Posted by johnnysweeptheleg

If you’re anything like me, then you have a penchant for ’80s movies and still re-live the moment you were kicked in the face by a kid doing something called a crane kick. But it also means you are eagerly awaiting the fall television season.

Lucky for us, Hulu and NBC are giving us the Hulu Fall Lineup. Beginning today, and running over the next seven weeks, Hulu will air many of NBC’s season premieres a week early online. For those who have been waiting decades for another Knight Rider, your wait just got diminished by a week. Life and Lipstick Jungle also premiere a week earlier.

Perhaps the show to benefit the most from this, however, is Chuck. NBC has high hopes for its sophomore season, even ordering an additional nine episodes after the network saw its first six completed shows (raising its season order from 13 to 22 episodes). Chuck fans can watch the season premiere a week early online, with its Hulu premiere beginning Sept. 22.

Still no word on whether or not NBC and Hulu will power up the Flux Capacitor to bring us advanced airings of Saturday Night Live. I’m going out on a limb here, and leaning towards no.

Tags: Chuck, Comedy, NBC, Preview, Uncategorized by johnnysweeptheleg
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Posted by johnnysweeptheleg

Spoiler Alert: Rachel Bilson is adorable. I will forever refer to her as my future ex-wife.

Wow. I have to warn you. This blog writer is under the same truth serum influence as the characters from last night’s Chuck episode. I can’t be held responsible for anything in the bold font. It’s the serum talking and I have no control.

With just over a half-dozen episodes under its belt, Chuck has finally begun to shed its new employee status and the writers appear comfortable at their place of employment. Sure, week after week they tend to throw spy cliches our way, but they do it with just enough tongue-in-cheek bravado that says, “Hey audience, we trust you and know you get what we’re doing, here.”

Plus, they have Sarah running around in that Wiener Girl uniform and Captain Awesome finding reasons not to wear a shirt. The writers know how to distract men and women, alike.

All that said, last night gave us the best Chuck, yet. And as you know, I can’t lie today. [Read more →]

Tags: Chuck, Recap by johnnysweeptheleg
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Posted by johnnysweeptheleg

Chuck would rather “get hit in the Produce section” than go back to Stanford University, again. And it has nothing to do with the $294.68 he owes in late fees for a book he’s still sitting on, from the Stanford library.

Stanford is where Chuck went from potential to peril as his best friend, Bryce, stole his girlfriend and set him up, ultimately leading to his expulsion.

After getting weekly hints at what Bryce did to Chuck, we finally find out why Chuck was kicked out of Stanford. Deception. Crossbows. And the Dewey Decimal system. Oh yes. All of the essential components for an edge-of-your seat hour of television. [Read more →]

Tags: Chuck, Recap by johnnysweeptheleg
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Posted by johnnysweeptheleg

God help me. But I am beginning to come around to the two characters that I thought I would always dislike on the show. Captain Awesome and Morgan. Too bad their characters aren’t gay. In the Brangelina way of combining names, I would love to refer to the couple as Captain Morgan.

It’s finally interview day for Chuck, who is in direct competition with Tang for a low-level management position at Buy More. Chuck’s own boss wants him to get the job, albeit for purely selfish stress-related reasons, and tells Chuck he’s a lock for it. After all, as he says, “Tang has the charm of a prostate exam.” But Chuck’s biggest liability is Morgan.

While Morgan should be working a double, he’s at a Santa Monica Pier arcade playing a Guitar Hero knockoff. Already warned that Morgan’s the anchor around his neck, Chuck is about to scold Morgan for this gamebreak. That is, until he observes Morgan’s opponent and gets one of those mind-flashy-thingees. His name is Laszlo. He was spotted by the CIA playing Tetris as an 11-year-old, given a scholarship, received a PhD by the age of 17, and then became a weapons designer. I knew I should’ve spent more time playing Tetris and less time playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. [Read more →]

Tags: Chuck, Recap by johnnysweeptheleg
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Posted by johnnysweeptheleg

When JD and Turk leave our moving picture boxes after this season of Scrubs, Chuck and Morgan look to be next in the Hetero-lifemates TV Character Line. Yes, that’s a real line and it forms to the left. No skipping. That means you, Sam and “Sock” from Reaper.

Obviously dealing with separation anxiety, Morgan has organized “An Evening Of Morgan” with Chuck. And the second Sarah appears wearing her work uniform, we know Morgan’s evening is doomed. Morgan’s idea of the ultimate evening turns out to be shrimp. And lots of it.

Unfortunately, the restaurant that houses the greatest sizzling shrimp also produces another one of those crazy intersect mind-flashy thingees full of classified information. Boy. Don’t they all? Mei-Ling, a Chinese spy, has arrived in Chinatown and that can only mean one thing.

And by only one thing, I of course mean about two or three possibilities, which turn out to be incorrect, yet propel the episode forward. [Read more →]

Tags: Chuck, Recap by johnnysweeptheleg
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Posted by johnnysweeptheleg

Two of the better shows this television season consist of underachievers whose love-lives suffer from the same shortcomings as their jobs. They’re guys who are capable of so much more, yet settle for so much less, simply because they don’t go after anything. I’m talking about the CW’s Reaper as well as NBC’s Chuck.

Enter some intervention, whether it’s the Devil himself on Reaper or the classified information that has been implanted into Chuck’s brain courtesy of a frenemy’s brain-hacking.

I’m hooked on Chuck and hope it hangs around this season. It’s like that kid in school who was never part of any one group. He wasn’t a geek. He wasn’t a jock. He wasn’t a drama member. He wasn’t a brain. But he was able to be friends with people in every single one of those groups. That’s Chuck. An action comedy with a romantic subplot.

Oh, and it’s a pleasure to spend an hour each week just looking at Sarah (played by Yvonne Strahovski) doing anything from dressing as a “Wiener Girl” for work to, oh I don’t know, just existing. Did I mention how adorable Sarah is with her pigtails and “Wiener Girl” uniform? It’s worth double-checking.

This week, just as Sarah is about to take a shower, male viewers everywhere get doused with metaphorical cold water as an assassin attacks just prior to her derobing. Things begin looking up when the assassin’s mask is pulled off to reveal that we’ve just witnessed a cat fight. Sarah’s foe is Karina, a DEA agent in town to score a diamond from a dangerous guy. But aren’t we all? [Read more →]

Tags: Chuck, Recap by johnnysweeptheleg
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