Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Chuck and Moonlight

Continuing on the tv front we come to two new shows that I couldn't feel any different about, Chuck and Moonlight.

Chuck, the story of a nerdy guy who works for the Buy More (a Best Buy clone), he has simple geeky aspirations until one day he receives an email from an old friend that contains the encoded combined information of both the CIA and NSA databases. Somehow Chuck manages to absorb these files into his brain and is now effectively a living supercomputer of counterintelligence. So the only thing for the government to do is recruit him and hope this nerd can help them save the free world.

I was somewhat skeptical of this show before seeing it, I mean come on, that premise is a bit ridiculous; and the rest of the show seemed to be trying to entrench itself in something at least resembling the real world. BUT I have to say I was really pleasantly surprised by Chuck. The writing was crisp, the jokes were funny, all the actors gave solid quirky performances. After I got over the cheesy comic book element of Chuck becoming a living computer, I really really enjoyed the show. I think a accurate way to describe this show would be quirky and cute. It's definitely a spy thriller with some decent action and stunts on the surface, but really it's much more of an offbeat comedy. This is one show to definitely check out. And now I can see what a strong lineup NBC has for their Monday nights with Chuck leading into Heroes, and then followed by Journeyman. Looks like my Mondays belong to NBC. Cool deal.



The other show I watched was unfortunately an absolute disaster. Moonlight is TERRIBLE. The story here follows Mick St John, a private investigator / vampire with a conscience. He solves crimes, presumably from the pilot, with the aid of his reporter friend / love interest / girl he saved from vamps when she was a child, Beth (aka the requisite hottie). Part of the problem with Moonlight is that in a post CSI, L&O:SVU world everyone knows that the press and private investigators cannot fuck around with a crime scene. This show has so many antiquated tv cliches from old P.I. shows I was expecting Magnum to walk in at any time. Frankly that would've livened it up a bit, because not only was the show incredibly stupid it is also just lifeless. There was no spark to grab my interest at all . Mostly though I blame this travesty of a show, on the piss poor writing. It boggles my mind that anyone could make this show and not know that it would royally suck. Sorry if I'm overreacting, the show isn't worth getting upset about, it's just bad. Don't watch it, don't waste your time; and don't worry, I bet it will be canceled anyday now. If your in the States and want to, the pilot is currently available to check out for free on iTunes.


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