Everyone knows what a geek is, but what is a spy? I do wonder. With red herrings like James Bond, Jason Bourne, Spooks, Burn Notice, Alias, 24 and the water-cooler fodder that is Covert Affairs (it’ll be on TV soon, avoid it), it makes wondering about a genuine spy quite distracting.
A real spy’s job must be boring; paper work, analysing, more analysing, looking at data and deducing conclusions from it.
I bet those Russian sleeper agents discovered in suburban America earlier this year did all of the above and nothing close to what make-believe, geek-turned-spy Chuck gets up to.
Chuck comes from a place where the CIA wastes money on really fancy offices and employs people even the Metropolitan Police would fire before even sending in a CV. It’s such a fluffy show that our hero, Chuck, wont even fire an actually bangy gun, he’s just that modern, or soft.
So our Chuck knows what a geek is, he stereotypes the more loveable kind perfectly. He’s back on DVD this month for his third season and it’s a very welcome return for the Spy-Fi action comedy romp.
Yes, Chuck still works with the CIA and, yes, his head is still full of the CIA’s most classified and interesting facts and, yes, he’s still working at the BuyMore (think PC World or Best Buy).
But now our Chuck is a super action hero who can do Kung Fu. A simple plot premise tweak this season sees the once passive Chuck learn anything about anything in a matter of seconds. OK, it’s like in The Matrix when Neo gets Kung Fu downloaded into his brain and he just knows it. It’s like that. With everything, not just Kung Fu.
On the woefully short documentary this extras-light box set tucks away, Chuck Fu and Dim Sum, the producers worry that fans wont like this step away from the Chuck we used to love two seasons ago. I say that’s bollocks. I say that if you care so much about a show which takes spying as seriously as Jade Goody took the English language you need to stop watching TV.
Besides, even the actors admit it’s all a giggle. As all lucky actors do on these DVD extras, their anecdotes remind us how great their working life is. Even Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Chuck’s love interest, Sarah, seems genuine in her praise for the show. It’s stunning to see that woman convey real emotion for once; she’s normally an emotionally vacuous, plain-faced, charm vacuum, every, single, episode. Luckily, every single other member of the cast is consistently brilliant, especially the non-Baldwin brother Adam Baldwin.
Chuck really is a brilliant brainless romp. Others agree, just look at the guest star alumni queuing up to be in season three, it’ll reduce a geek to orgasm – Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown from Back to the Future), Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Kristin Kreuk (Lana from Smallville), Stone Cold Steve Austin (the wrestler), Brandon Routh (Scott Pilgrim, Superman Returns), Vinnie Jones (looks mean, can’t act) and a bunch of people you’ll recognise from other stuff but you can’t quite place.
The thing I love about Chuck though, more than the outrageous plots, brilliant slapstick, the perpetual comic relief and the massively ambitious story arc is the show’s geek factor. It’s huge. Almost every reference to pop culture is spot on and plentiful. See which ones you can spot.
When Chuck’s best friend Morgan yanks the Xbox controller out of Chuck’s hand to get his attention, the first thing Chuck blurts is ‘hey, I haven’t paused it!’ That happened to me once! Chuck is like me! (And Sam from the short-lived Reaper, look it up).
Forget that pile of camel junk they call The Big Bang Theory, that’s blasphemous and condescending when compared to Chuck. Our hero spy is far more subtle, clever and just correct with his references to geek culture. If geeks are a persecuted or poorly considered faction of our society, Chuck would be the poster boy, the faith healer, the role model.
Chuck will teach me nothing about real spies, it’s “TV for people who love TV” as one producer puts it. It’s not gritty or emotionless, it’s not dark, death is skirted over regularly, it’s so light your diet-junky girlfriend will eat five for breakfast.
You know what? It doesn’t matter what real spies do every day. I’ll never really know anyway and, even if I did, even if I was told definitively what a real, genuine spy does, I wouldn’t really believe it. I’d rather watch Chuck.
Chuck Season 3 out on DVD from October 11th. RRP £40.
