ICYMI: CHUCK

BY: Jeff Daugherty

In Case You Missed It is a series on PROVOKR highlighting cult TV series that have recently made their way to streaming platforms. 

I’ll always have a soft spot for Chuck, the oddball spy comedy that defied cancellation at every turn and turned Zachary Levi (Shazam!) and Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid’s Tale) into household names. This was a show that arrived in 2007, when co-creator Josh Schwartz, creator of The O.C. and later Looking for Alaska, was at the top of his game. Of the two series he launched that year, Chuck failed to achieve the overnight success enjoyed by Schwartz’s teen drama Gossip Girl, and faced the axe every season after that. 

It’s too bad that Chuck didn’t catch on immediately, if ever, because all the elements were there from day one. The leads had great timing and chemistry and the actors rounding out the supporting cast, including cult favorite Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Full Metal Jacket) and Saved By the Bell mainstay Sarah Lancaster were talented too. The soundtrack was packed with indie hits courtesy of legendary music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas (Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Twilight). 

The premise was more or less Harry Potter meets James Bond: a down-on-his-luck minimum wage tech worker learns that he has a unique ability that makes him an asset to the CIA and NSA, propelling him from Buy More, the show’s Best Buy analog, to super-spydom. All the ingredients for a hit show were there. But 2007 was notable for one other bit of TV history: the infamous Writers’ Strike. 

While the consequences of Hollywood lowballing TV and film writers echo to this day—The Apprentice rose to fill a programming vacuum, elevating the celebrity of a certain sociopath who’d later run for president—Chuck was able to survive that first obstacle. Its low season two ratings posed another challenge, however, and for a moment it looked like the series wouldn’t be picked up for a third. 

Then something pretty amazing happened. The small but dedicated fanbase, not yet ready to say goodbye to Zach Levi’s nerd-turned-spy, launched a sandwich-buying campaign to save the show. Subway, the primary sponsor of Chuck (and many NBC hour-longs at the time), agreed to help pay for the show’s new, reduced budget in exchange for some cringeworthy product placement scenes. 

The Chuck team managed to survive for two more seasons after that, bolstering its fledgling ratings by bringing in guest stars plucked from action movie royalty: Linda Hamilton and Timothy Dalton both joined in season four, with Carrie-Anne Moss rounding out the cast in season five. But all good things have to end eventually, and Chuck came to a close with a polarizing series finale in early 2012. 

All five seasons of Chuck are now streaming on Amazon, and you don’t even need to buy a Subway sandwich to watch—though we wouldn’t blame you if the persistent product placement has you craving one.