Fall TV Shows Part 2

Picking up where we left of last time.  This has a bit of a misleading name since it turns out 2 of my 3 remaining shows don't air until Februaryish.  Lame!

Chuck

Chuck is a pretty awesome show, guys.  One part romantic comedy, one part spy movie, and one part nerd herd.

Yeah, that's right.  The premise is that regular guy Chuck Bartowski works at the local Buy More (aka Best Buy) as a Nerd Herd (Geek Squad) tech support guy.  Yes they have cute little cars.  One day he's being depressed about getting kicked out of Stanford and being dumped by his true love college girlfriend when he gets an email from his former roommate.  It's got an attachment which Chuck opens, and it turns out to be full of all sorts of government secrets.  Also happens that the original database was destroyed, so now he's the only copy.  CIA agent Adam Baldwin (Jayne) and FBI agent Sarah Walker (love interest) are assigned to protect him.  Chuck starts leading a secret undercover spy life while still trying to keep his normal stuff going, and he's adorably incompetent but also surprisingly good at being a spy.  Then there's all sorts of sexual tension between him and the FBI lady because there's definitely feelings there but they can't be together because she works for the FBI and also her cover story for sticking around is being Chuck's girlfriend.  Hilarious.  Each episode there's also a subplot with Chuck's nerdy coworkers at the Buy More and the shenanigans they get themselves into which.

Overall, it's super forumulaic.  Good thing the forumla works so well then.  So well, in fact, that it wasn't until the end of season 2 (the most recent one) that I felt like they really needed to switch things up.  Then they promptly did so at the end of season 2, so... there you go!  Only problem left is that it only got renewed for another half season.  God knows why; there's a ridiculous fanbase for a show that's so casually predictable and laid back, and it seems like the kind of thing tons of people would watch.  Apparently there were issues with what it was scheduled up against.  Dumb reason to kill a show if you ask me, especially given how accessable Chuck is.  The tropes are so obvious you could probably jump in to the middle of any episode in the series and write the first half from memory of other stuff you've seen.  What makes the show so impressive is that it's fun even though it's so predictable.  It's like Bond movies and good rom-coms in that way the same way it is in content.  Fun stuff.

This is the one that doesn't come back on until February in case you were wondering.

Castle

Yay Mal!  Honestly, it's surprising even to me that I started watching Castle.  The initial spots for it I saw on Hulu were... well, now that I think about it, a great way to sumarize the show.  Take a bad cop show premise - she's an ice-queen badass New York cop with a tragic past; he's an easy going murder mystery writer millionaire who's in need of a new thrill and decides to follow her around as inspiration for his next series - and then throw in two leads with great chemistry.  Nathon Fillion is really impresive; I thought for a while he might just be an okay actor who got lucky enough to work on Firefly, but it turns out he can hold his own with bad scripts, too.  The female lead is also great, but no one cares about her as much because she's not Captain Hammer.

So yeah.  Meh scripts at best, the occasional fun puzzle of a murder, and two leads that compliment each other perfectly.  The fun is just watching the banter of the show.  Lesson learned:  line delivery can make a show all on its own.  Oh, and Fillion's character has a great family, too.  Smart, good looking high school daughter who can also hold her own in the banter category and mother reminescent of Lucille Bluth several notches down on the horrible person scale.  Both of them live with him, so there's fun home life scenes.  Then there's the poker group for famous writers...

Why are poker scenes so fun to watch?  They're all so predictable and bad.  Guess it means I should start playing that game.  Probably pay my way through college.

Where was I?  Castle.   Something stupidly fun to watch if you like watching TV.  I might call it the best mediocre show on television right now.  Then again, I don't watch much mediocre television so how would I know?

Lost

Yeah, I watch it.  If you want to talk to me about it, I'm always free for a Lost conversation.  You probably know exactly what you think of this show, though.  If not, go watch it.  Oh, and I've got some paint you can furnish the underside of your rock with; I imagine it's a little stale down there unchanged for 5 years now.

That's what I watch.  Oh, also Venture Bros, but that one probably deserves its own post.  Other good shows I've seen all of:  Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, Buffy, Flight of the Conchords (note: may or may not actually be good), and all the others I'm forgetting.  I recommend them all.