By Buzz Byrne

One of the most fun shows of the new TV season came back as NBC tried to lock down a Thursday night ratings win by sandwiching two new episodes of the freshman spy-comedy CHUCK around the execrable CELEBRITY APPRENTICE. If watching two jaunty episodes of this delightful show enveloping that stinkfest of a reality program doesn’t highlight the debt TV owes to professional writers then the promos certainly do. The poor cast of CHUCK was clearly strong-armed to cut some hastily slapped together shtick written by some hack in the promotions division to remind us all how “young and hip” the show is. That’s fine, but a professional writer would have avoided the double entendre come-on talk between Zachary Levi and Sarah Lancaster. Why? Because they play brother and sister on the show! And even outside the reality of the show it is just plain creepy. Pay the writers, end the strike and let’s get back to business!!


As for the first episode, it was great to see this show again. We are close to seven weeks removed from the last new installment and this was a perfect way to get back into the swing of things. We start overseas in the year 2004 with Agent Casey (Adam Baldwin) undercover and involved with photojournalist Lisa. She leaves their hotel room and enters a café. Stay away from cafes in a war torn country, they are the first to get hit. This one gets blown to smithereens and Casey has never forgotten her. Back into the present and through a fairly simple twist, Chuck (Levi) gets a glimpse at the guest list of a posh hotel and recognizes a cadre of Russian bad guys are visiting town. He also flashes on the name “Iylsa Trinkina” the alias of Lisa. He tries to give Casey a playful ribbing about this and Casey knocks him unconscious because “Lisa” is dead…right?

We don’t watch CHUCK for the intricacies of plot, get over it. Infiltrating the hotel staff, Chuck and Sarah (Yvonne Strzechowski) spot Iylsa and she ain’t dead. Chuck sees her first and literally points her out to Sarah in the roomful of Russian mafia. Ethan Hunt he still isn’t, but again, that’s not why we watch this show. Casey finds his lost dead love as well and we discover that she is to be the new Mrs. Victor Federov. Victor is the head of this group of international thugs.

The B storyline had trouble rocking the normally calm shores that is the relationship between Ellie (Lancaster) and Captain Awesome. They fight over their anniversary present and temporarily break up. The Captain finds himself hanging with Morgan and some of the fellas from Buy More for a poker game. One of the guys assures him he is better off single, “Man-cake like you should have a turnstile installed on your bedroom door.” When the Captain wins the first hand everybody stands up and takes off some clothes. Unbeknownst to the Captain, they were playing strip poker, “That’s the great thing about Boy’s Night.” Morgan says.


That’s why we watch CHUCK.

Iylsa turns out to be a spy herself who is trying to breach Federov’s organization so she is going ahead with the marriage. Casey consoles himself with some scotch and Neil Diamond’s “Love on the Rocks.”

There’s another reason we watch CHUCK.

Of course Iylsa’s cover is blown and the team races to save her as she walks down the aisle into a trap. The fight scene was fun and they had one great, dangerous stunt as the exclamation point. And of course Neil came back as Casey emerges to save the day-

“First they say they want you
How they really need you
Suddenly you find you're out there
Walking in a storm”

I hope this show makes it through the strike. It deserves to.