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zoux posted:What's the final word on Chuck? It's pretty decent up to the final season, which a lot of people here seemed to like but I thought was total crap.
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Nov 10, 2013 17:39
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precision posted:Watch the first two seasons of Chuck and pretend the rest never happened. The finale is actually pretty good, though.
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Nov 10, 2013 17:43
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precision posted:Watch the first two seasons of Chuck and pretend the rest never happened. The finale is actually pretty good, though. See, that's not fair, because the finale takes into account everything that happened over the entire series, good and bad. It absolutely gets divisive after the second season (personally I enjoyed the whole run), but on the whole, it's worth watching and forming your own opinion over.
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Nov 10, 2013 17:45
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I think Chuck's getting added to Netflix Instant next month, too.
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Nov 10, 2013 18:04
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Actually it's already there!
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Nov 10, 2013 18:08
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MrAristocrates posted:I think Chuck's getting added to Netflix Instant next month, too. Its already up. Speaking of Netflix and Raising Hope, they recently added last season as well.
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Nov 10, 2013 18:11
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Oh, well if you have Netflix then yeah form your own opinion, but in my mind what starkly contrasts seasons 1-2 with 3-5 is that season 3 is when the show became self-aware, used a lot more things that should have been quirky one-offs instead of running gags (the nerd guys' cover band) - what I guess I'm dancing around is the "F" word. Fanservice. 
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Nov 10, 2013 18:15
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Getting renewed each season that it did in itself was fanservice so I don't know why you're being so delicate. This Chuck post brought to you by Subway.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:03
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In retrospect I think had Chuck ended at the season 3.0 finale (Chuck vs. The Other Guy, which was pretty much a straight up series finale) it would be remembered as one of the great shortish television runs ever. It was still mostly good and enjoyable then (and the Chuck vs. The Honeymooners episode after the one I'm talking about is actually one of the better one-offs they did), but it started retreading ground fairly heavily and there were a few storylines that directly undercut the emotional impact of some of the "glory days" stuff.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:10
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I stopped watching Chuck somewhere early in season four as I just completely lost interest in it. After hearing about what happened in the rest of that season and the next I feel like I made the right decision.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:20
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The quality completely cratered at some point. I can't remember where exactly that was, but God Almighty how the writing sucked by the end.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:26
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ufarn posted:The quality completely cratered at some point. I can't remember where exactly that was, but God Almighty how the writing sucked by the end. I think it's when they resurrected Shaw - that's kind of the line where everything after that was either derivative or bad plotting. I still largely enjoyed watching it but it went from something that was probably legitimately the best show on broadcast for awhile into a guilty pleasure.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:28
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Yeah, but it's mostly because of what jeffersonlives was talking about in that the show had some false finales due to being on the brink of cancellation so many times. When you try to write yourself to a conclusion only to have to pull up at the last minute a few times it's eventually going to bite you in the rear end and it finally caught up with Chuck. In my mind the show should have ended in season three, but that's because I did think it felt like a logical end to the story. I gave it a little time in season four to convince me and it didn't happen so I jumped ship.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:30
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It never got to the "I no longer enjoy watching this television program" point for me. I still enjoyed spending 42 minutes a week with that set of characters. But it got really bait and switchy there, definitely.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:37
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Chuck really suffered when the writers decided that exploring the mythology of the spy world and how Chuck's family was connected to it was a good idea.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:48
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Season 4 is a bit hammy and iffy but it fits in with the previous seasons. Until the last episode where it all goes downhill leading into the terribly plotted 5th season.
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Nov 10, 2013 22:20
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I think the family critique is dead-on in how literally everyone mentioned gets introduced at some point like some cheesy soap One thing that was got increasingly interesting even through the bad seasons was seeing Yvonne Strahovski's comedic acting improve over the years. She got some great comedic timing by the end, and I think she really helped make this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBehoHATZhc (Bonus points for Spartacus's Naevia guest starring.)
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Nov 10, 2013 22:37
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Maybe it's just me but I'm of the opinion that Chuck was always just 'okay.' It certainly was never; jeffersonlives posted:the best show on broadcast I mean, really, Chuck? Not Friday Night Lights or 30 Rock, two shows airing on the same network?
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Nov 10, 2013 22:44
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It had its moments, and the steep decline in quality probably makes a lot look like Made Men by comparison. You'd have to really love Jeffster. It bothers me that Yvonne Strahovski still hasn't had an opportunity to show what a great actress she is. She was so drat good on Chuck.
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Nov 10, 2013 22:47
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ufarn posted:It had its moments, and the steep decline in quality probably makes a lot look like Made Men by comparison. She was really awful in Dexter.
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Nov 10, 2013 22:49
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ufarn posted:You'd have to really love Jeffster. I never liked any of the Buy More staff, including Morgan right at the start - they just dragged the show down into pointless poo poo every time they showed up. ufarn posted:It bothers me that Yvonne Strahovski still hasn't had an opportunity to show what a great actress she is. She was so drat good on Chuck. She showed everyone how great she can be in the last season of Dexter so hopefully she never gets hired for another major role again. I think what Chuck showed is that she looks great and doesn't mind prancing around in her underwear.
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Nov 10, 2013 22:50
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PriorMarcus posted:I mean, really, Chuck? Not Friday Night Lights or 30 Rock, two shows airing on the same network? When you say it like that, CHUCK may be the greatest show of the past thirty years.
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Nov 10, 2013 22:51
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The Buy More segments existed solely to sell advertisements and keep the show on the air. Also I thought Adam Baldwin was one of the Baldwin brothers.
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Nov 10, 2013 22:52
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ufarn posted:It bothers me that Yvonne Strahovski still hasn't had an opportunity to show what a great actress she is. She was so drat good on Chuck. I think the most work she or Awesome have gotten since Chuck was a voice acting role on one of those terrible Lego TV movies.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:00
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PriorMarcus posted:She showed everyone how great she can be in the last season of Dexter so hopefully she never gets hired for another major role again. Let's be fair: it was Dexter. The number of actors who escaped that show looking good can be counted on one hand.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:01
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DivisionPost posted:Let's be fair: it was Dexter. The number of actors who escaped that show looking good can be counted on one hand. John Lithgow and ?
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Nov 10, 2013 23:03
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bobkatt013 posted:John Lithgow and ? The chief from season 1? Jimmy Smits was not too bad either.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:29
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DivisionPost posted:Let's be fair: it was Dexter. The number of actors who escaped that show looking good can be counted on one hand. This is true, but she did come across looking considerably worst than most. I mean, if she was a "great actress" who was "drat good" on a show as undemanding as Chuck she should've been able to muster something more than whatever I'd call her performance on Dexter.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:30
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PriorMarcus posted:I mean, really, Chuck? Not Friday Night Lights or 30 Rock, two shows airing on the same network? Friday Night Lights wasn't a first-run broadcast show by the time Chuck really advanced to that level, a lot of stuff had just went off the air (The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, etc.), Lost was already off the rails, Grey's was a few seasons past the crazy stuff, The Good Wife doesn't show up until fall 2009...yeah, I think Chuck's in the mix for a bit there. It's really competing against sitcoms only (Office, 30 Rock, maybe HIMYM) in the 2008 area for me, and hour dramedies are always going to have structural advantages. That was a bleak time for hour dramas too, the strike really did a number on both that new year of dramas and then the next year's pilots.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:34
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When Erik King was killed off is when my interest in Dexter largely died.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:35
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Deadpool posted:When Erik King was killed off is when my interest in Dexter largely died. Oh how I wish I had your ability to cut shows loose, Deadpool. 
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Nov 10, 2013 23:49
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jeffersonlives posted:Friday Night Lights wasn't a first-run broadcast show by the time Chuck really advanced to that level, a lot of stuff had just went off the air (The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, etc.), Lost was already off the rails, Grey's was a few seasons past the crazy stuff, The Good Wife doesn't show up until fall 2009...yeah, I think Chuck's in the mix for a bit there. It's really competing against sitcoms only (Office, 30 Rock, maybe HIMYM) in the 2008 area for me, and hour dramedies are always going to have structural advantages. That was a bleak time for hour dramas too, the strike really did a number on both that new year of dramas and then the next year's pilots. I just don't think Chuck was ever a particularly notable series - Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Friday Night Lights were all airing at one point during its run, three of the greatest dramas ever. For lighter dramatic/genre shows you had Fringe, Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Terminator. On the comedy side, you had 30 Rock, Community, The Office, Scrubs, Pysch and Parks and Rec airing as well. Maybe I could see the argument for it being one of the best shows that started in 2007, but definitely not much past that. jeffersonlives posted:Oh how I wish I had your ability to cut shows loose, Deadpool. This. I watch way too many shows and once I've started I can't stop. Smallville, Dexter and Charmed are my biggest regrets - I figure I liked less than half of their entire run time and I stayed with them to the final episode. Maybe Chuck was as good as your saying and I'm just being colored by my memory of the final seasons. PriorMarcus fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Nov 10, 2013 |
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Nov 10, 2013 23:56
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A bunch of those shows either weren't on broadcast (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Psych), came on in 2009 after when you can make a plausible case for Chuck (TVD, Community), or some combination (FNL switched to cable, Parks and Rec technically overlapped but the first season was terrible). So yeah I'm definitely taking Chuck over like season 2 of Friday Night Lights and Supernatural, other people can disagree of course.
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Nov 11, 2013 00:06
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jeffersonlives posted:Oh how I wish I had your ability to cut shows loose, Deadpool. I dunno. I somehow managed to slog through all of Smallville hanging on for the couple of characters I liked and largely ignoring the others I loathed.
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Nov 11, 2013 00:24
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Once they decided that Morgan should have the intersect in his head that pretty much sealed it for me that I didn't want to watch the show anymore.
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Nov 11, 2013 01:28
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Volvo of Despair posted:Once they decided that Morgan should have the intersect in his head that pretty much sealed it for me that I didn't want to watch the show anymore.
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Nov 11, 2013 01:45
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ufarn posted:Ungh, spoilers are now trigger warnings. I'd repressed stupid plotlines like that. I went to Wikipedia to look at season 5 stuff and got reminded that loving Shaw came back one more time in season 5 after being disposed of not once but twice by our heroes.
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Nov 11, 2013 01:47
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raditts posted:I think the most work she or Awesome have gotten since Chuck was a voice acting role on one of those terrible Lego TV movies. She was in a whole season of Dexter then came back for about half of the next one, and co-stars in I, Frankenstein. It's only been 2 years since Chuck ended. But yeah Captain Awesome hasn't done much. (Also that Lego movie came out during Chuck's run.)
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Nov 11, 2013 02:08
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Aphrodite posted:But yeah Captain Awesome hasn't done much. I still think he should have landed that one big role he was up for, some old guy that looks a lot younger named Steve Rogers 
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Nov 11, 2013 02:12
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PriorMarcus posted:
I'd add Entourage and Weeds to the mix.
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Nov 11, 2013 02:14
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