November 3, 2008
And the guest stars keep on coming. Chuck, on this, its second season, has already welcomed guest stars such as Michael Strahan, John Larroquette, Melinda Clarke, Ben Savage, and Nicole Richie. Beginning next Monday, when Chuck returns with a new episode (“Chuck vs. The Ex), Jordana Brewster will join the series for a three-episode run as Chuck's ex-lady friend. Now, thanks to E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos, we know who the newest Chuck guest stars will be: Jenny McCarthy and Andy Richter. That duo will appear in the fourteenth episode of season two. The episode is called “Chuck vs. the Suburbs” and will air either in late February or early March.
October 29, 2008
Chuck has all the ingredients. Chuck is funny. Chuck has attractive and talented leads. Chuck should appeal to anyone and everyone. It has pop-culture references, it has over-the-top action. It has drama, but is not a downer. There is nothing about Chuck that would turn away a prospective viewer. It has nothing holding it back. And yet, despite all the support it has seen from NBC, the show is floundering in the ratings. It is routinely at the bottom of the barrel in its time slot on Mondays at 8pm. It is one of those television mysteries that really hurts for a fan. It's like you know a secret that no one else knows or cares about. If the ratings don't pick up for Chuck, the series will soon cease to exist. This is a fundamental truth for TV shows – no matter how great a show is, no matter how much faith a network has in it, at the end of the day ratings talk. Why, then, is Chuck such a ratings failure?
October 27, 2008
The music of Rush, Atari, Missile Command, Buster from Arrested Development, Sarah's Hot Nerd outfit, and the montage tribute for Anna; tonight's episode of Chuck combined a lot of glorious elements into one silly-fun hour of television. The writers decided to hold little back tonight's episode, which featured a War Games-esque World War III threat and a lot of video game playing. Viewers were also treated to the most one-episode screen time ever for Jeff Barnes. It teased at giving some reasons for his overall Jeff-ness, though I'm still at a loss for why he is what he is. We do know that Jeff used to be an arcade game phenom, which is where the episode began.
October 22, 2008
Dominic Monaghan is going to play a rock star on a prime time network series. His name will not be Charlie. Unlike his character on Lost, Monaghan's new character will be kind of a crazy person, a metalhead who will appear on the February 2 episode of NBC's Chuck. This is all according to an exclusive scoop from EW's Michael Ausiello. Monaghan's rock star will make an in-store appearance at the Buy More and consequently be targeted for assassination by a group of shady bad guys. According to Josh Schwartz, creator and show runner on Chuck, the character will be very different from Charlie on Lost. The February 2 episode in question will be shot in 3-D to coincide with NBC's 3-D promotion around the Super Bowl, which NBC will air the day before Monaghan's Chuck episode.
October 21, 2008
The USA Network has given a green light to yet another series, this time titled White Collar as it lifts cast contingency for the show. The series, which stars Matthew Bomer of Chuck and Tru Calling and Tim DeKay of Tell Me You Love Me and Carnivale, will also feature director Bronwen Hughes of Burn Notice, Breaking Bad and Forces of Nature. White Collar is created by Jeff Eastin, who also serves as executive producer for the upcoming Fox Television Studios endeavor.
"USA is ramping up its production slate by adding a third pilot to its roster with WHITE COLLAR," Jackie de Crinis, USA's executive vice president, original programming said in an official statement. "The unique dynamic of Matthew Bomer and Tim DeKay adds two memorable characters to the roster that defines the USA brand."
October 20, 2008
Chuck is starting to find its stride. Tonight's action-packed episode is one of Chuck's best episodes ever. This is not an exaggeration. Nicole Richie guest starred as an old high school acquaintance of Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski), and while that casting might have been cringe-inducing a couple months back when it was announced, it turned out better than anyone could have expected. Despite not being an actress, Richie was pretty solid. In addition, we get to see what Sarah looked like back in high school. Yvonne Strahovski has never looked worse, which is a a testament to the work done by the wardrobe and make-up people for Chuck. Also, the soundtrack was spectacular (it had been a while since I last hear me some Prodigy).
October 20, 2008
BuddyTV interviews the lovely Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Sarah Walker on Chuck.
Yvonne Strahovski is a force to be reckoned with. As television's evolutionary Sidney Bristow, Strahovski plays Sarah Walker, secret agent, on NBC's Chuck. In tonight's all-new episode of Chuck, we get to see Sarah as she was in high school for the first time. Turns out, she wasn't always the super-hot bad ass we know from the first two seasons of Chuck. We managed to snag a quick interview with Yvonne earlier today from the Chuck set. We talked about tonight's episode (one of the series' best), guest star Nicole Richie, and what we can expect from the rest of the season. In addition, Yvonne spilled the beans on a character we'll see later this year.
Below you will find the written transcript, as well as the full mp3 audio of the interview.
October 13, 2008
There is a sub-plot on tonight's episode of Chuck that I will not discuss in detail or feature in the recap. There are a variety of reasons for this. One – I hate stunt casting. Two – I hate stunt casting. Three – I don't like Michael Strahan. There is a difference between having a quality guest star (like John Laroquette last week), and casting someone who has no business acting into a role that does the show no good. It was basically a stupid commercial for a video game. There, I've said more than I wanted to. Besides that abomination of a storyline, tonight's Chuck was mighty solid. I was not happy when Bryce Larkin appeared in Sarah's apartment at the end of last week's episode, but the writers on Chuck made it work. It turned into a somewhat poignant story, and it should please the fans.