Sunday, March 20, 2011

What the Chuck?

    A chain of events led me to this blog. In the February 2011 issue of Grassroots Motorsports there was a small blurb about Adam Carolla’s CarCast pod cast show. I knew that this show existed and even though I like both cars and comedy, I never downloaded it. I decided to listen, starting with the oldest episode that Carolla’s website still hosted, the show from the 29th week of 2010. Zach Levi was the guest and it was pretty entertaining. For the most part they talked about Levi’s Nissan GT-R, how he was snubbed when he “drunk dialed” Toyota trying to purchase their $375k+ Lexus LFA super car, and their shared experience at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Celebrity Race. Levi also promoted his show, Chuck. I figured if Levi could be that entertaining on a pod cast I’d have to watch his show, and I started scanning hulu.com.  Being thrown right into the thick of season four didn’t give me much hope of figuring out the back story but it was entertaining enough that I decided to start at the beginning. In the last few weeks I’ve watched the entire series to this point. I have to say, it’s a pretty good show. I guess it got under my radar this long because I usually end up watching How I Met Your Mother and, before it was moved in a plot by CBS to destroy NBC’s Community, The Big Bang Theory during the Chuck timeslot. Well, if I were a Nielsen Family I’d start watching Chuck instead. Maybe I’m just getting tired of the endless road that Ted Mosby is traveling while looking for his children’s mother (which has no end in sight since they are renewed for two more years), or maybe it’s because Chuck is good, but since I started this blog, I also started to pay a lot more attention to show ratings and Chuck needs viewers. I was looking forward to last Monday's episode because How I Met Your Mother was a repeat. I wanted to see how many crossover viewers there were and if Chuck would have a spike in ratings. It ended up being the lowest rated episode of Chuck this season. I’m not sure exactly how show renewals work but Chuck has been steadily losing viewers each season, which is never good. NBC originally ordered 13 episodes for season four with the option of nine more. When NBC decided they wanted nine more, all seemed well for Chuck, but I think the kiss of death was delivered when they asked for an additional two. You can do a lot of series wrap-ups in two episodes; just ask LOST. It has been said online that a 22 episode fifth season would really help with syndication, getting Chuck to the magic 100 episode mark, but I guess only time will tell. Let’s hope Kabletown does the right thing.

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