Chuck: Season 5

Chuck Bartowski no longer possesses the Intersect, but has still matured into a confident and capable secret agent. As he mentors the new Intersect, he also has to deal with the fact he and his team are now independent contractors with bills to pay and rival companies to compete with. When, yet again, a dangerous agent comes after the Intersect, Chuck has to call upon his resources and training to stop them.

Chuck has always been a curious show, a geek comedy with dramatic and romantic overtones whose tone has often spun on a dime. The show has always done a good job of managing these different tones and styles, keeping everything grounded though Zachary Levi's earnest-but-sympathetic performance as the title character. In the fifth season, the show experiences several additional such tonal shifts, as Chuck is betrayed by his best friend (but it turns out not to be his fault) and, most surprisingly, has his life almost ruined in the final few episodes of the series. For a show that's always been quite warm-hearted and entertainingly cheesy, the surprisingly bleak tone of the final few episodes comes as a bit of a shock.

The season - renewed purely to be wrapped up - only consists of thirteen episodes and it appears there may have been budgetary restrictions in place: our previous season villains were played by well-known actors such as Chevy Chase and Timothy Dalton. This year we get Angus Macfadyen, a very solid Scottish actor best-known for his supporting role in Braveheart (as Robert the Bruce). He does a good job, but lacks the geek-cred his predecessors brought with them. Even more problematic is the fact that he only appears in the last few episodes of the season with little build-up and his character is never really explored in much depth (in contrast to Dalton's hammy-but-complex Volkoff).

The truncated run causes issues throughout the season. Storylines that would have been given whole episodes to develop in the second through fourth seasons are here disposed off way too quickly. An entertaining on-going subplot involving Carrie-Ann Moss as a rival contractor (and potential romantic interest for Casey) has enormous potential, but kind of peters out with no real climax or pay-off. Most frustratingly, there is relatively very little action in the Buy More. Big Mike, Lester and Jeff barely get any lines in some episodes, although a late-season subplot that sees Lester and a reformed and sober Jeff finally discovering what's going under their feet does help reduce this problem a little.

Most surprising is a divisive late-season storyline involving amnesia. Given the tone of the show, I was confidently expecting some last-minute solution or cure would be found. Instead, we get a highly inconclusive ending. It's not quite The Sopranos, but the series ending without ever answering the central question poised by the last couple of episodes is an unexpected and possibly even brave choice. Whether it's the right choice is one that fans will be arguing about for years to come (or unless the much-rumoured Chuck movie gets off the ground). For myself, Chuck has always been first and foremost an escapist and fun show, not a gritty drama like the new BSG or something from HBO. Ending the show in this manner feels out of character for the series, and a little bit of pointless torture for our main characters who really deserved more of a happy ending.

That aside, the final season of Chuck (***½) is entertaining, well-acted and often quite funny. The shortened episode order means some storylines aren't developed very well, and the ending will be divisive, but certainly the season is worth watching for established fans. In particular, the way Chuck's character develops across the five seasons, going from nerd to an intelligent, resourceful agent (exemplified by the shots of Chuck on the DVD spines, which cleverly show this development) does pay off very well here. The season is available now in the UK (DVD) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Chuck: Season 4

Chuck Bartowski embarks on a personal mission to track down his missing mother, aided by John Casey and Sarah Walker. However, they soon discover that Chuck's mother may have ties to Volkoff Industries, an international arms-dealing organisation based in Moscow and now their their #1 target. Complications ensue as Chuck and Sarah get engaged, Ellie and Devon have a baby and an old computer resurfaces which may hold the key to an old mystery...

Chuck's fourth and penultimate season is a bit of a mixed bag. It's as reliably watchable as ever but a feeling of staleness is never too far away. Chuck's search for his mum feels a little derivative of his earlier search for his father. The producers try to make the two storylines more individual by painting the characters very differently and approaching the plots in different ways (we meet Chuck's mother very early on and see how she reacts to Chuck's attempts to find her), but there is the feeling that we have been here before. Linda Hamilton's casting as Chuck's mother may also be a geek-friendly nod to the audience (and an excuse for a few Terminator gags), but unfortunately Hamilton gives a stiff and somewhat unconvincing performance that doesn't help the problem.

Much more successful is Timothy Dalton, channelling pure scenery-chewing villainy in his role as Volkoff, an evil arms-dealer with a surprisingly sentimental side (a sequence where he plays charades is particularly demented). His appearances are highlights of the season.

Where the story goes awry is in the show's descent into predictable cliche. Sarah and Chuck have been together for more than five minutes, so clearly they now have to talk about getting married, with all the attendant, predictable storylines that brings along with it. The actors do their best with the material, but it feels like Chuck-the-espionage-comedy-drama is losing ground to Chuck-the-soap-opera, which is a fundamentally less interesting show. This isn't helped by the emphasis moving more away from the Buy More, with less screen time for Jeff and Lester's crazy antics or Big Mike's curiously entertaining Subway obsession. Isaiah Mustafa (aka 'the Old Spice advert guy') appears a recurring employee at the Buy More which sets up an amusing storyline, but again it fails to fulfil its potential and he soon disappears.

Still, the show remains enjoyable on an episode-by-episode basis. At 24 episodes, it's the longest season of the entire series and this would risk the storyline becoming overstretched, but the writers break it into two half-seasons to better handle things. The first half revolves around the battle against Volkoff and the search for Chuck's mum, whilst the second sees a return to more stand-alone storylines before a new story arc involving Volkoff's daughter (an under-written Lauren Cohan) kicks off. This arc, in which Chuck inadvertently turns Volkoff's daughter from an ally into an enemy, is potentially fascinating but falls apart due to some clunky writing and contrived events.

The fourth season of Chuck (***½) has many individually entertaining episodes and moments, and the regular cast remains as watchable as ever, but there is a feeling of tiredness creeping into affairs. However, the show is rejuvenated by a shake-up in the final episode that could make the fifth and final season more interesting. The season is available in the UK (DVD) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray) now.

Chuck: Season 3

Charles 'Chuck' Bartowski and his handlers, Sarah Walker and John Casey, have successfully defeated FULCRUM, a rogue intelligence agency. The Intersect, the combined intelligence database of the entire United States which has been downloaded into Chuck's brain, has been radically upgraded. Now Chuck has access to advanced weapons and kung fu skills, amongst other abilities. But Chuck's emotions are getting in the way of him being able to do his job. A new agent, Daniel Shaw, is assigned to the team to help train Chuck as a spy, but this has unexpected results.

After the relentlessly entertaining second season of Chuck, the third season gets off to a surprisingly weak start. Rather than picking up immediately on Season 2's cliffhanger ending (where Chuck comes into possession of the Intersect 2.0), we rejoin the action six months later. This causes problems even with Chuck's elastic notions of plausibility (why are Sarah and Casey hanging around Burbank for six months when Chuck isn't there?) and necessitates a lot of backtracking and flashbacks to fill in the gap. Once we're past the hurdle of the first few episodes (and a somewhat dubious Vinnie Jones guest role), however, things improve a lot. The second season's format of stringing together several multi-episode arcs into one cohesive whole is repeated and is almost as successful as previously. Brandon Routh is decent in the new role of Shaw, with the writers not wasting any opportunity to highlight his previous major role as Superman (even draping him in the American flag in one amusing scene).

As usual, the season has a good mix of comedy and drama, with some great stand-alone stories (Armand Assante's turn as a somewhat demented, American-friendly version of Castro is especially entertaining) standing alongside the ongoing story arcs. Most satisfying is the unexpected way the show's set-up suddenly changes. Major characters discover Chuck's secret with little forewarning, altering the show's premise for the better by dropping the 'secret identity' storyline just as it was starting to get a little stale. Chuck and Sarah's relationship is moved onto another level, again just as the 'will they/won't they' angle was running out of steam. Even Casey is given a stronger personal storyline, as he discovers a family he never knew he had and becomes conflicted over contacting them or not. And, as usual, the more serious spy stuff is balanced out nicely by the lunacy going on over at the Buy More store.

Overall, the third season of Chuck (****) is funny, self-aware and entertaining. It's not quite as a good as the second season, due to a dodgy set-up in the first few episodes that results in a lot of backtracking and wheel-spinning and the fact that the new bad guys, the Ring, are identical to FULCRUM. Beyond that, the show evolves its premise and characters in compelling new directions and shows a willingness to change even fundamental parts of the premise when necessary. The season is available now in the UK (DVD) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Chuck: Season 2

Chuck Bartowski continues his double-life, working at an electrical goods store in Burbank whilst also helping the CIA and NSA deal with threats to American national security. Chuck has the Intersect - the USA's combined database on all known terrorist and criminal threats - downloaded into his brain and is now an invaluable resource to the American government. However, Chuck is desperate to return to his old life and sets out on a mission to locate the creator of the Intersect and get him to remove it from his head...


The second season of Chuck picks up after the events of the first season (truncated by the 2007-08 Writer's Guild of America strike) and, for a while, it's business as usual. The Chuck formula - Chuck solves a spy problem whilst dealing with a more mundane crisis at home or at the store - is intact and remains entertaining, but also risks becoming stale after a few episodes. Luckily, the writers have taken steps to minimise that problem by bringing in a sequential series of multi-episode storylines. In short order, Chuck has to deal with the reappearance of an old girlfriend, try to track down his missing father so he can give his sister away at her wedding, find the original scientists who created the Intersect, deal with a CIA investigation into Sarah's ability to be his handler (given their growing closeness) and deal with a head-on confrontation with FULCRUM, a shadowy and criminal intelligence organisation.

This structure allows the series to sustain 22 episodes without becoming too tedious or repetitive, helped by enjoyable writing and great performances from the regulars and guest stars (Scott Bakula! Tricia Helfer! Chevy Chase!) alike. The writers aren't afraid to give real character development and growth to their recurring actors, particularly Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski as Chuck and Sarah. Their will-they, won't-they relationship may be a long-running series cliche, but is given a few twists here (particularly the fact that Sarah is well aware of Chuck's feeling from the start) that makes it a bit more interesting. Particularly well-done is that it feeds Chuck's character growth, turning him from a listless nerd into a much more capable spy by the end of the season. Adam Baldwin also develops a bit more as action man John Casey over the course of the season, though surprisingly he doesn't have many episodes that focus on his character. Instead he is mainly used for macho comic relief, aside from some nice moments in the final episodes where he grudgingly admits to, if not liking, than at least finding Chuck mildly tolerable and useful.

As usual, the dramatic storylines are counterbalanced by a strong humour quotient. This usually manifests in storylines in the Buy More. Over the course of the season there are multiple changes in management, culminating in the power-crazed Emmett rising to dominance late in the season. We also encounter Lester and Jeff's synth-rock cover band (whose covers are...interesting, to say the least) and feel Morgan's pain as his mother embarks on a noisily passionate relationship with Big Mike. As with the first season, though it's not as prevalent this time around, there is the feeling that you could set a whole series in the Buy More with these characters and it would be just as much fun without the spy stuff.

Overall, the second season of Chuck (****½) is relentlessly entertaining. There are a couple of episodes that don't work quite as well as the others, but otherwise this is a terrific season of television which rarely flags or lets up the pace. The only problem is that by its end if feels like the series is pretty much over, and the addition of a few moments at the end of the finale establishing the direction of the third season feels a little incongruous: the series was very nearly cancelled after Season 2 and renewed at the last minute, explaining why the end of the season wraps everything up and then rather abruptly opens up again. The series is available now in the UK (DVD) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Chuck: Season 1

Chuck Bartowski works for a huge electronics store in Los Angeles, Buy More, but is still annoyed at being framed for a misdemeanour he didn't commit which led to him getting thrown out of Stanford University several years earlier. Bryce Larkin, Chuck's former best friend and the guy who framed him, sends Chuck a mysterious email which causes him to pass out. When he wakes up, he discovers that he has downloaded the Intersect - the entire American secret database on international criminals, terrorists and other restricted subjects - into his brain. With the Intersect itself destroyed and Larkin dead, this means that the CIA and NSA need Chuck to help them defend American interests. Thus, he is forced into a double life of maintaining his working life at the Buy More whilst also helping CIA agent Sarah Walker and NSA agent John Casey fight international crime using his subliminal knowledge.


Right from the start, Chuck puts its colours on the mast: this is going to be a show where the idea is to watch it and enjoy yourself, with even the vaguest hint of realism thrown out of the door. In an age where American network shows are being ignored in favour of 'edgy' cable series, it's a relief to find a show that is just so much damn fun.

Chuck works on a number of levels. The casting is excellent, with Zachary Levi making for an appealing protagonist, balancing geekiness with likability and a growing ability to cope with the crazy situations he's been thrown into. The ridiculously attractive Yvonne Strahovski makes for a great straight-woman as Sarah, who pulls off the 'coldly professional CIA agent' character well but then develops the role to become more conflicted in her loyalties as the season progresses. The mighty Adam Baldwin - Jayne from Firefly - is also great as Casey, whose first instinct in any situation is extreme violence. The supporting cast, notably Chuck's family and his fellow workers at the Buy More, are also well-cast and entertaining.

The show also has a great deal of geek-cred. One episode hinges on Chuck and his best friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez) being able to carry off their Halloween trick of dressing up as a sandworm from the Dune books, whilst in another Chuck reminisces on bonding with an ex-girlfriend over playing EverQuest. Another episode uses (classic 1980s text adventure) Zork references as a plot point. References range from the pretty obvious to the fairly obscure, and catching them is fun in itself.

The series follows the now-traditional structure of having a season-spanning arc mixed up with lots of stand-alone episodes. The arc is actually fairly slight (there are hints that the NSA are building the Intersect 2.0 and indicating that once it is ready, Chuck will be expendable) but there are some ongoing character arcs and developments from episode to episode that work quite well. One character point - that Morgan has a huge crush on Chuck's sister - is actually a bit stalker-ish in the first couple of episodes due to the writers overegging it, but they sensibly pull it back and then dispose of it after giving Morgan another girlfriend later on, resolving the issue before it becomes too much of a problem.

The individual episode storylines are mostly enjoyable, particularly the season finale in which the entire Buy More is cleared out after listening devices are discovered and the characters have to discover the fate of the store manager's stuffed fish. Something that is slightly problematic is that the somewhat mundane storylines at the Buy More or involving Chuck's family are often more enjoyable than the spy stuff, which is often formulaic (though always watchable). There are problems that ideas are reused a few too many times (particularly with Casey getting into trouble with a beautiful female agent which goes a bit wrong, which happens twice within a few episodes), but overall the series carries its stories off with aplomb. The show may actually have been helped by the first season being cut short by the 2007-08 Writer's Strike, allowing the producers to end the season early before too many more story points were revisited and prepare themselves for the second season.

The first season of Chuck (****) is very entertaining, amusing and nicely geeky, with genuine wit and charm overcoming its more formulaic and cliched elements. The show balances humour and drama quite well, and the overall package is highly enjoyable. The season is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.