Chuck: "Pilot" Advance Review

A funny and highly entertaining new series that is well worth checking out.

One of the fall's most promising new shows, Chuck makes its debut this Monday on NBC. A classic underachiever, Chuck (Zachary Levi) is a very smart guy; a former Stanford student who now finds himself drifting through his 20s, like so many others. He works at a large electronics store called Buy More in their Nerd Herd department (I'm betting you get the references), and can hardly be said to be using his smarts to their full potential.

But Chuck's life gets thrown for a loop when he gets an email from Bryce (Matt Bomer), his old college roommate. Little does Chuck know, but Bryce has become a bona fide bad ass secret agent, which we discover in an incredibly fun and dynamic action sequence that feels much more cinematic than most TV shows can pull off. You're welcome to mock his silly name, but McG brings just the right big action movie gloss here as director of the pilot, but at the same time doesn't overwhelm Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak's clever script.

The email Chuck gets from Bryce is a bit of Hollywood hokum; a computer program containing pivotal government files, which upon viewing, becomes burned into Chuck's brain, without him realizing it. With the original computers holding the information destroyed, Chuck becomes a crucial figure to both the NSA and the CIA, who each send one of their best agents after Chuck. One such agent comes in the form of Casey, played by Firefly's Adam Baldwin, who brings his trademark "don't f**k with me" attitude to the role. Chuck's much more entranced by the other agent though, who just so happens to be a gorgeous blond named Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski). Of course Chuck has no idea who Sarah really is intially, just that this beautiful customer at the Buy More is somehow, amazingly, asking him out.

(L-R) Sarah Lancaster, Adam Baldwin, Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahovski and Joshua Gomez in Chuck

Schwartz and Fedak's script for the Chuck pilot is very strong, deftly mixing action and humor. Where Schwartz's other new series, Gossip Girl, could use more of the humor he brought to The O.C., Chuck does a great job capturing the wit and self-awareness Schwartz's previous series contained. Chuck is a bit like an older version of the Seth Cohen character from The O.C., including a similar haircut and amusingly geeky interests; Chuck's fingers are bandaged up at one point due to Call of Duty related injuries, and a particularly funny joke has Chuck and his best friend/co-worker Morgan (Joshua Gomez) referencing Prince's "Batdance".

The cast are excellent, with Levi extremely likable and relatable, evoking a young Tom Hanks, and Gomez garnering a ton of laughs and clearly having a great time. Baldwin is playing a familiar type of role here, but it's one he excels at. The charming and sexy Strahovski will get plenty of attention as a fanboy dream girl come to life; most notably in a scene in which she walks around her hotel room looking incredible in her underwear, while calmly strapping weapons to her body. The only character not as strong so far is Chuck's sister Ellie, who is well played by Sarah Lancaster, but in the pilot at least, seems a bit extraneous. Still, there's plenty of time to see how she'll fit into the overall scope of the series, and her boyfriend, who Chuck has sarcastically nicknamed Captain Awesome (Ryan McPartlin), is well, awesome.

Chuck ultimately feels like Seth Cohen has been thrown into the middle of an Alias episode, and that makes for a great combination.