Separation"). Created by Thomas Wheeler ("Empire"), executive produced by Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun.

"Friends With Benefits” is a comedy revolving around a group of 20-something singles as they navigate the confusing world of dating.  Ben Weymouth (Ryan Hansen of “Party Down”) is on the hunt for the perfect woman who meets his unique set of standards, while his best friend, Sara Maxwell (Danneel Harris of “One Tree Hill”), is just looking for a man to settle down with and raise a family.  Ben and Sara have fallen into the habit of turning to each other for moral and physical support as they wait for Mr. and Ms. Right to arrive.  Their friend Aaron (Fran Kranz of “Dollhouse”), a romantic at heart, doesn’t approve of Ben and Sara's complicated friendship, but he, along with womanizer Hoon (Ian Reed Kesler) and straight shooter Riley (Jessica Lucas of "Melrose Place”), are all distracted with their own dating trials and tribulations. Created by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (“(500) Days of Summer”), it is executive produced by Brian Grazer and Imagine Television.

"Harry's Law," formerly known as "Kindreds," is a dramatic series that follows a curmudgeonly ex-patent lawyer and his group of misfit associates -- high school biology teacher, a fashion-conscious assistant, and a recovering drug addict -- as their lives come together to form an unconventional kind of law practice.  You can pretty much guess who created this one: David E. Kelley ("Boston Legal" and "The Practice.").The cast includes Aml Ameen ("Kidulthood"), Kathy Bates, Ben Chaplin ("Me and Orson Welles") and Brittany Snow ("American Dreams").

And in a most interesting move, NBC is back in business with Conan O'Brien. His production company's drama, "Outlaw," starring Jimmy Smits, has been ordered. Formerly known as "Garza," the legal drama (another one!) centers around a conservative justice of the Supreme Court who, after his liberal activist attorney father dies suddenly, steps down to start a private law firm to challenge the system. But, by becoming a maverick and loose cannon, he may have made some dangerous enemies in very high places who are working toward his undoing.  The rest of the cast includes Jesse Bradford, Carly Pope, David Ramsey, and Ellen Woglom.

Earlier today, NBC renewed "Law & Order: SVU" and ordered a new spin-off, "Law & Order: Los Angeles" but canceled the mothership: "Law & Order."  The pilot for "Law & Order: Los Angeles" has not been shot, and no one has been cast.

-- Maria Elena Fernandez
twitter.com/writerchica

Top photo: Jimmy Smits in "Outlaw." Credit: NBC

Bottom photo: David Lyons in "The Cape." Credit. NBC

Law & Order is over on NBC after 20 years

There will be much more Buy More, thanks to 'Chuck' renewal

There will be much more Buy More, thanks to 'Chuck' renewal

Didn't this come way later last year?

Sparing fans from having to wait for a last-minute reprieve, NBC has renewed "Chuck" for 13 episodes, a fact reported by many sources but reported first by Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello (who has had his ear to the "Chuck"-vine this renewal season. And can we make "Chuck"-vine a thing?).

"Chuck" looked like a sure bet for a renewal quite a while, thanks to the solid ratings -- particularly in comparison to the rumored-to-be-canceled "Heroes" -- from the early part of the season. But a downward slide in those numbers after Daylight Savings Time made the renewal appear to be in doubt. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and there will be another year of Buy More hijinks.

There was no word on whether or not budget cuts would necessitate further cast cutbacks (as when the show had to cut Julia Ling from the main cast after Season Two to save money). While 13 episodes is the official order, NBC has been known to up that number. Before Season Two, when the show had also been renewed for only 13 episodes, the network ordered a full season of the show before anything had aired after being impressed with the quality of the early episodes. A similar situation happened this season, when the network bumped the order from 13 episodes to 19 before anything had even aired.

So, relax, "Chuck" fans. You can probably enjoy something other than Subway during this season's final three hours.

--Todd VanDerWerff (follow me on Twitter at @tvoti)

Photo: Chuck (Zachary Levi) can breathe a sigh of relief. He'll be employed at the Buy More for at least one more television season. Credit: NBC

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'Chuck': We're living together, but I'm just not sure I'm ready for a relationship right now

 
Here's the part where a little integration between the two pieces of the third season of "Chuck" might have been better. "Chuck vs. the Tooth" is an episode that clearly wants to be a part of the first 13 episodes, which were dark and dramatic and full of interesting character work, even if some of the narrative threads the show picked up ended up in dead ends. But it's in the back six, which have, so far, been light and goofy and all of the things the first 13 episodes weren't. Every time the episode threatens to turn deadly serious, something strange or silly happens. Usually, the fact that "Chuck" tries to be 15 or 16 different shows in one is one of the points in its favor, but "Tooth" often felt like it was missing the target.

I like the idea that the Intersect is making egg salad out of Chuck's brain. It's a perfectly logical development for the show to foist on its main character, and it nicely sets up the return of Chuck's dad, the inventor of the Intersect and possibly the only man who can calm his son's raging nightmares. Christopher Lloyd is cast nicely against type as a relatively dark and sober therapist who worries deeply about the possibility of Chuck remaining sane in the future. He makes a good harbinger of things to come, as he sits in his moodily lit office and worries about the effects of one man having that many government secrets in his brain. Sarah and Casey's dedication to making sure that Chuck doesn't lose himself or his sanity to the Intersect is a good emotional hook for an episode. All in all, this could have been a compelling story for the show to play out.

'Chuck': Here come the Bickersons

Did I miss a scene in Monday's episode of "Chuck" where Chuck said, "I'm sure nothing could go wrong!" and then the camera panned across some shelf full of computer manuals, only to glide back down onto the face of Morgan sporting a Rip Van Winkle beard as text appeared at the bottom of the screen reading "FIVE YEARS LATER"? And did I miss how we then saw after that exactly HOW everything could go wrong? Because there was a lot of stuff in this episode -- which was otherwise pretty enjoyable -- that seemed to be coming up awfully abruptly and only to tweak the drama in some cases. Chuck and Sarah dating? Great. Chuck and Sarah automatically jumping to moving in together? A little out of nowhere, I gotta say.

But it wasn't just that either. I realize that Ellie and Awesome aren't going to be in Africa forever, but by coming up with a scenario where they head back to the States after just one episode being there, it feels a little anticlimactic to have the whole story line even be there. Sure, there were extenuating circumstances, but when you have a season finale and then a summer gap -- as the show originally thought it was getting -- it feels a bit more explicable to have the characters embark on a major lifestyle change, then decide it's not really for them after a few months of actually giving it a shot. A case in point, from this very show, no less, would be Morgan's abrupt departure from the Buy More to be a Benihana chef at the end of Season 2. He came back in the third season premiere, but because the show had been gone so long, it felt less bizarre than Ellie and Awesome seemingly spending three hours in the Congo and deciding it just wasn't their thing.