Pre-Air Extravaganza: Chuck

In the last pre-air extravaganza installment, I reviewed the leaked pilot episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. As it turns out, the scene where [SPOILERS] Cromartie shoots up Cameron at John's school and then walks around with a gun shoved into his open leg wound [END SPOILERS] is set to be re-written and re-shot in the long, long wake of the Virginia Tech. shootings. I think that's ridiculous, but maybe that's why FOX doesn't pay me the big bucks to write a passionless Terminator spin-off.

But that's the past, and I'd like to avoid any apropos time travelling tonight if I may, because we're here tonight to hear about Chuck, a sort of sci-fi-comedy-drama mish-mash with the cast as follows:

• Zachary Levi - Chuck Bartowski
• Yvonne Strzechowski - Sarah Walker
• Joshua Gomez - Morgan Pace
• Sarah Lancaster - Ellie Bartowski
• Adam Baldwin - John Casey

Did you say Alec Baldwin!?

• Adam Baldwin - John Casey

Oh. You didn't. Well, I'm sure he's just as good.

Eager critics were willing to dismiss Chuck early on, as it had many apparent similarities to UPN's failure of a show, Jake 2.0, which really wasn't all that fair of a comparison: I mean, UPN could have had sole broadcast rights to the Moon landings, and they still would've had to cancel it halfway through. I know it's not exactly a challenge to insult UPN, but I mean, really. Have they ever had one show, other than Star Trek, that lasted more then two seasons on its schedule? Sure, I could go easy on them - maybe it's just that they didn't have the contacts that the other networks had, being new in the business: but they passed on Malcolm in the Middle, which, although being a terribly unfunny show, was a success for FOX. Then they killed Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And Star Trek went down the tubes quicker than Data's reflexes once it became UPN-exclusive.

And that's why UPN sucked. Oh crap - I was supposed to be talking about Chuck.


Like before, HERE THERE BE SPOILERS, so watch out!

Chuck tells the story of Chuck Bartowski, anathema to women everywhere, and member of the prestigious Nerd Herd tech support team at the electronic retail chain Buy More. He hangs out and plays video games with fellow Buy More employee Morgan, a bearded hobbit-like dude who, like all of us desperate nerds, never knows when to shut up or go home. Chuck is sent an email from his former college room-mate, Bryce Larkin, and since Bryce just so happens to be a rogue CIA agent who's just downloaded a crap-load of state secrets into his Ipod and encoded it in a way that transmits it into another person's brain, Chuck is now SUPERCHUCK! Well, not so much, actually - he just has all that information stored in his little Nerd Herd brain.

It's explained away thusly: the NSA and the CIA were forced to share every bit of intelligence they had with each other after 9/11, and naturally this meant keeping it all on one computer in a big room in which every surface is covered in video displays, sort of like a Pee Wee's Secret Secret Mission:Impossible Playhouse. Therefore, we have a reason for why one agent could get all of the CIA's secret files, leaving no backup except in the head of a former friend. Whoopie and hooray for convenient contrivance!

The show begins at Chuck's birthday party, where his sister has tried to arranged for him to hook up with one, any one, of her fellow female doctors. I'm just going to skip over this introductory segment, since it only serves to introduce Chuck's status (single, ladies) and that he's still pining over a girlfriend he hasn't seen since the freshman year of college. We're also introduced to "Captain Awesome," Ellie's (Chuck's sister) boyfriend, but he doesn't do much either. So off we go! Chuck gets Bryce's email, has a head full o' new secret stuff, and goes off to work.

Sarah Walker, CIA Agent, is assigned to get close to Chuck and, if possible, retrieve the information. This helps us to get acquainted with "Nice Guy Chuck, leader of the Nerd Herd with a Heart of Gold," but more importantly, it gets Chuck out of the house so that he can come home to this:


A Ninja attempting to steal his computer. Needless to say, this means war.

When all is said and done, the Ninja is victorious, but the computer is mucilage.

Sarah and Chuck go out on a date so that Sarah can look for a backup to the super secret vital information that was only stored on one computer in the entire world. During a visit to a nightclub, the NSA attempts to get the information for themselves - you know, because National Security always plays second fiddle to making your career and getting to murder a blonde chick, consequences be damned.

Hey, how long do you think it'll take before this is animated and set to Haddaway's "What is Love?"
So, that doesn't turn out too well, either.


Throughout all of this, Chuck keeps getting "flashes" of the information he's been given, in particular, a bomb plot involving an Army General. NSA-asshole survives the hideous car-wreck pictured above, and just before he can kill blondie, Chuck remembers that the aforementioned Army General is about to blown to smithereens and, you know, just kind of throws it out there. NSA-asshole responds that Chuck "knows all our secrets," followed by "we're the good guys, we keep bombs from exploding." Which makes me wonder: if Chuck only has the information that the CIA and NSA have, then that means the CIA and NSA knew that there was going to be a bomb in the building where the General is. And just when were they planning on acting on this information? Was it in encrypted in such a way that it needed the magnificent mental prowess of the Nerd Herd to interpret it?

Well, putting aside plot holes that you could drive a fertilizer-filled truck through, the gang of CIA, NSA, and NERD get to the building, find the bomb, and, through the magic of Chekov's Gun, the day is saved by porno! How, you may be asking? Well, I'll spoil a lot of things, but this is really the highlight of the episode, so I'll leave it for you find out - all I'll say is that Morgan may have indirectly contributed. So go Morgan.

The episode ends the only way it can: through convenient suspension of disbelief. Chuck is not only allowed to live with all that information without being debriefed, but he's even allowed to go back to his thankless job as the alpha-male in the nerd herd. Of course, NSA-asshole shows up as a new employee for Chuck to train, and Sarah returns to keep an eye on him, presumably roaming the aisles of Buy More for 12 hours a day without somehow drawing suspicion, but this can only lead to more wacky hijinks!

What's the verdict on Chuck? I liked Morgan's character, and seeing as how I'm still watching Psych based solely on the humor of Shawn and Gus, that's really enough for me. There's the potential for NSA-asshole (whose name may in fact be John Casey, as played by Adam Baldwin) to be the straight-man Lassiter type to Chuck and Morgan, and that gives me great hope for the show. It also reminds me of The Lone Gunmen to some degree, so I'm definitely going to be giving this one a chance.

---

Favorite lines:

Jeff (one of Chuck's co-workers): What if you were the unwitting target of a Ninja vendetta and he returns tonight to strangle you with his nunchucks?
Chuck: That's super, Jeff. Thanks for thinking outside the box on that one.

That's super, Jeff.

Pre-Air-Extravaganza: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

If you've been around the internet for - oh, anything longer than a week, you know where it's meat lies: between the two halves of bun-y goodness that are the groupings of letters "il" and "legal." The moral relativist has remained largely uncontested in the domain of the internet, with YouTube videos of trailers and even whole movies appearing minutes after their premiere, new pop-music albums being swapped bit-by-stinking-bit before they're even announced, and popular books having their endings and major revelations blown at least a week before the street date.

TV has, of course, not been immune to these stalwart nihilists. A little-known (*stifled laughter*) program called BitTorrent has allowed every television show imaginable to be viewed all over the world, immediately following the first broadcast, and sometimes even preceding it. It's those pre-air leaks that we look at now, in the first installment of "Pre-Air-Extravaganza," The Sarah Connor Chronicles.


CAST:

• Sarah Connor- Lena Headey
• John Connor- Thomas Dekker
• Cameron Phillips- Summer Glau
• Cromartie- Owain Yeoman
  
• James Ellison- Richard T. Jones

I'm not certain how they happen to reach the internet's series of tubes: my best guess is that the first episode of a season or series is sent to critics or affiliates for review, sort of like advance copies of books. However they get down our chimneys, though, is besides the point, that point being that I have seen the first episode of the Terminator-inspired Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I have felt compelled to offer my unsolicited opinion of it to yous. Let's jump into it!

The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the semi-official sequel to Terminator 2, allowing the fans that absolutely hated Terminator 3 to forget that it ever existed. I say "semi-official" because TV-series based on theatrical movies always seem to exist on the periphery of official canon. the big example, and the only one I can mention with absolute confidence, Stargate SG-1 has "ret-conned" dozens of aspects of it's progenitor, Roland Emmerich's Stargate. It's just something that needs to be done in order to turn something that was intended to last for only 2 hours into something that's long-term. Of course, the big "ret-con" here would be the date of Judgement Day, but I'll wait until I get into the review before I get into that can of cybernetic worms.

WARNING! Thar be SPOILERS past this point!


The Sarah Connor Chronicles takes place two years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The eponymous Sarah Connor has been on the run from the police after the events of that film, events which are courteously summed up for us by federal agent Ellison just after Sarah leaves her new husband. But then, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The episode opens with a dream by Sarah, in which she pulls her son John Connor (future saviour of humanity) out of school, only to be arrested by waiting police officers. As they sit trapped in the really-not-safe-at-all police cruisers, a lone man wearing sunglasses - the hallmark of all murderous cybernetic soldiers from the future - approaches the police and opens fire. Sarah and John attempt their escape, John is gunned down, and "Judgement Day," in which mankind is almost entirely wiped out in a nuclear holocaust, is immediately triggered, resulting in a spectacular display of special effects that is astonishing for television. Let me say this about the episode: the effects are never cheesy or fake-looking, including the exposed robotic components on the Terminators that Sarah and John encounter.

When Sarah awakes, she gets John and tells him that they're leaving everything behind, based solely on her nightmare-induced fears. Sarah's engaged to be married, but her soon-to-be husband only exists at this point to introduce us to non-cybernetic antagonist #1: James Ellison, up-tight FBI agent who's seemingly obsessed with finding Sarah Connor. Jimmy possesses all the wit and humor of a rectal exam involving a cactus.

Sarah and John settle in a New Mexico "hick town," where we're introduced to Terminator #2: Cameron (the name is more than likely a nod to original film creator, James Cameron), a convincingly-emotional robot of the Arnold variety: sent back in time to protect the saviour of humanity, she takes a more stealthy approach to the job than Arnold, posing as one of John's classmates. This all leads into an encounter with Terminator #1, the evil one, who decides that the best way to kill John is to kill John's science teacher, replace him, and then rip open his own leg and shove a gun into it - if you'll remember from you Infiltration 101 textbooks, revealing components of your robotic nature is considered the epitome of inconspicuous behaviour. Terminator #1 attempts to shoot John, John is made wise to Cameron's metallic inner-child, and we're allowed to witness a moment of pure geek joy as Cameron shouts a line that every man, woman, and child should be familiar with:


"Come with me if you want to live."

Terminator #1 captures Sarah as she's staking out John's school and whips out the "voice changer" trick (care of the T-1000's toolbox) to lure John to their temporary New Mexico house. Girl-inator pulls a fast one on him, though, and she uses the same voice-trick to take a few bullets and kick some ass. The battling robots tear Sarah's house apart (and she just got finished painting, too), and Terminator #1 is electrocuted long enough to allow the trio to escape once more.



After a short trip to Miles Dyson's house to accost his widow, Sarah and the gang head to the bank to make a withdrawal: an anti-terminator gun is stored there, as well as a time machine! And before you can click your hills together, Dorothy, the Terminator is dead and the trio are naked in 2007 - the convenient new date for the beginning of the apocalypse.



There's the usual characterisation here: John just wants to be normal, and doesn't want to have to live up to his responsibilities as "saviour of humanity." Sarah is the tough/almost certainly insane military-like figure who's only goal is to survive. Hopefully we'll see something with more depth over the rest of the season.


Cameron isn't a very compelling Terminator. Like T'Pol of the infamous Star Trek: Enterprise, she's a little too emotional to make for a convincing robot. Depressingly, also like Enterprise, the producers decided to try to make up for this by giving us a liberal amount of almost-naked female-induced titillation, which is never a good sign for a sci-fi series' success, let alone when it's presented in the first episode. Cameron's character also seems to be simply a plot device here: she gives Sarah and John a way to stop the Terminator and, perhaps, CyberDyne (the company responsible for SkyNet, the precursor to the machine uprising that spawns the Terminators). Things do not bode well for her - er, it.


Also of note is Terminator #1's (okay, okay - his name Cromartie) odd little habit of cocking his head to the side like a confused/curious Golden Retriever.

I'm willing to give Sarah Connor Chronicles a chance. After all, last year I pegged Heroes to die quickly because it had so many characters - so many that I thought they wouldn't be able to give all of them adequate development. Then they went and added even more characters, and boy, was I wrong.

But, I still have this nagging itch in the back of my mind - there really isn't anything I really liked here. No, I wasn't bored to tears, and yes, I was kept interested. But the aforementioned Heroes had me, from the first episode, citing Hiro as my favorite character. And I mean my favorite character on TV ever. Sarah Connor Chronicles? Nothing, really. There's no humorous character to endear to. There's no smart-ass. There's no one to channel my hate towards. There could be more emphasis on Sarah's total fear of losing her son - if every time John Connor was not on screen or out of the sight of Sarah, S.C.C. made me feel what Pet Sematary (the novel, not the movie) did when I knew that truck was coming (for the slow kids in the back, that would be absolute fear, despair and crushing anxiety), I'd love this show. Heroes scored in that sense as well, by creating Sylar, a despicable character that you both hated and feared.

Sarah Connor Chronicles just feels like... vanilla ice-cream. It's inoffensive. It's practically neutral. It's nothing memorable.

Watch Sarah Connor Chronicles on FOX, Sundays at 9PM, starting sometime in 2008. Or don't. I really don't care either way.

Favorites Lines:

(Sarah's holding the anti-Terminator gun given to her by Cameron)
Sarah: "Is this nuclear?"
Cameron: "No, not really."

Tomorrow I'll render my opinion on the science-fiction-drama Chuck, starring... no one I've even heard of. Fantastic. I don't have high hopes for Chuck, but I'll give it a try anyhow! See you tomorrow.

Stay Tuned...

For the Of-Questionable-Legality-Pre-Air-TV-Show-reviews-Extravaganza!

The first new show for '07 I'll be reviewing is the Sarah Connor Chronicles, the official sequel to Terminator 2 that's been promised to help wipe the horrible taste of Terminator 3 out of our mouths.

Look out for that later today/tonight!