We completely bought into the marketing for Chuck back in 2007. I mean, how could we not? A guy who works the tech desk at Best Buy, I mean a guy who runs the Nerd Herd at Buy More accidentally becomes the greatest spy in the world. Chuck Bartowski was every kid’s dream come to life. I’d lost my job back in 2007, so watching a guy adrift in Life suddenly discover purpose was an easy sell.

We Watched It

Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) lives with his sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and her fiancee Devon “Captain Awesome” Woodcomb (Ryan McPartlin). Chuck works at the Buy More where he provides tech support as part of the Nerd Herd. When the series began, he got a package from his old college room-mate, Bryce Larkin (Matt Bomer). Chuck opens it and finds a pair of cool sunglasses. He puts them on, sees a flash of light, and passes out. When he wakes up, he discovers that the US intelligence database has been downloaded into his head via a program called the Intersect.

The CIA and the NSA are after the Intersect. Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) picks Chuck up, only it turns out she’s a CIA operative after the Intersect. Using more direct methods, John Casey (Adam Baldwin) presents the NSA’s case for access.

Together they discover that not only does Chuck know everything, but the Intersect programmed him with all the skills he needed to be the world’s greatest secret agent.

Sticking

Chuck never got stuck in a rut. There was always some huge challenge that the team had to overcome during the season, while accomplishing missions for the US government. They dealt with discoveries, revelations, betrayals, marriages, births, and even moving the Intersect. They kept us guessing every season.

Good-bye

After five wonderful years, it’s time to say good-bye. The final episodes air on January 27th, 2012.

Over five years, we fell in love with Chuck, his friends, and his family. We met his dad (played by Scott Bakula), and his mom (played by Linda Hamilton). We learned why Devon really is awesome. We suffered through the antics of Jeffster alongside the crew. We even got an on-screen reunion between Adam Baldwin and Summer Glau, who worked together on Firefly.

To the cast and crew of Chuck: Thank you. You brought a little extra light into millions of lives every week. I know this is an emotional time for all of you, as witnessed by Zachary Levi tearing up in this interview.

http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=1380828

Thoughts?

What beloved show have you lost?

Last year, Hawaii Five-O relaunched. The original show, starring Jack Lord and James MacArthur, ran for twelve years (1968-1980), and who can forget that awesome Morton Stevens theme?

Plus, the cast has a long line of genre appearances. Alex O’Loughlin, who now plays Steve McGarrett, played a vampire in Moonlight. Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Chin Ho Kelly, was in Lost, of course, but real sci-fi nerds remember him as the telepath on the Bablyon-5 spin-0ff, Crusade. Grace Park, who plays Kono Kalakua, was in the recent Battlestar Galactica series. Masi Oka, who plays Dr. Max Bergman, was in Heroes.

Of course, Scott Caan, who plays Danny “Danno” Williams, was in Gone in 60 Seconds, the Ocean’s Eleven movies, and he’s the son of James Caan – which is awesome all by itself.

We Watched It

Scott McGarrett is a Navy SEAL and the son of a Hawaii police officer. When his dad is killed, McGarrett comes to Hawaii to investigate for himself. He’s soon getting help from a New Jersey detective (Danny Williams) who followed his ex-wife and his daughter to Hawaii, a disgraced cop (Chin Ho Kelly), and the disgraced cop’s cousin (Kono Kalakua). They track down an arms dealer. The governor decides that Hawaii needs an independent strike force pursuing organized crime, terrorism, smuggling, and other high-level crimes. She forms the Five-O task force, with McGarrett as team lead.

Sticking

Hawaii Five-O is popcorn television. It’s fun. It has great scenery and locations. The people are pretty and fun to watch. The episodes are fast-paced and exciting.

Guest stars have included Larissa Oleynik (Third Rock from the Sun), James Marsters (Buffy and Angel), Kelly Hu (The Scorpion King), William Baldwin (Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths), William Sadler (Demon Knight), Tom Sizemore (Strange Days), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Mortal Kombat), Sab Shimono (The Shadow, among many other things), David Keith (a long list, including Firestarter), and Mark Dacascos (The Crow TV series, and The Chairman of Iron Chef America).

Most recently they added another Lost alumnus, Terry O’Quinn

WTF?

This show really hasn’t had a chance to deviate from its initial formula. Mostly, they solve a case each week. There are some multi-part episodes. There’s an ongoing mystery surrounding the death of McGarrett’s father, but nothing that interferes with a newcomer enjoying the series.

Thoughts

What reboots have you enjoyed?

I don’t remember that we ever set out to watch Destination Truth. It was on after Ghost Hunters, which we watched, and occasionally SyFy (still a ridiculous branding decision) would do cross-over events, like when the host of Destination Truth, Josh Gates, would host the live broadcast of a Ghost Hunters Halloween episode. It was inevitable that we would see at least one episode.

We Watched It

Josh Gates and his team of investigators travel around the world in search of strange occurrences, mysterious beast sightings, and paranormal phenomenon.  Over the course of an hour-long episode, they introduce the viewers to the history of their subject, partake of the culture of the area they’re investigating, and then actually look for the subject of the episode. There’s lots of night-vision footage, running around, and accidents.

Dumped

With just a few episodes under our belt, we stopped watching, for two reasons.

First, Josh Gates comes across as an ass. He’s sarcastic, ironic, and sardonic. On TV, he seems contemptuous of the people and cultures he encounters during his travels. His smarm rubbed us the wrong way almost immediately.

Second, his team is incompetent. They know how to work their equipment, I’ll grant you. That said, I learned while still in ROTC that in the absence of external stimuli, our senses provide their own. In other words, the mind plays tricks. I once held off someone trying to sneak through our perimeter during a training exercise, only to realize after 10 minutes that what I thought was a person was really a raccoon in a tree. Josh’s team has never learned this. They constantly hear and see things. That wouldn’t bother me if any of them, including Josh, responded rationally instead of freaking out.

After four seasons, you’d think at least one of them would have learned something.

WTF?

What makes the team’s behavior even more irritating is that it’s so blatantly manipulative. Josh has been SCUBA diving since he was ten years old. He’s climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and Aconagua. As a photographer, he’s traveled to over 50 countries. He has a degree in archaeology and has particpated in sub-sea excavations off the coast of Israel. He clearly earned the right to host this show.

He certainly has the experience to know better. The only possible excuse for the silly, irrational, behavior of the team is that Josh wants them to act that way. Although reality shows deceptively refuse to credit anyone as director, Josh is one of the producers of the series. He has the authority to make changes.

Essentially, he’s refusing to play it straight. If I want to be lied to, I can just watch the news.

Thoughts?

The other night, watching a rerun of Tosh.0, I heard Daniel Tosh, the host, joking about theater. He said that what theater needs is more CGI. If he wanted to watch real people do what was possible, he could just go outside.

I feel similarly about Destination Truth. If I wanted to watch people run around like idiots and scare themselves, I could go to any political rally in the United States.

Has any TV host ever irritated you to the point where you just stopped watching?

This show has a terrific pedigree, and we spotted that right off in the advertising.

It stars Timothy Hutton, whose work we’ve watched for literally decades.

Gina Bellman also stars, and we knew her from the British sitcom Coupling and the wonderful drama, Jekyll.

Plus, for all the geeky fans out there, it stars Christian Kane. Come on. How do you not watch a show that stars the Evil Hand?

Beth Riesgraf and Aldis Hodge were vaguely familiar to us from shows they’d done guest shots on. That said, we certainly love them now.

Plus, the show premiered in December, 2008, as the whole world was just beginning to understand how greed and corporate stupidity had screwed the global economy into a black hole.

We Watched It

Nathan “Nate” Ford (Timothy Hutton) is a top insurance investigator with a tragic past. His son died because his insurance company employer wouldn’t pay for needed treatments. This led to divorce, drinking, and freelance work.

A man comes to him and asks him to recover some stolen property. The job requires him to supervise and control three thieves that Nate caught in the past – Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane), Parker (Beth Riesgraf), and Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge). It also offers a little revenge against Nate’s former employer.

Even though he doesn’t trust the client, Nate takes the job. When the whole team gets screwed, Nate puts the team back together for revenge, and brings in a ringer to even the playing field – Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman).

When the job’s done, they discover how good it feels to help the helpless and take down the powerful. Especially when they can make money doing it.

On the Bubble

It’s on the bubble because the show’s focus is shifting.

Here were the bad guys from first season – insurance company, government contractors, a Wall Street broker, real estate developer, corrupt judge, human traffickers, rival mob families, a corporation, a building contractor, embezzler, another corporation, the CEO of an insurance company.

Notice any themes running through there?

Here’s season two’s list: Irish mob, fight promoter, felon, investment banker, tabloid newscaster, agricultural business, a different band of thieves, diamond thieves, corrupt lawyer, sweat shop owner, loan shark, the Ukrainian government, psychic, politician, local mayor.

The theme (and I’ll get specific in a moment) is breaking down.

Season three: Jail warden, software magnate, Parker’s mentor, African kleptocrat, CEO of a pharmaceuticals company, recording studio executive, debt collector/private militia, car dealer, con artist, coal mining company, antiques trafficker, financier, a thief from a previous season, the season’s villain (Damien Moreau).

Be patient. My point is coming soon.

Season four: Financial executive, murderer, PR executive, agricultural business, Russian mob, funeral director, con man, defense contractor, embezzler, Venezuelan government, Irish mob, con artists.

And now my point.

WTF?

Season one was all about taking down big business. Sometimes the business targeted the Leverage gang’s clients on purpose, and sometimes the clients were just ground underfoot by a corporate giant that didn’t notice their insignificant existence. The Leverage crew were Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and as the real global economy continued its tailspin, we felt good watching it.

Even in Season One, we got background on the characters. We met Eliot’s childhood sweetheart, and Nate’s former pastor.

As the seasons have gone on, the crew has faced more and more criminals, rather than legitimate businesses whose completely legal behavior hurts people. Watching criminals (and the Leverage crew are criminals) take down criminals isn’t as satisfying.

Yes, we love the characters. Yes, the writing has been good (particularly in Season Two). That said, the whole point of the show was giving helpless people leverage against powerful businesses – corrupt or just uncaring and cruel. Losing that point makes the show less fun to watch. When a client enters McRory’s Pub to complain about a criminal hurting the family, we the audience wonder the client hasn’t gone to the police, or doesn’t wait for the police to do their jobs. Criminals aren’t untouchable, by definition.

Thoughts

Even though I’m aware of the shifting focus, I can’t look away…yet. I like the characters too much, and we have too much fun trying to figure out when and how the crew gained the upper hand. Are there any shows that you watch where you know the show has gone off the rails but you have too much loyalty to look away?

Learning from Movies

1. Indiana Jones franchise
2. Aliens
3. Die Hard
4. Big Trouble in Little China
5. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension
6. Hudson Hawk
7. Rocky franchise
8. Tremors
9. Conan the Barbarian
10. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
11. Ronin
12. Major League
13. Bull Durham
14. Kelly’s Heroes
15. The Magnificent Seven
16. El Dorado
17. The Replacements
18. Office Space
19. Secondhand Lions
20. Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man
21. Red Sun
22. Under the Rainbow

Then we pick up at Forces of Geek:
23. The Longest Day
24. Deep Rising
25. The Addams Family
26. The Princess Bride
26. Smokey and the Bandit
27. Kick-Ass
28. Time Bandits
29. How to Train Your Dragon
30. I missed this week. Still aiming for 52 weeks, but I guess that will take longer than I thought.
31. Silverado
32. Mad Max: The Road Warrior
33. The Mummy
34. Robin and the 7 Hoods
35. Fletch
36. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
37. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
38. It Might Get Loud
39. Grosse Pointe Blank
40. The Blues Brothers
41. Yellow Submarine
42. The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec
43. Evil Dead 2
44. Dodgeball
45. Get Shorty
46. The Big Lebowski
47. Jackie Brown
48. True Romance
49. Dude, Where’s My Car?
50. Get Him to the Greek

Just Look Away

1. Against the Dark
2. Give ‘Em Hell, Malone
3. Armed Response
4. Shaolin vs Evil Dead 2: Ultimate Power
5. Steele Justice
6. Eliminators
7. Megapython vs. Gatoroid
8. Tremors
9. Gone in 60 Seconds
10. Leviathan
11. Circle of Iron
12. Mother
13. Marshal Law
14. Sherlock Holmes
15. Red Sonja
16. Highlander II: The Quickening
17. Latitude Zero
18. Hobo with a Shotgun
19. Timebomb
20. R.O.T.O.R.
21. Sunset
22. Sucker Punch

And at Forces of Geek, there is…
23. Lifeforce
24. McHale’s Navy
25. Red Riding Hood
26. Blade: Trinity
27. Battle Beyond the Stars
28. Hot Tub Time Machine
29. Skyline
30. Year One
31. The Chase
32. Every Which Way but Loose
33. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
34. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
35. Clash of the Titans
36. Dungeons and Dragons
37. Your Highness
38. The Last Airbender
39. The Hangover Part II
40. Conan the Barbarian (2011)
41. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
42. Rage of Honor
43. Route 666
44. Halloween Round-Up (Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, Planet Terror, Deathproof, Route 666, Idle Hands, Slither, The Feeding, The Call of Cthulhu, Lo, and Vampire Killers)
45. Be Cool
46. Prowl
47. We skipped a week.
48. Psychomania
49. Keaton’s Cop
50. Dynamite Warrior

Television

• House, M.D. – Nope, still dumped. Still not seeing any reason to go back to it.
• Psych – Wow, this season is going strong. We really like how the relationship between Shawn and Juliet grounds his character. We’re very happy. Sticking.
• Ringer – Not even my wife will watch it anymore. Dumped.
• Haven – Even the Christmas special was good (not as good as Eureka, but better than Warehouse 13). Sticking.
• NCIS - Although I really like where they’re going with Tony, this show is on the bubble for me. I’m not sure why we’re still watching. Maybe its ultra-conservative message is finally rubbing me the wrong way.
• Person of Interest – This show gained strength through the season. The final episode did some things that really needed to be done, and I’m glad they had the balls to do those things, and do them well. Sticking.
• Burn Notice – I have to admit, the last episode of the season overwhelmed me a bit. In retrospect, though, Jesse still lacks a focus. Adding Dean Cain and Kristanna Loken to the episode was just stunt casting (still – glad to see both of them). Having Loken’s character betray the team was way too predictable. I really thought the betrayal would come from Jesse, and that would make narrative sense of his character. Still on the bubble.
• Covert Affairs – This season seemed like they were housecleaning and getting ready for a new direction. Annie Walker killed an enemy agent in the line of duty, and that changes things for her. We’re looking forward to seeing what’s next. Sticking.
• Supernatural - I can’t say too much in case you’re not caught up with the season, but with the fate of a favorite character in the balance, we’re totally sticking.

Summary

Three more weeks! Three more weeks! Can you tell how excited I am? 52 weeks of two posts about movies feels like an accomplishment.

There’s still more TV to talk about, including Leverage and Terra Nova.

See you next week!

Maybe it was Jensen Ackles, who we watched on Dark Angel and Smallville (a show we dropped, btw). Maybe we just liked the premise – there are things that go bump in the night, and a pair of fraternal vigilantes hunt those things. We liked the Charlies Angels movie, and McG was producing the series.

I really don’t remember.

We Watch It

Sam Winchester has a nice, normal, life…until a demon pins his wife to the ceiling and sets her on fire. Enter Dean Winchester, Sam’s brother, and everything that Sam rejected about his childhood comes rushing back.

John Winchester raised his boys to hunt monsters and demons. Sam rejected that life, and hasn’t spoken to his father in a decade or more. Dean followed in Dad’s footsteps, and now tells Sam that dear old dad is missing. They have to work together to avenge Sam’s wife, stem the rising tide of monster sightings, and find John Winchester.

Now, that premise could go either way. What we got was a real taste of supernatural horror every week. In its first season, the show mostly focused on “monster-of-the-week” episodes, putting modern spins on creatures from European folklore. There was an overall story arc for the season, but mostly the writing focused on the scares. We bonded with the characters.

Let’s face it: In tough times, we all like seeing people struggle, and succeed, and Supernatural delivered success on a weekly basis.

Plus, the sense of humor cracked us up. We loved trying to figure out which rock band or TV show they referenced with each fake ID. We loved trying to place the episode title with the song from which they drew the lyric. And sometimes they just got goofy – to our delight.

On the Bubble

Then came Season Four (2008-2009). Although the show had always been strongly focused on Judaeo- Christian lore, Season Four made all that explicit with the arrival of the angel Castiel, and Lilith’s attempts to break “the 66 seals” and free Lucifer. The “war in Heaven” mythos took precedence over everything else, and runs through Season Six. We just got sick of it. The writing seemed to suffer (it’s worth noting that creator Eric Kripke made several statements indicating the show was supposed to end after five seasons). We got an extended relationship drama, with religious overtones, rather than our weekly terrors.

For us, it really came to a head with Hammer of the Gods, episode 19 in Season 5. A group of gods – including Kali, Ganesh, and Baldur – kidnap Sam and Dean to use as bargaining chips against the Apocalypse. For the first time in five years of the show we see explicit evidence of deities from other cultures. The writing showed no real understanding of or empathy for those deities.

There was a chance there to discuss how knowledge of the wider world shrank the deities’ spheres of influence, and how they lost power as people lost faith in them. They could have drawn a parallel between what these beings experienced and the gains and losses of human aging. There were so many terrific possibilities. Granted, they might have been too big for a single episode with so many deities in it, but the show still blew the opportunity.

To me, this seemed like a clever idea ruined in execution. It should have been done right, or not at all, because doing it partially just comes off as culturally insensitive.

WTF?

Which brings us to Season Seven (which is currently on winter hiatus, returning January 6th). Castiel started the season as the new God, but was torn apart by “leviathans.” Episode Two put a nice end to the theme of Lucifer trying to possess Sam. The leviathans are powerful, mysterious, and from a time pre-dating Judaeo-Christian mythology. The writers are having a great time with them. They’ve touched on werewolves, doppelgangers, psychics, and crossroad demons.

Suddenly, it’s the show we started watching in 2005, again.

Thoughts?

Has any other show jumped the shark (or, if you prefer, nuked the fridge), and recovered? Did you ever stop watching a show, only to catch a later episode and fall back into watching it?

Okay, granted, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been looking for a reason to end US isolationism in the face of fascist aggression, but the attack on Pearl Harbor was the event that committed our nation to war.

It was not entirely a surprise attack. Nor was there a declaration of war in the hands of the Japanese ambassador to the United States, stuck in traffic as the first bombs fell.

Rather, the Imperial Japanese army and navy did not want to alert us to their intent (documents discovered in 1999). So the 14-Part Message that the ambassador was to deliver was sent so late that his people couldn’t transcribe it fast enough for him to deliver it. Not that it mattered. By the time he did deliver it, our intelligence people had already decoded and read most of it.

2,402 American service people died. 1,247 were wounded. 57 civilians were killed, and 35 wounded. 64 Japanese personnel died, and one was captured.

Today we lay a wreath at the Arizona memorial to honor the dead, but let us also remember the living. The attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized the United States, breathed new life into the alliance between the US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, and united us as a people. The tragedy seventy years ago meant the end of fascist domination in Europe and the Pacific, because US citizens pulled together, made sacrifices, and volunteered to serve in whatever capacity possible. It opened new doors for women in the workplace, opened our eyes to the wider world, and struck numerous blows against racial discrimination – thought that fight continues.

Today, we should remember, alongside the few remaining survivors.

There’s so much TV, and so little time to write about it. I really want to write more about Star Trek, to talk about how much we miss Pushing Daisies and Human Target, and to discuss the new season of Leverage.

That said, I have to prioritize some other things.

Next week: More TV!

On Wednesdays, I post short reviews of TV series that my wife and I watch, watched and decided to stop watching, or that are “on the bubble” between the two. Because this week is when Americans celebrate a big family holiday, Thanksgiving, I’m going to skip my usual format to shorten things up, and I’m going to write about shows that almost everyone has watched, at one point or another.

I’m talking, of course, about the epic Star Trek franchise, originally created by Gene Roddenberry.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Or, as I like to call it, Star Trek.

Star Trek has been lambasted for years for its cheap effects, simplistic make-up, and message-heavy scripts. I don’t care. I grew up watching this series in syndication. When I was a boy, this was the only Star Trek  in town. There were no franchises. No other series addressed issues in contemporary society the way Star Trek did. If it seems trite or cliched now, that’s because so many other shows have tried to emulate it since.

Speaking of which…

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Next Gen is a good show, with a terrific cast. Now, that said, look at that image. The show ran from 1987-1994, and that set screams out that time period. I was just a kid when the original series went off the air, but there are clearly some design elements in the show from the ’60s. My parents probably thought it was hilarious. To me, though, it was science fiction because I had no memories or associations with the ’60s. On the other hand, Next Gen always seemed dated to me. Many episodes lack the action of the original, and later, series. That said, it’s worth watching. When it worked, it worked well.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

DS9 had a truly stellar cast – Alexander Siddig and Colm Meaney, in particular, are still prolific in their work. We don’t see more of Avery Brooks because he’s teaching and performing on stage rather than on the big or small screens. The designs were clearly from the Star Trek universe, but DS9 felt and looked lived-in. In part, this is because Star Trek’s stranglehold on small-screen scifi was breaking. Babylon 5 was out, among others. Suddenly the Trek franchise had to adapt and move forward – and it did, very well. DS9 had more of the action that Next Gen lacked, and created compelling new elements for the franchise in the Bajoran/Cardassian struggle.

And yet…the action had moved away from the center of the Federation. The Klingons and Romulans took back-stage to the Dominion, which is half a galaxy away. Diplomacy and politics struggled to maintain a fragile status quo, rather than establish relationships with new planets and new species, as in original series and Next Gen.

I always felt like I wanted something more.

Star Trek: Voyager

As much as I’m a fan of the franchise, I had no faith in this series. I had hope – I watched at least a season of it – but no faith. The problem with it is obvious: If Voyager ever found its way back to the Federation, the show was over. This is called Gilligan’s Island Syndrome, when the resolution of a central conflict destroys the entire show.

It was too bad, too, because many of the cast were terrific. Frankly, I think Robert Beltran and Tim Russ deserve more work. Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo, and Kate Mulgrew had careers before the show ever began, and continue to have them. Robert Duncan McNeill’s behind-the-camera skills continue to bring us great entertainment (love Chuck). As for Jeri Ryan, I saw the physical appeal, but I just don’t get why she gets more notice or acclaim than others in the cast.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Man, I loved the first seasons of this show. When it was all about mankind taking its first steps into interstellar space, establishing Federation protocols, and forging the reputation for every other starship named Enterprise, the show soared – even with the worst theme music of any part of the franchise. Then, like another of Roddenberry’s shows (Andromeda), the studio took over creative direction. The series divorced itself from original series mythology and went off chasing some threat to Earth that we’d never heard of before. It became more episodic, which made it easier to franchise. I stopped watching. As good as the cast was, they couldn’t save it. Paramount didn’t seem to understand how to attract new viewers without leaving us grognards behind.

Thoughts?

In the hallowed halls of fandom, there are few more divisive questions than, “Which Trek is your favorite?” It’s almost as bad as watching Star Trek nerds throw down against Star Wars nerds. Personally, I’m an original series guy in both camps. How about you?