Chuck is an American action-comedy television program created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. The series is about an "average computer-whiz-next-door" who receives an encoded e-mail from an old college friend, a formerly thought-of rogue CIA agent, which happens to embed the world's greatest spy secrets into his brain.
Produced by College Hill Pictures, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, the series premiered on September 24, 2007 on NBC, airing on Monday nights at 8PM/7c leading into Heroes. On November 26, despite the fact that the writers' strike was still in play, NBC announced that Chuck received a full season pickup. On February 13, 2008, it was announced by NBC that Chuck has been picked up for a second season in 2008/2009.
Plot
Chuck Bartowski is a socially awkward twenty-something who works as a computer expert at the Nerd Herd (a parody of "Geek Squad") at his local Buy More (a parody of "Best Buy"), a local electronics retailer (a CompUSA store was used), with his best friend, Morgan Grimes. Chuck's sister, Ellie, is a doctor who is constantly looking out for his best interests and wants to help him find a girlfriend. On the night of his birthday party, Chuck receives an e-mail from his former Stanford University roommate, Bryce Larkin, who is now a "rogue" CIA agent. When he opens it, an entire server of sensitive data - once only available to the United States government is subliminally embedded into his brain by way of a long series of images.
Both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency want the intelligence returned to them and dispatch agents of their own - Major John Casey and Sarah Walker - to retrieve that data. Since the disk with the government information was stolen by Bryce and destroyed in his attempted escape, and since Chuck experiences flashes of information from the database activated by certain subliminal triggers, he must use the knowledge he now possesses to help the government thwart assassins and international terrorists - upending his previously uneventful life. Chuck's decision to keep his newfound occupation a secret from his family and friends and to live his life as normally as possible forces Casey and Walker to establish an uneasy alliance and secret identities (Walker poses as his girlfriend and takes a cover job at a local restaurant, while Casey gets a job at Buy More), with the shared goal of protecting Chuck at all costs.
Cultural references
In the episode "Pilot", Bryce, a rogue spy and an old college roommate of the main character, steals classified government secrets from a supercomputer, which is actually an original Mac Plus. The communicator gadget Bryce uses in the scene is visually almost identical to the communication device in Doom 3 (an element that appears as a useful utility throughout the storyline). The chase scene in which Bryce Larkin escapes after stealing the secrets is a reference to the opening chase scene in a French film titled Banlieue 13 or District B13 - the acrobatics that Larkin uses is a stunt form known as parkour.
In the episode "Chuck vs. the Helicopter", Chuck is viewing a series of photos when one triggers his recall of the secrets. He begins revealing apparently-unconnected secrets including "Oceanic Flight 815 was shot down by a surface-to-air..." - this invokes the exact same flight number that crashed on the ABC series Lost, though the stated cause for the flight's crash there is different.
In the episode "Chuck vs. the Tango", Morgan is locked in a cage, listening to the same opera song that was played during The Shawshank Redemption. In the same episode, before the encounter with La Ciudad's men at the Buy More, there is an infomercial for the Bowflex playing on the wall of televisions in the background. In the episode "Chuck vs. the Wookie", Morgan has a messenger bag with "Tyrell Corporation Genetic Engineering Zone A Section 9 Replication Section", a reference to the corporation at the center of Blade Runner.
The episode "Chuck vs. The Sandworm" is especially rife with references to other shows and films and to geek culture: the scene where Chuck runs in dramatic fashion to the Halloween party parodies the end scene of The O.C. episode, "The Countdown," including using the same soundtrack, slow-motion effects and similar placement of the characters (The O.C. and Chuck were both created by Josh Schwartz). The episode also has several references to Dune with the poster being shown in several key shots in the episode, while Morgan and Chuck's annual Halloween costume is the sandworm from Dune (and noted as such in the episode's dialog). Additionally, while being briefed on the weapons-design resource in this episode, Adam Baldwin makes reference to his Firefly character with the phrase "What, is he going to hurt me with his mind?"
Music
Because of The O.C.'s musical influence and success, series creator Josh Schwartz has made it a point to give Chuck the same kind of influential and intense indie/alternative soundtrack. Alexandra Patsavas, previously The O.C.'s music supervisor, mixed the tracks for the first thirteen episodes.
Production
Conception
Josh Schwartz and newcomer Chris Fedak wrote the script for the first episode which was initially given a put pilot commitment by NBC before a pilot order was green lit by the network in January 2007. Schwartz and Fedak both attended the University of Southern California and the latter pitched the idea to Schwartz who agreed to develop the project with him. McG, Schwartz's fellow executive producer on The O.C., directed the first hour of the series and consequently became an executive producer via his production company, Wonderland Sound and Vision.
Fedak, Peter Johnson, Scott Rosenbaum, Matthew Miller and Allison Adler also serve as co-executive producers. NBC gave the series an early pick-up and a thirteen-episode order on May 10, 2007. On November 26, 2007, TV Guide reported that NBC had picked up the series for a full, 22 episode season.
Casting
Zachary Levi and Adam Baldwin were the first two to be cast in February 2007 in the roles of Chuck Bartowski and veteran NSA agent Major John Casey, respectively. Fedak always had Baldwin in mind for the role of John Casey and the producers found that the actor was a "perfect fit" for the character during the first casting session. Relative newcomer Yvonne Strahovski, an Australian, was chosen for the female lead role of CIA agent Sarah Kent in the same month.
The character's surname was later changed to "Walker". Casting continued throughout March with Sarah Lancaster, Joshua Gomez, and Natalie Martinez landing the parts of Dr. Ellie Bartowski (Chuck's older sister), Morgan Pace (Chuck's best friend), and Kayla Hart, a heretofore unspecified character, respectively. Morgan's surname was later changed to "Grimes".
On September 14, 2007, Rachel Bilson, of The O.C. (which executive producer Josh Schwartz also created) signed on for a multi-episode arc to begin airing in late October.
Broadcast history
The first showing of the pilot occurred on July 27, 2007 at Comic-Con International in San Diego. The series was originally slated to air on Tuesday nights at 9PM/8c as announced at the 2007 Upfronts but this was later changed to Monday nights at 8PM/7c as announced during the 2007 Television Critics Association summer press tour. The season premiere aired on September 24, 2007 on NBC. The pilot was leaked onto torrent websites on July 22, 2007. All thirteen episodes produced before the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike have aired. The last two episodes of the original thirteen aired on January 24, 2008, with episode 12 airing at 8PM/7c and episode 13 at 10PM/9c, three days after they aired in Canada.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
Watch It!
