Last week, the miraculous occurred:
Chuck was renewed for a fifth season on NBC. But that's definitely not the end of the story. Where will we be able to find
Chuck in the fall, and how long can we expect the show to last?
First of all, the good news:
Chuck is definitely coming back, and it has a place in
NBC's official fall schedule. The season 4 finale will not be the last we see of everyone's favorite spies.
Now let's move on to the ambiguous news:
Chuck is moving from its longtime Monday night home to Fridays at 8pm. Unless the other networks decide to throw a lot of new programming at this particular timeslot, the competition doesn't seem too fierce (things are way more dangerous for
Chuck's 9pm partner,
Grimm, which will probably face-off against
Supernatural and
Fringe). And Friday night isn't quite the death sentence it once was -- the networks seem committed to putting something on TV that night.
The downside of this timeslot is, of course, what's on the other networks. It's not hard to imagine a crossover audience between
Chuck,
Supernatural and
Fringe. All are shows which cater strongly to the nerds among television viewers, and all boast passionate fan-bases to counteract struggling ratings. Will putting
Chuck on the same night as these other shows help or hurt it?
At least getting out of the way of
House and
Dancing with the Stars won't hurt, either way.
Finally, the bad news: season 5 of
Chuck will be short (13 episodes) and it will be the final season. Rumors of this have been circling since news first appeared about
Chuck's pickup, but it looks pretty official now.
TVLine talked to NBC president Bob Greenblatt about
Chuck and other shows. When asked about why
Chuck's fifth season would mark the end, Greenblatt replied:
It seemed to be the way to end it appropriately for the fans who love it, and not get into a situation where it might
end or might not
end and then it ends and we haven't concluded the storyline.At least there's good in that, right? The ending looks fairly inevitable ("Unless suddenly we have 10 million viewers watching it on Friday night," according to Greenblatt), but it at least it can
end. With so many low-rated shows simply disappearing from the schedule mid-story, the chance to finish
Chuck at an appropriate point can't be all bad.
Want more
Chuck scoop? Check out our
Chuck Ultimate Fan Page on Facebook.
Will you watch
Chuck on Fridays? How do you feel about the fifth season being the end of the series? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
(Image courtesy of NBC)