Hey, I used this as a sample writing for a job as a blogger for a site called Starpulse.com. Tell me what you think... or don't.
Going into making this season's finale, the creators of Chuck thought, as they did at the end of last season, that this could be their series finale. So, as many show runners have done before them, they decided to offer the network and their viewers a reset to the series, altering the show enough that they could potentially sell it as a new commodity, just with the same characters.
Last season, this meant adding fighting skills to the Intersect, along with a line from The Matrix ("I know kung fu"). This season, this meant doing away with Chuck (Zachary Levi, giving hope to geeks everywhere that all we need are downloaded special abilities and we too can get the hottest girls) as spy, and instead re-introducing him as a secret superhero, taking over where his deceased father left off in protecting the world in ways governments can’t… or won’t… or something like that. It wasn’t made all that clear in the episode exactly what Chuck’s father (They killed Scott Bakula! Who will travel through time to get two random people to fall in love now?!!) had been doing all these years, other than keeping files on organizations named after constellations.
I didn’t mind the re-invention of Chuck as a badass. I actually really liked how the show decided to handle it, by making so much of last season about Chuck coming to terms with being a spy all on his own. But that’s why I have issues with how they ended this season, because they decided to just ignore Chuck’s progression as a character and instead stick him in some completely new situation.
The creators even decided to do this just when it was perfectly set up for Chuck to finally become a world-class spy: everyone close to him was now aware of who and what he is, so it was just a matter of having them all (especially Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) who is somehow convinced she has to protect the super-spy) accept it, move on, and potentially help him out. Instead, both Chuck and the viewers have to get used to some brand new thing, and, of course, Chuck is no doubt going to go back to keeping secrets from his family, friends, and probably even his girlfriend (Yvonne Strahovski, just as hot in video game form).
I’m not saying I won’t watch the next season of Chuck (especially not when I love the show so much), or that I won’t necessarily like the next season. I’m only saying I think they made a mistake in what they could have done with the show and where they had already taken their lead character.
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Hey, welcome back to the blogging world. It had been awhile. This blog was well written, with a good argument on how rebooting a show can be fraught with difficulties. Sometimes it works (the first Alias reboot, in the episode that was after the Super Bowl), sometimes it helps the show develop in new and different ways (changing the flashbacks to flash forwards on Lost, for example) but often times, it feels to me that creators just got bored with a certain story line, and wanted to go in a new direction, fans of the show be damned (all the other Alias reboots are a good example of this, seriously how many times did they change the premise of that series, 92?). This sounds like to me that the creators of the show just couldn't have Chuck happy and free of secrets, so they decided to put up another artifical barrier so he had something else he had to hide behind. Which you are correct, it may work, but it does feel like the creators just worried that they couldn't write for a character who was out in the open with everyone he knows, and needed him to start hiding stuff again. Though blowing up the Buy More was a nice touch. Bringing Superman back from the dead, not so much. Since Josh Schwartz, the creator of Chuck, had a problem with keeping one through story line on The O.C., finally running off all the fans before putting on a solid final season (no, I didn't watch the show, but this is what I have been told by fans and other TV writers) you begin to think that it might be a tic of the creator, something he/she just can't help doing, despite the fact that it just hasn't worked in the past. Best case in point, J.J. Abrams loves to turn good guys evil (Francine, and a cast of thousands on Alias) and he has done it again on Fringe, with alt-Olivia now masquerading as "our" Olivia in our world. Which might work, but really, another one of the main characters has turned bad? You got anything else up that sleeve of yours besides that trick there, J.J.? Then again at least it wasn't Greg Grunberg or a Smoke Monster so I suppose we should be happy. Samething with Chuck, I will reserve judgment on Fringe until I see how it works on the show next year, but it does feel a little like a cheat for fans of the show to go running off in a new direction everytime a season ends, or really the wind blows the wrong way
ReplyDeleteFringe: Fringe has turned a good guy bad before, when they killed Charlie and replaced him with the shapeshifter. With Olivia-ternate, this is both that and a way to keep the lead romantic interests seperate. Also, I have a feeling that "bad" Olivia will slowly be turned good, as she meets her niece and deceased in her world sister. That wouldn't be that bad to watch, though predictible, as I've just said it.
ReplyDeleteAlias: There are discussions are bringing the show back... Seriously. And it wouldn't be a re-make, either, they would just re-boot the series, presumably with Garner and "New Face" popping up in the premiere/ pilot and then introducing the new leads. Whatever.
Finales: I said why Chuck specifically felt a need to do this and, in general, as you mentioned, shows like to reset or have a "game changer" happen every so often to keep their audiences interested. I'm not sure why. Two and Half Men is still a hit with the same damn jokes they were using in the first season, and while a change can always do you good, constant reboots and series resets get old, tired, and can actually lose the original audience while attempting to gain more fans.