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Dear Dustin--

I'm STILL waiting for some shots of Yvonne S. belly-dancing from last week's episode...

kthxbai

Brenton,

At one point, Chuck was a great show. Seasons 1 & 2 are great television. Head over to Pirate Bay and pickup the first 13 episodes. I promise you won't be disappointed. It isn't even remotely like what this show has become. I can't stress how much those seasons mean to me.

Dustin, maybe you should go ahead and explain the affection for Chuck. When Seth reviewed it 4 years ago, it was a completely different show.

"At one point, Chuck was a great show"

Huh, nope, sorry. Always contrived, fun-lacking and a waste of a good TV hour.

Here's something I posted over at TWOP tonight if you want to bother reading my wall of text.

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I'm extremely upset at the poor quality of Chuck this season. This show is but a shadow of its former self and has next to nothing in common with the first couple of seasons. I was late to the party on Chuck, and didn't start watching until after the S3 had ended. Perhaps a little bit more of my background is necessary....

Over the past few years, I (23/m/tx/pics) would occasionally see my mom and sister watching Chuck. They would always tell me that I'd enjoy the show, but I had my DVDs of Arrested Development and Veronica Mars, and didn't want to get involved in a new show that didn't really seem like my type. I'd occasionally type 'chuck' into youtube to see if there were any clips of interest that might make me want to watch the show, but they only results that tended to come up were boring 'Chuck/Sarah' mashups made by 15 year old girls. I remember thinking, "Oh, I definitely don't want to get involved in that."

One day, I was scouring television reviews on Pajiba, a website that I frequent. They generally have the same taste in movies and TV shows that I do, so I let them do the research for me and listen to them for what's good. I eventually found this Chuck review and decided to start from the beginning of the series. No plans on a Friday night makes for great moments enjoying great television.

I absolutely loved it. I went through about 7 episodes the first night and finished the rest off on Saturday night. A huge smile was on my face the entire night and I couldn't wait to watch every episode I could get a hold of. Everything about it appealed to me…. The character Chuck was so relatable; he was a nerd, awkward, sincere, and quirky (not to mention also good looking). Throw in some great pop culture references, great dialogue, near perfect acting, a hot girl just out of reach, Adam Baldwin, and great cameos by people like John Larroquette…. it was a great show. I genuinely started caring about the relationship between Chuck and Sarah, and would frequently finding myself pressing the pause button on my computer so I could chill out and get my heartbeat down after watching a Chuck/Sarah moment. I completely lost myself in the show and became hypnotized by it. The music used in every episode was also top-notch and perfectly used.

And then I started doing research on all the actors, writers, and directors of the show. It blew my mind that all of the actors on the show are extremely down to earth and just flat out awesome. They truly love the store and are genuine people, which made me adore it even more. Everything related to this show was appealing.

Although S3 was also good television, it didn't meet S1 & S2 in terms of quality, but I don't care. It is still Chuck and its better than most of the crap on TV. The plots were good, and there was plenty of excellent dialogue. The addition of Chuck-fu was interesting at first, but eventually became tiring. I guess it lacked some of the 'freshness' that the first two seasons had, but I still really enjoyed it.

Actually, as I'm writing this (and too lazy to go back and revise previous statements), Season 3 is where a lot of problems began. Chuck wanted to become a real spy, which caused a lot of the geek factor to disappear as he got real serious about his future. Morgan grew up and upgraded from being a Buy More peon, to the point where he has no appeal now that he is no longer juvenile in his behavior. Chuck and Sarah became much closer, which was great…. but all of these events and more led us to the point that we are at now.

Thus, Season 4. Chuck is no longer a nerd, and his appearance and demeanor has changed completely; the awkwardness and self-consciousness has basically evaporated. There is no more second-guessing himself and his place related to those around him. He doesn't even feel like a real person anymore. All of that romantic tension has vanished as the beautiful love interest is no longer just out of reach. Casey has gotten soft, and Morgan is a responsible human being with a hot girlfriend. The jump from S3 and S4 is so drastic, that it's frankly not even the same show. The atmosphere of the show changed much more abruptly, but it can be compared to the difference between old Simpsons vs new Simpsons….. They have the same characters, but aren't nearly as relatable. There's also that whole thing about terrible writing.

Oh, and that. The writing for S4 has been AWFUL. I force myself to watch every episode despite the fact that this show means next to nothing to me now. I fast forward through much of the dialogue because frankly, it isn't interested. I basically watch just to keep updated with the show in case the writing suddenly gets better and I want to start paying attention again. I spent 10 minutes watching last night's episode during dinner and called it quits. The entire feel of the episode is painfully uncomfortable and I was extremely worried that someone might come in and say 'What the hell are you watching?' I would be so embarrassed if one of my friends saw that episode. They would never believe me if I told them how great a show it once was.

Does Chuck and his sister rent the entire apartment complex? That would explain why nobody gives a crap that people are shouting over a megahorn from a helicopter in the middle of the complex and 4 hot women drop in and whisk another hot woman away. The consistency of the writing is just awful. Sometimes I just want to just write a script for an episode and mail it to a writer for the show to claim as his own (yes, I'm one of those viewers who thinks he can do a better job). I don't care if I get credit for it, I just want Chuck to put out a good episode for someone to enjoy.

I apologize for the rant, but I know I can't be the only person that thinks this. Viewership is at an all time low. I know that someone on the internet is reading this right now and agreeing with almost everything I say, because they feel the same way. NBC is prolly going to give it the axe in a few months, and deservedly.

At least we have our DVDs.

-Allen

I really like the fact that you have related to the show on so many levels and with such depth. Honestly, I know how that feels, it's always awesome to feel that.

The show never did anything for me at all. I loved the premise, started watching, thought there were too many "he's lying / no, she's lying / No, he is" moments, the acting has never convinced me in any moment. Both Chuck and Yvonne seem to me they are pretending to be I-don't-know-what the whole time, but never the characters they are supposed to be.

I may sound like crazy. The thing is, this show has disappointed me right from the start on a level I'm still not exactly sure of what it was. Maybe the guy is too good-looking, not nerdy enough, I don't know. The result is I ended up finding it boring as shit and couldn't see the plot actually moving on, and then I left.

I'll gladly admit it's a very personal thing, I do find S01 incredibly boring. But, hey, Arrested Development any day, huh?!