This has gone on long enough. I don’t know where Schwartz and Fedak got the notion that I give a shit about Chuck’s mom, or Chuck’s godfather, or Chuck’s third cousin, but I don’t. And I like this show. I like the characters — except for fucking Jeffster, who never were and never will be funny — but Chuck’s daddy issues from seasons two and three (“Why’d you abandon us?!”) were tiresome and probably plagiarized from Alias, and this season’s mommy issues (“Why’d you abandon us?!”) is already tiresome and obviously plagiarized from seasons two and three.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn that the creative staff — who I’m sure all expected the show to be canceled two years ago — stopped tacking new index cards to the office’s bulletin board of ideas about, say, two years ago. There was probably a writers’ meeting where Fedak was all, “Come on, guys! We’re getting free Subway hoagies for life! We have achieved nirvana, who needs to be bothered with interesting characters and plots! …Hey, that would be a great line for Jeffster. You, D-girl, type that up!”
Then I bet they were all, “Do we really need a reason to get Yvonne Strahovski on camera in her underpants? No, goddamn it! We’re the fucking writers on Chuck, we’ll do whatever we please, and narrative coherence can just suck it!”
Point is, the show’s quickly becoming a good nostalgic boner-fest for people who actually care about actors who haven’t done anything since the early 90′s (…cough, cough, Sepinwall) and an ordinary thirty-second boner-fest for those of us who enjoy ogling pretty blonde ladies, but if you’re a total prude who’s interested in the hero’s journey, you’re shit out of luck.