(S01E06) "But first, I could really use some pancakes." - Laslow (Evil Genius)Chuck is one of those shows that's hard to get a handle on, but I'm fairly certain that it doesn't know where it's going either. It's got pretty good geek culture cred, but the lack of a larger story arc is getting a bit old. The plot jumped around so much that I couldn't tell if Laslow was actually a bad guy until he started quoting War Games.
You'd think that Chuck would have built up more trust for Sarah by now - sure, she's a CIA agent, but even a fake date involves spending time together. Despite the feel good wrap up during each scene, their relationship just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Unless something happens between these two soon, Chuck will never again get to go on an actual date.
Laslow's character was pretty lame. He was so jumpy that it was hard to put a finger on him. Chuck's pretty gullible, but I don't think I'd watch a movie with a guy that threatened me with a water gun in the parking lot. Hiding him in the store was pretty questionable. Despite seeing employees in the theater after hours in most of the previous episodes, Casey works there. What happens when he shows up for work?
I definitely prefer the impressive fight scenes to the girl fights that Chuck had with Laslow. I lost a bit of respect for Chuck when he didn't even try to slug Laslow when he started driving the car from the passenger seat. I mean, there's wuss fighting and then there's being a total weenie.
The Goldfinger reference was totally off. Chuck was right when he fingered Laslow for lying about the ending, but Bond didn't even diffuse the bomb. Random dark suited CIA agent hit the off switch for him! Still, ending the timer on 007 seconds was a nice homage to Bond.
I loved it when Chuck challenged Sarah to reveal something real about herself to him. This time it seemed like Sarah was trying extra hard to appeal to his geek side. After all, what guy wouldn't want her to show up in a not entirely accurate portrayal of Princess Leia's slave bikini? Again, I'd have liked to see Chuck push her a bit harder to connect with him. The trust issue is going to get a little old if all he does is apologize at the end of every episode.
Once again, Morgan proved an amazing asset to the show. The lesson about becoming a man with Captain Amazing was hilarious. The shirt tucking bit was priceless. Morgans speech to the interview guy was an incredible effort at friendship, but he might have been a bit more successful if he'd simply informed the HR guy that Chuck had a death in the family.
Given the lack of a decent seasonal story arc, I'm hoping that things might change in the next episode. Chuck apparently flashes on himself at Stanford. I have my doubts, but if they don't blow it and wrap things up in a single show, things might get a bit more interesting. Chuck is a funny, entertaining show, but it needs to start tucking its shirt in.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1. I couldn't agree more with respect to the lack of plot arc and character development getting old real fast. Also, I think they need to explain why the intelligence info stored in Chuck's head never gets outdated. It's one thing to be able to identify a person of interest, but it's completely different to know of a bomb plot months or years in advance. I don't see how the show can have any longevity unless Chuck just ends up identifying people. And if that's the case, surely the government knows who its looking for if they had the intel on it to begin with. It just doesn't make much sense.
Posted at 11:56PM on Oct 29th 2007 by bruce
2. Not every show has layered arcs with callbacks in the first few episodes. In fact, that's the sign of a lazy show. If you want to see a show that really took serialized storytelling and arcs to a whole new level, first there's Babylon 5 which is unparallelled in its scope which started off with many one-off episodes that didn't seem to do a lot that had great significance later on.
The same can be said for Farscape. If you only watch the first ten or so episodes you would think the show was going to be a monster of the week show, but after the first half of the first season, the plots start rolling into each other and every single thing that has happened layers onto the character's past creating not only complex layered plots but also complex realistic characters.
It seems like people want shows to reveal clearly defined arcs before November sweeps nowadays and that's not necessarily a good thing.
Posted at 1:41AM on Oct 30th 2007 by Blair M
3. Where's the other reviewer? Varun, was it?
Why does TVS keep changing their writers?
Posted at 1:42AM on Oct 30th 2007 by Mel
4. You can diffuse perfume throughout a room, but you don't diffuse a bomb. Of course the bomb can diffuse YOU if it explodes.
Posted at 2:40AM on Oct 30th 2007 by Urbey
5. that is not an easy costume to pull off ... I have to say that Yvonne Strahovski certainly pulled it off
Posted at 2:49AM on Oct 30th 2007 by Gordon Werner
6. It's Captain Awesome, not Captain Amazing.
And I, for one, am grateful that the show didn't try to spoonfeed me as to whether Laszlo was a good guy or not. I can't believe that you consider that a black mark on the show.
Posted at 6:03AM on Oct 30th 2007 by Karen