But, here again, Josh has created another "nerd" or "outsider" that is just too darn adorable to be a nerd or outsider (just like Dan from Gossip Girl). I was beside myself to understand why Chuck doesn't have women lined up around the block to go out with him--his date behavior was so cute. I suppose the secret to Chuck's isolation is that he never puts himself out in the world, as he still hasn't recovered from his college girlfriend dumping him for his roommate Bryce. (Speaking of the college girlfriend, can that please be who Rachel Bilson is going to play when she shows up for a multi-episode arc? That would be fantastic!)
Of course, the premise of the show is that Chuck accidentally absorbs all of the government's intelligence secrets into his head and unwittingly finds himself caught up in the dangerous world of spies and secret agents. The spy stuff turned out to be a lot of fun too. I loved how when Bryce was trying to escape, he did everything in the most complicated way possible (sliding under the table, going through the window above the door, etc.) ...because, seriously, how many times did Sydney Bristow make things harder on herself than she needed to? The ridiculousness continued when Sarah showed up dressed in black and was able to throw Chuck's computer in the air, beat everyone up, and still easily catch the computer. I guess the CIA has begun to recruit rhythmic gymnasts.
Another way Chuck spoofed previous spy shows was in having all the intelligence people speak in as many hard-boiled cliches as possible. This was really funny at first, but my concern is that the agents may have been a little too cliched. It looks like Sarah is well on her way to sprouting more of a personality (since we saw that Bryce was her boyfriend), and I hope that at least some of the other intel people become a bit more multifaceted.
Random question: do NSA agents really run around killing CIA agents willy-nilly? That seems kind of wrong. And is Sarah even allowed to be doing any of this spy stuff in the U.S. because my understanding was the the CIA can only operate outside of our borders? And why did Bryce clandestinely download his own government's secrets? Didn't the CIA already know that stuff? Ok, I realize that hardcore fans will tolerate some loose-ends when watching spy shows (see Rambaldi's "endgame"), but Chuck should maybe make more of an effort to not lose us all right off the bat.
Like The OC, much of the charm of Chuck is in the little witty comments, such as:
- Chuck: "Pedal safe!"
- Harry: "Do you know what 5 minutes is in Buy More dollars?"
Chuck: "I didn't know we had our own currency." - Chuck to the 'ninji' robbing his house: "Please, not the computer!"
- Chuck's coworker hypothesizing that the break in might be some sort of "ninji vendetta" and Chuck's response: "That's super. Thanks for thinking outside of the box on that one."
- Chuck asking the LargeMart employee to get "the guy at the front who's checking receipts" to come help. (I hate it when they do that at Circuit City!)
- CIA guy: "Nice guys aren't sent government secrets."
- NSA guy: "Don't puke on the C4."
And my other favorite parts and random observations:
- Was that the clip of Ryan carrying Marissa after her overdose in Tijuana in there amongst the other pictures encoded with government secrets? It sure looked like them. Does that mean that we were absorbing dangerous secrets while watching The OC? Because if it does, I'm in trouble.
- I loved that Chuck calls his sister's boyfriend "Captain Awesome."
- Is Agent Scardino (from Lois & Clark) Josh Schwartz's new best friend or something? First he showed up in The OC finale, and now he's the dad who didn't tape his daughter's ballet recital on Chuck. He's become the Greg Grunberg to Josh's J.J. Abrams!
- How smart was Chuck to use the porn site virus to crash the computer hooked up to the bomb! See, nerds make good CIA agents.
- The episode featured some good music: "Cobrastyle" by the Teddybears and then The Shins.
Premiere Rating: 8.0 / 10
(image from nbc.com)
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