Shortly after my wife and I got married I saw advertisements for a new show called “Chuck.” It looked interesting, but I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a sitcom, or some kind of action show. It looked different enough, though, that I wanted to watch it, at least give it a try. I remember watching the first episode, and I was hooked. It was a sitcom, and it was an action show. Somehow they had blended the two together into something I thought was pretty great. More than that, I liked the main character, Chuck Bartowski. He was just an average guy who happened to be a nerd or geek. It was one of the first times I can remember on TV or in the movies where they weren’t making fun of nerds or geeks with their nerd or geek characters. Even today, post Chuck, we have characters like Sheldon Cooper who are nerds in the most stereotypical ways. Chuck was different. There was no doubt that he was into geeky stuff like Star Wars and stuff, but he was cool and normal too. Like the majority of geeks out there. Anyway, I was hooked, and I couldn’t wait to watch more. I kept up with Mr. Bartowski for the whole first season. It was the first TV show I bought on iTunes, I was that into it. Then life became busy. My first child was born, we moved, I started focusing more on school, and I lost touch with Chuck. Years later, and through the magic of Netflix, I was able to catch up on the series, and found out it never really lost its charm. I enjoyed all the way to the end. Almost. I didn’t enjoy the end of the series as much as I was hoping. It wasn’t as disappointing as “How I met Your Mother,” but still not great. In any case, I present to you 3 reasons why I loved Chuck.
#3: The Music
I don’t know if any TV series has ever had as awesome a soundtrack as Chuck had. It was just full of amazing songs. It started off with the opening titles, provided by Cake. Short Skirt/Long Jacket is a classic song, and it’s catchy and it sticks in your head. It sets the pace for the show. But it doesn’t end there. I think every episode had a song that made me say, “Hey, I love this song, it’s one of my favorites.” I think it was music that a lot of geeks like, showing that they knew their audience. I could do a whole blog post on geeky music. If only I had a blog to post it to…
#2 The Guest Stars
It seemed that every guest star they had on the show had some kind of geeky tie, and they often called it out. Mark Hamill, Scott Bakula, Dolph Lundgren, Linda Hamilton, and Timothy Dalton are just a few of the guest stars that have popped into Chuck’s life. One of my favorite parts in the whole series was when Dolph Lundgren has them tied up and says, ” I will break you!” It was a classic moment, and only a movie geek would get it. I love when there seems to be an inside joke that not everybody is meant to get, but I get it. It makes me feel some kind of connection with the series creators.
#1 The Characters
I mentioned why I loved Chuck’s character in the introduction, but I really loved so many of the characters. Captain Awesome, Morgan, Casey, Jeff and Lester, Big Mike, they were all incredible. Morgan was the ultimate best friend we all wish we had. He was always loyal and other than the whole weird intersect thing, he always had Chuck’s back. Captain Awesome bugged me at first, but even I could not resist his awesomeness by the end of the series. Casey may have been my favorite character. He was the super tough assassin spy with a heart. The best part of the characters, though, was mixing them all together. The cast worked well together all the way to the end of the series. Even the repeating characters were great. For example, Shaw. He was just the guy you loved to hate. He was played to perfection by Brandon Routh (my least favorite Superman). I don’t think I could watch Superman Returns now and not see Shaw and want Lex Luthor to win. He was that good…er…bad…whatever.
If you have never watched Chuck, check it out. It is a fun, entertaining ride, and well worth your time. I know it was worth mine. Even my wife liked it, and she is not nearly as geeky as I am.
