Like many of my generation, perhaps most of my media-watching experiences now come through online streaming. I got into most of the shows I have on my TV/Book/Film Recommendations list through Netflix, even if I then turned to appointment television to stay caught up on them. For instance, Bones, How I Met Your Mother, Fringe, New Girl, White Collar, Warehouse 13, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alphas, Pushing Daisies and Arrested Development all made it onto this list for that reason, and as you can see, Netflix allowed me to watch even shows that were cancelled before they caught my interest (like Chuck).
For this reason, I've decided to create a recurring segment for the blog for every new (or old) show that I catch up on through Netflix binge-watches. This will be the first of certainly many more posts to come -- all will have titles beginning with "Binge-watch" and will be tagged with the binge-watch label. I have also retroactively added the binge-watch tag to shows I have discussed in previous posts. In this way, I want to bring to light my own personal watching habits and would love discussing that of others within the comments or in entire blog posts if people are interested. This is a subject that's personally very engaging for me, and I often wonder what kind of compromises we make or if we get anything different out of a story by binge-watching rather than getting slow-paced, weekly installments.
That's my introduction and the reasoning behind the new segment -- now, let's talk specifically about Chuck (there will be SPOILERS up to season 2, but please don't post anything past that in comments!)
Chuck is exactly what I wanted and expected from this show -- fun and silly and sweet and interesting. I really enjoy all the main characters, especially Chuck, Casey, and Sarah. Sometimes I feel like the Buy More personalities are a little much, but I still find them pretty funny. I also really like the avoided stereotype of the "Bro" as represented by Ellie's boyfriend, Captain Aweseome, a.k.a. Devin. Everything from the tone of his voice to his vocabulary screams bro/frat boy but he's been shown to be a lot more than that. He's smart enough to be a doctor, and a faithful and loving boyfriend to Ellie. Occasionally the relationship between Chuck and Ellie plays off weirdly close for siblings, but that has been explained in the fact that their parents pretty much left them on their own and they had to take care of each other. It's nice to see siblings that pretty much never want to kill each other, as is the case on many other television shows.
Chuck can be pretty predictable at times. I don't know if it's because I'd seen too many references to Bryce Larkin on tumblr or if it was just obvious, but I knew Bryce wasn't dead right from the start. I hadn't seen it coming, however, that Bryce actually betrayed Chuck to protect him from the CIA life. I was also able to easily guess that Orion would be Chuck's father. Many plot points in many episodes fail to surprise, but that doesn't bother me. I'm in it for the fun and to see Chuck reacting to these new situations, which always catch him by surprise and at the most inconvenient times.
I really like this show, but I do wonder how long it goes before something really changes it up. Right now it's mostly been case of the week, Chuck's feelings for Sarah, and his ultimate desire to get the Intersect out of his head. I definitely feel like that might get tiresome down the line, but right now, I really enjoy its familiar consistency.
I've already added this show to my list of recommendations because I'm only two seasons in, but I'm definitely hooked.
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