Day Three Hundred and Thirty-eight - Chuck: Season 2, Episode 4, "High School... Sucks for Everyone."

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I didn't have the greatest of times in High School. That said, seeing Yyvonne Strahovski all dweebed up and not enjoying her time as a teenager, playing the role that I did (just gender swapped) back then, is a bit of a stretch.

Still, in spite of this episode's shortcomings, it's still a fun time.

The whole plot revolves around a chance encounter that Sarah and Chuck have at the Buy More with a ghost from Sarah's path... a former tormentor who remembers her from days gone by, a cheerleader who married another dweeb. It seems this cheerleader (who looks suspiciously like that gal Paris Hilton pal'd around with back in the day) has both the skinny on Sarah's past and a darker angle with the Russian mob.

Meanwhile, Chuck has the dubious pleasure of wowing Nicole Richie's dork of a husband (whom she's betraying) with the mystique of Agent Carmichael's reputation as a "mad dog" courtesy of John Casey's awesome CQC skills and some convenient timing/misrepresentations. That's not all on Chuck's mind, though, as this brush with Sarah's past has him pressing her for more info... facts that she is less than willing to divulge.

Then there's the silly Buy More B-plot where Morgan, Lester, et al. almost ruin the store by bartering away all of their profits by all but giving away big-ticket items for pennies on the dollar. Really, there's no reason to have this bit other than to justify paying Gomez, Sahay, and the rest.

While not the strongest of episodes, it doesn't manage to sneak in some good moments of emotional intimacy for Chuck and Sarah, as he flails about trying to break down her defenses concerning her past and the secret of her criminal father that she tries to keep wrapped up tight with hostility and mental barriers. Most of the tension comes to a head during a cathartic fight between Sarah and Nicole Richie which seems more than just a little justified. At the end of the day, though, the best moment for me was that little bit of denouement that we get at the end where Chuck just accepts Sarah for who she is now, that being all he needs to know. If only Sarah could do the same (don't worry, she will... spoiler alert).

Silly, schlocky, b-movie spy action and drama... but Chuck is still darned fun. Plus there's plenty of wish fulfillment as the nerd getting the girl (without the help of copious amounts of Silicon Valley cash) is delicious.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Three Hundred and Twenty - Chuck: Season 1, Episode 10, "Black Friday Blues"

Perhaps I should've saved this episode for next week, but I can't help but stumble onto holiday episodes when I binge watch, and this one was seen fortuitously close to the holiday it's supposed to cover, so... what the heck.

It's a CHUCK Family Thanksgiving!

To catch folks up since the last episode I blogged about was the pilot, Chuck Bartowski was entrusted with a super-MacGuffiny bit of fake technology, a computer program that downloads itself into his head thanks to his old rival, a CIA Agent named Bryce Larkin, who was thought to be dead for the past nine episodes or so, but shows up completely recovered and ready to screw things up. This is especially true since Sarah used to be together with Bryce, but was kissing Chuck (finally!) during the last few ticks of a supposed bomb they were unable to defuse and were thusly doomed, making it okay to bring out the tongue.

Draaaamaaaaaaa~

Anyways, THIS episode features Bryce trying to reinsert himself both in Sarah's love life and Chuck's spy life as he is hunted by a secret evil CIA faction called Fulcrum. Meanwhile, Morgan and Anna are dealing with her jealousy issues at Thanksgiving dinner concerning Ellie. Oh, and Chuck catches Bryce and Sarah snogging at dinner the day before a giant Black Friday shootout at the Buy More, which leaves the episode on a cliffhanger of whether she will chase after her old flame or stick with the new.

Ouch.

CHUCK is and always shall be cheese, but it's fun cheese, scratching my lonely gamer geek wish-fulfillment urges. Even the perpetual, back-stabbing losers of the cast, Lester and Jeff, manage to live full and happy lives at their dead end retail jobs!

It's weird that it just openly acknowledges that we live as sheep in a wide, conspiracy driven world where we are saved from disaster only through luck and perseverance from dedicated hotties (Yvonne Strahovski) and gruff John Wayne types (Adam Baldwin) and there are always bigger, more secretive nefarious organizations to thwart. Maybe that fact makes it easier for real life New World Order conspiracies to keep us as content consumers, but you can't prove it... and maybe that's the point. Scary thought.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Three Hundred and Twelve - CHUCK: Pilot, "Yvonne Stahovski... you have got to be the sexiest Aussie in existence."

And I say that despite the cheese that is CHUCK. Don't get me wrong, it's a pleasure to watch the geeky spy/love story play out, but it's still cheese... and that's okay.

Set in suburban Los Angeles with its home base either being the Buy More (Best Buy analog) or the apartment that Chuck shares with his sister and her boyfriend (both doctors), CHUCK is an ode to the inner fanboy in all of us late Gen Xers/early Gen Yers. I mean, Chuck (Zach Levi) gets to live the dream and become a reluctant spy who goes on adventures while being babysat by the beautiful CIA Agent Sarah (Yvonne) and her NSA counterpart John Casey (Adam Baldwin).

The pilot sets the tone for the series by setting up disasters of the week that only Chuck, with a joint CIA/NSA database in his head (put there by his ex-friend Bryce Larkin, a rogue agent), can avert via the flashes of intelligence that he gets whenever triggered by sight, sound, or whathaveyou. Of course, he really doesn't want to be at the mercy of our shadowy intelligence services, but it sort of beats his dead-end retail/customer service job where he is either belittled by his colleagues or surrounded by weirdos that he has to call peers.

At its heart, CHUCK is a generic action series with silly, over the top spy antics contrasted with both the need for his cover to be maintained and the definite sparks he feels for the woman who has swooped into his life and changed it so drastically. For that reason, you can kind of see why it was always troubled by ratings woes and hovering on the bubble of cancellation, only being saved at the last moment several times during its 5 season run (2007-12) thanks to massive fan support and even cheesier product placement and tie-in gags from the likes of Subway (Eat Fresh!).

Still the pilot manages to hit decently on quite a few buttons for lonely, wastrel geeks such as myself, stuck in what appear to be endless ruts both in our professional careers and personal lives. I liked it when it aired and still find it appealing now as it plays on the instant stream. Granted, with almost half a decade gone by, I've changed a little and it doesn't play quite as strong as it did on its first run, but it's still fun.

And Yvonne Strahovski is still very, very hot. There's a reason she was tapped (teehee) to both model for and voice Miranda Lawson in the Mass Effect series... Rawr! (Side note: costar Adam Baldwin also voiced a character, a Quarian named Kal'Reegar).

Quick shoutout to guest star Matthew Bomer who plays Chuck's old college buddy (the one who ruined his academic career and stole his sweetheart... or did he?), Bryce Larkin. He makes a few appearances throughout the series, but never plays all that active a part other than to serve as a point of contention to spice of the love issues between Chuck and Sarah. He's shown up in a few movies like In Time and Magic Mike and is the lead on his own USA series, White Collar.

Also be on the lookout for Tony Todd who makes several appearances as a CIA director. Always love to see Tony getting work.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Two Hundred and One - Firefly: Episode 14, Objects In Space, "Well, Here I Am."

Still needing the comfort of the familiar and pleasing, but not quite so desperate that I can't handle a little heartbreak and longing, today's entry was easy to decide on... being the last episode of Joss Whedon's ill-fated and much beloved Firefly.

There's so much to love about this universe. It's a Western, but Science Fiction. It isn't bothered by its space-faring trappings and strictures, instead using them to great effect when necessary and, the grand majority of the time, not even bothering... choosing to tell quiet, human stories of grit and perseverance.

Objects In Space doesn't spend a lot of time with the actual crew, a rarity for final episodes, instead spending most of its effort on the guest character, Jubal Early (Richard Brooks whom most folks would probably recognize from his work in the early seasons of Law & Order).

I like Jubal... he's an interesting foil.

Obviously a psychopath, Jubal has a calm, mellow charm that is offset both by his odd questions/musings and his stark shifts from friendly to threatening.

Most psychopaths portrayed on television are done so severely, showing their threatening nature with heavy violence and tense soundtracks. Jubal is much more interesting due to his systematic and rational takedowns of the crew and subsequent negotiations with River/Serenity.

For me, all the joy and interest in the character comes from his thought process. I mean, honestly, the "Am I a Lion?" scene with Simon is pure brilliance in its awkwardness... and the only rough parts come from the quick madness cuts while River dresses Jubal down over the comm system.

Objects In Space is also great thanks to all the callbacks to previous episodes. Whether it's the assault on Niska's Skyplex or Jayne getting slashed, it's always good to have a show that doesn't live on stand alone episodes, like Star Trek does for the most part as an example. Rich, organic, self-referencing continuity makes for often tremendous television.

It's sad to see a favorite series end, even though I've been here with Firefly many times before... and even though it does continue with the film Serenity... I just mourn for all the grand potential the series had yet to explore and never rightly got to, even with the movie and the comics. Hell, especially because of the movie, since many compromises had to be made to give the film enough oomph worthy of both a feature and a sendoff.

If you haven't yet become a Browncoat, I definitely recommend the series. It was one of the greatest scifi shows to air in recent years and was cut tragically short by the network.

But the dream lives on in all of us Browncoats out here, subsisting on Netflix and DVDs and Blu-rays.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Sixty-three - Firefly: Episode 13, Heart of Gold, "Poor, poor Inara."

There is a reason that Firefly has become the go-to series for the internet and its geeks (of which I am one).

For one thing, it has tremendously simple, yet deviously charismatic and witty dialogue. For another? It's just so damn fun.

I had personally given up on the Space Western in the 80's when Ice Pirates and Battle Beyond the Stars hit, the (only) Star Wars Trilogy having been wrapped up rather neatly and Scifi as a genre banking more on grand, sweeping visions of the future where the trials and tribulations of man are all alien based instead of centered on more human stories.

When I heard Joss Whedon, creator of my favorite camp horror show of the late 90's/early millenium, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was making a new series on FOX, I was on board... and avidly supported the show as best I could, watching it (out of order and with episodes missing) and posting to the forums as often as I could.

The inevitable happened and, like most of my favorite shows, it was cancelled.

But... you're on the internet. Odds are you know this story. Odds are, you're probably a Firefly fan. Even if you're not, I'm still going to assume you are for the rest of this article because, unlike many of the other series I've watched for the blog, I'm going to skip ahead to the penultimate episode of the series.

Not the pilot. Not three or four in. No, I'm going for the gold... the Heart of Gold, as it were: episode 13... where Mal gets laid for the first time we've rightly seen and Inara? Well, poor Inara puts on a brave face, but it's a conundrum of her own design.

On the surface, Heart of Gold is your typical Western tale where the salt of the earth types hire gunman to protect their meager assets, but when you dig a bit deeper, the episode is more about Inara and Mal and the inevitable conclusion of their mating dance.

Having been hinted at passive-aggressively and with stolen, sleepy kisses in the past, Heart of Gold brings things to a head when Inara brokers Mal and the crew of the Serenity to help an old former Companion friend of hers. Seems an easy to hate villain wants to force his patrimony and misogyny on a Bunny Ranch that won't truck his control. In the process, Mal & Co. are hired as bodyguards and Inara all but thrusts Mal into the arms of her lusty friend. Not ever getting a kind word from Inara, Mal allows himself to be reluctantly seduced... and it all ends in tears for Inara.

I love this episode for that simple fact... it forces a confrontation of feelings for both characters, perhaps moreso for Inara, but you can't tell me that Mal isn't constantly reminded of just how much he desires and cares for his passenger, only to be rebuffed by her time and time again.

It's weird to me how much viewing pleasure I get from Inara's breakdown. I'm not happy that she's hurt (other than glad to see her admit, even in private, to her real feelings), it's just that there is such a surge of emotion inspired in me because of it. To see her so distraught when she is normally so prim and composed creates that extra emotional oomph that is a delight to see, no matter how sad I am because of it.

Aside from that juicy bit of drama, there are plenty of other cast interactions to please: Kaylee needles Simon about their own unresolved chemistry, River acts wise and naive in her delightfully quirky way, Jayne gets lucky (keeping him happy), Wash and Zoe argue over babymaking, and the Shepard... oh, his look when several girls relay how the last preacher to visit their whorehouse acted is just priceless.

The actual plot is weak and one-dimensional, which is disappointing when you consider the episode just before it (The Message) was very strong... but the dialogue and crew drama for the episode are just divine. It ranks very highly in my book, in spite of its weaknesses... but the whole series pretty much does that.

If you haven't watched Firefly yet, DO IT. Don't mince, don't dally or dither or some other d-word (like "delay," for instance). It's well worth it... and is one of my acid tests for "mah kind'o'people."

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~