I tried to watch Chuck when it premiered and then sort of forgot about it. Part way through it’s first season I picked it up again only to redirect my attention towards more captivating series. Then, after the show won accolades from fellow My TVwriter Rachael, I picked up the season one DVD and tried again. And this time it took; no, it didn’t just take, it took off and soared. It took me 3 days to watch 24 episodes and now in the wee hours of the morning, the verdict is in:
I love Chuck.

I love everything about Chuck. I love Chuck himself and the fact that he’s the quintessential TV nerd who’s sweet and goofy but really hot and kick-ass. I love how human but superhuman his surprisingly endearing fake girlfriend Sarah is. I love that Adam Baldwin is in this show, being all delightfully Adam Baldwin-y. I love how warm Ellie is and how awesome Captain Awesome is. I love the ridiculous best friend Morgan just because he’s ridiculous and I love all the Buy More employees for the same reason (particularly Lester, who was the star of a Canadian kids show I watched once upon a time called Radio Active, and Anna, who is pretty kick-ass in her own right).

But mostly I love that Chuck is a Josh Schwartz show. Schwartz is a Hollywood wunderkind who is the brains behind much of the most influential TV in the past decade (The OC and Gossip Girl). What sets Schwartz apart from most of the other writer/producers in the business (aside from his incredible writing skills: snappy dialogue, interesting characters, well-paced stories, etc…) is his complete lack of pretension. Schwartz’s first big show, The OC, came under major fire for being whimsical, escapist or superficial, criticism that Schwartz responded to with more well-written whimsical, escapist and surprisingly deep material. And Chuck is yet another case in which Schwartz takes a fluffy genre (the espionage thriller) and gives it a fantastic gravity without robbing it of its sense of fun. Only a touch as light as Schwartz’s could ever make a box store employee with a super computer downloaded into his brain one of the most believable characters on TV.