Once again I find myself in love with a television series, that may be the best series currently on TV, which is facing cancellation. Last time it was my beloved Veronica Mars. That show faced cancellation at the end of season 2 and was thankfully brought back for a shorter third season after which it was cancelled.
This time it’s NBC’s Chuck, and like VM it’s ending it’s 2nd season and facing cancellation. Now I understand ratings mean something to the networks. But in a day when NBC is replacing it’s entire 10 o’clock hour with Jay Leno, DVRs, Hulu, and iTunes are changing the way everyone watches TV, and there are hundreds of channels to watch on cable or satellite, shouldn’t we be moving away from the outdated ratings system? The Nielsen’s can’t even be that accurate, because they choose a random cross section of people and give them a box and then assume that’s what the rest of the country is watching. Which means that only 25% of them could be watching a show that 75% of the rest of the country is watching. In a time when my DVR/Satellite box constantly gets and sends information, such as the channel guide, why can’t it record what I watch and send that back. I’m sure that more people have cable and satellite boxes that send and receive information than Neilsen boxes. But enough with my mini-rant on ratings and back to Chuck.
Chuck is simply one of the most well crafted shows on television. It mixes action, comedy, drama, suspense, and just about every other genre (except maybe westerns and horror) into one show and does it well. The show constantly refers back to other episodes and makes more pop culture references per week than an episode of Gilmore Girls (ok maybe it ties with GG). It’s a spy show about a normal guy, like you or me, who had high hopes and expectations for his life, that just didn’t work out for some reason. Who among us can’t relate to that? (maybe Ryan Seacrest and Ashton Kutcher, but I think most of us can.) The show has handsome men, beautiful women, wacky co-workers, best friends, Captain Awesome, and one amazingly understanding and supportive sister. In other words this show has it all.
And last night’s episode was possibly the best of the series. It felt like a season finale and yet there’s an entire other episode to go. Last night’s episode “Chuck vs. the Colonel” featured everything I mentioned above in Spades and the entire episode was “Aces.” But don’t take my word for it, check it out, in it’s entirety below, thanks to Hulu.com. And next week take a chance and watch the Season Finale of Chuck. And if you really want to help save the show, DVR it and watch it again, watch it on Hulu.com, and buy it on iTunes. Maybe if we show them there’s enough people out there watching it in other ways we can keep it alive.
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