Tonight marks the end of a tumultuous five-season run for the NBC action-comedy/spy-drama series Chuck, from creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak.

The story of “Chuck” revolves around computer service technician Chuck Bartowski, played by Zachary Levi, who inadvertently becomes a CIA/NSA asset when his former Stanford roommate turned CIA operative downloads the only copy of a secret government database, the Intersect, directly into Chuck’s brain. The government assigns two agents to protect and work with Chuck, CIA Agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and NSA Major John Casey (Big Hollywood’s own Adam Baldwin).

The supporting cast includes Chuck’s best friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez), sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster), brother-in-law Devon (Ryan McPartlin) and fellow computer technicians and lackeys Jeff and Lester (played to comedic brilliance by Scott Krinsky and Vik Sahay). Guest stars over the years have included Chevy Chase, Scott Bakula, Linda Hamilton, Timothy Dalton and Carrie-Anne Moss.

The cast worked incredibly well together which, when combined with good writing and interesting storylines, produced a series that was extremely entertaining and kept me watching from the first episode. For whatever reason, the show was never able to draw in a large audience and slipped in the ratings in each subsequent season.

Chuck was able to stave off cancellation numerous times thanks to a very vocal and loyal, but unfortunately small, fan base who mounted multiple “Save Chuck” campaigns. If not for a unique sponsorship deal with the Subway restaurant chain, the series would have never even seen a third season. A deal between production company Warner Brothers and NBC for a 13-episode fifth season was only struck to get to the minimum syndication threshold of 88 episodes, which brought the series to a total of 91 episodes.

I recently spoke with Big Hollywood contributor Adam Baldwin about the series, its finale airing at 8 p.m. EST tonight and being a conservative in Hollywood.

How did you get involved with “Chuck?”

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This morning Big Hollywood published a piece co-authored by our own Liberty Chick and Adam Baldwin critical of a Wisconsin university’s decision to force a theatre professor to remove two posters from his office door. 

This afternoon, the university in question reversed their decision.

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Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports:

The recent discussion resulting from the removal of two posters hanging outside the door of a University of Wisconsin-Stout professor in Harvey Hall has raised serious First Amendment concerns, both on campus and across the country.

It is important to note that the posters were not removed to censor the professor in question. Rather, they were removed out of legitimate concern for the violent messages contained in each poster and the belief that the posters ran counter to our primary mission to provide a campus that is welcoming, safe and secure.

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There is a procedure in law called summary judgment where you can win your case without even going to trial because the basic facts are simply undisputed.  Ben Shapiro’s new book,  Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV is one of the best motions for summary judgment I’ve ever read.  There can be no dispute over the facts because Ben presents them through the words of the leading lights of Hollywood liberaldom themselves – how he got the interviews he recounts here is simply beyond me (I count over 20 pages of footnotes).  But what is clear is that the television industry is liberal-left through and through, and that it pushes its dogma upon its audience while closing ranks to ensure conservatives never get a chance to enter what Ben demonstrates is an insular, incestuous community of like-minded Democrats cocooned away from reality in an echo chamber of Obama-worshipping limo-libhood. 

The half-hearted denials of some in the industry are belied by their own actions and their own words – and, surprisingly, by the refreshingly candid admissions of some liberals in television who not only admit its intolerance and stridency but even claim to regret it.  Case closed.

Full disclosure – Ben’s a friend and my frequent “Hour of Hate” partner on Larry O’Conner’s legendary Stage Right Show.  He’s also the rarest of things – a proud Harvard Law School graduate who is fiercely conservative and who loves television (By the way, Ben’s much-mocked predilection for wearing Harvard Law hats and other apparel makes a hilarious appearance in the book).  But Ben’s no snob – he not only freely admits how much he likes television but insists that much of it is well-acted, well-directed and well-produced, its insidious pinko undercurrents notwithstanding.  Moreover, Ben is a creature of Hollywood – he has family in the industry, friends in the industry, and he even flirted with entering into it himself, until he ran smack into the seemingly impenetrable wall that is the conservative blacklist.

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At the urging of a friend, I recently plowed through all twelve episodes of the first season of the Fox action/adventure series Human Target (2010) on DVD. He thought I’d like it, and he was right. Loosely based off of a DC comic book character, it’s a story about a trio of badasses (a reformed assassin, a former cop, and a torture-happy, jack-of-many-trades mercenary) now running a company set on protecting innocent clients against the evildoers looking to harm them. The plots were peppered with hefty amounts of first-rate stuntwork, exciting gunplay, MacGyver-like ingenuity, and some memorably feminine (in all the best ways) supporting players.

The music by Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead) evoked a cinematic air in the James Bond/Indiana Jones mold, but with an underlying somberness that lent a pleasing heft to the proceedings:

YouTube -- click here to watch in full-screen

Actors Mark Valley, Chi McBride, and Jackie Earle Haley all shine in their roles for various reasons — especially Haley, whose delicious politically incorrect performance as Guerrero is the most consistently entertaining tough guy I’ve seen on TV since Michael K. Williams’ Robin Hood-of-the-ghetto Omar in HBO’s The Wire (a show that ended up ruined by its nihilistic writers, but that’s a topic for another post).

But later, settling in to begin watching Season 2 of Human Target on my computer, I wondered if Fox could bring a fledgling action/adventure series into its sophomore year without their usual pattern of first screwing it up and then unceremoniously canceling it. The sad spectacle of Big Hollywood regular Adam Baldwin’s Firefly getting canned before it even had a chance to get started was the most lamentable flameout of many at that often hapless network. Sure, they gave us The X-Files, but that was a looooong time ago. They also gave us 24, but I go against the usual conservative meme by thinking the show terrible. Human Target, on the other hand, held a lot of promise — but would they be able to capitalize on it? (more…)

The 2007 fall season was to new television shows what a gold-digging Russian home wrecker with a tape recorder was to Mel Gibson’s career.  Most of the new network offerings that year met with a premature ratings death and were unceremoniously cancelled.  One of my favorite shows, “Chuck,” emerged from the carnage.  Despite some trials and tribulations, this show has clawed its way back from the same chopping block that took “Back to You,” “Caveman,” and “Dirty, Sexy Money” and is now once again part of the NBC Prime Time lineup.  The trip was not an easy one, though.

”Chuck” is a well written, snappy, multi-layered show that doesn’t hang its hat on one particular peg.  It can be funny, poignant, dramatic, and action packed (sometimes all at once).  These are all points in its favor; none of it would be any good if the cast couldn’t deliver what the writers had created.  Let’s face it, Shakespeare’s best work would seem absolutely silly if Paris Hilton was delivering the dialogue. 

The “Chuck” cast is led by Zachery Levi in the title role of Chuck Bartowski, a computer repair person at an electronic store who accidentally becomes a national security asset (or liability…it depends on your point of view).  Yvonne Strahovski plays his occasionally lethal but always stunning CIA minder and girlfriend, Sara Walker.  Television and film veteran, Adam Baldwin, rounds out the main cast as Colonel John Casey.  Colonel Casey is an NSA agent, and the third member of “Team Bartowski.”  He is what one would get if they combined the patriotism of Ronald Reagan, the crabbiness of Lucy from the Charlie Brown cartoons, and the sheer destructive power of Godzilla or Mike Tyson. (more…)

Without question, my favorite 4th of July film is Independence Day (1996), also known as “ID4,” where earth engages in a desperate battle against evil extra-terrestrials (is there any other kind?).

Roland Emmerich, when he still used to make movies that entertained, pitted nerdy Jeff Goldblum, heroic Will Smith, and sensible Bill Pullman against massive enemy spaceships that were all but invincible until, ala War of the Worlds, Smith and Goldblum –  the Marine fighter pilot and the computer programmer — fly a captured alien fighter ship up to the mother vessel to impregnate it with a computer virus.

Smith’s lines remain classics to this day: after opening the hatch to a downed enemy fighter, he punches the slithering alien in the, well, face, and says “welcome to earth,” and while dragging the tentacled, smelly creature back to the base, he shouts, “I coulda been at a barbecue!” While ostensibly the movie pitted “humankind” in a struggle for survival, which Pullman, in one of the film’s lamest scenes, likened to our Independence Day, audiences knew the truth: the United States solved the problem with good old American insight, practicality, innovation, and Big Hollywood’s own Adam Baldwin. (more…)

It might not be my place to do the first “Chuck” post at Big Hollywood, what with Adam Baldwin being a contributor here and all, but one needed to be done (especially since the season finale airs tonight) and I am all about stepping up.  It is probably better for a fan of the show to write about it anyway because it would be a bit embarrassing for Baldwin to have to go on and on about how incredible his John Casey character is. 

For those who have not yet watched “Chuck,” let me explain what you are missing while you still have time to rent and watch the first seasons on DVD before reruns of the current season begin.  “Chuck” is an hour-long comedy/action/drama airing Monday nights on NBC.  The show is now completing its third season and has just been renewed for a fourth. 

The series follows the adventures of Buy More electronics store employee, Chuck Bartowski, who is sucked into the world of spies when his former college roommate downloads the “Intersect” into Chuck’s brain via encrypted email. The “Intersect” turns Chuck’s brain into a super computer full of the country’s most vital security secrets.  Later in the series, Chuck downloads the Intersect 2.0 which not only fills him with information about foreign agents and secret missions, but gives him special skills that enable him to function as a kickass trained spy. (more…)

This week’s Best of The Stage Right Show features interviews with Gary Graham, Jason Mattera, Dana Loesch, Gabriel Malor, Liz Carter and Adam Baldwin.

We covered topics including the November elections, the Young Conservative Movement, the Erick Erickson controversy, the “Smoking in the Bathroom” scare on United Airlines, Bart Stupak’s resignation and Justice John Paul Stevens calling it quits from SCOTUS. (more…)

ObamaCare and ACORN dominated the subject this past week with guests Mike Flynn, Adam Baldwin, Andrew Breitbart, Kurt Schlichter, Jeremy Boering and Patrick (Patterico) Frey chiming in.

This week’s highlight show also features my repeal strategy for the Republicans, Patterico’s definitive debunking of the lies from the left regarding James O’Keefe’s wardrobe in the ACORN videos, Breitbart’s explanation of his bubble bath photo in Time Magazine, Flynn’s rallying cry for all frustrated Americans and Baldwin handling a very hostile caller with class and grace. (more…)

On this week’s highlight show (listen in below the fold), we start with John Nolte talking about the incredible back-and-forth he had this week with Roger Ebert over his semi-coherent Twitter ramblings.

We also have an interview with Andrew Breitbart and Adam Baldwin on location in a bar in Hollywood.  They speak about the current political climate and how Big Hollywood is moving the conversation forward and motivating the tea party movement.

Internet sensation Demon Sheep joined us on Wednesday and provided a lot of laughs.  Big Hollywood contributor Gary Graham also joined us and discussed life in Hollywood as a conservative as well as his recent mission to Haiti.

Finally, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche was our guest for a thorough interview on the NEA conference call story as well as his life and career before the story broke last year. (more…)

The men and women who earn the right to wear eagle, globe and anchor of the United States Marine Corps are a special breed.   To those outside the Corps, they talk funny.  They look funny.  They are extremely impressed with themselves – and they have every right to be. 

My beloved United States Army is a blunt instrument, a magnificent club that has pummels our nation’s enemies into submission.  But the Marines are America’s rapier, a razor sharp weapon of war that has never been bested and never will be.  For over two centuries, the United States Marine Corps has been fighting our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea.  They don’t give up.  They don’t quit.  There’s no word for retreat in a Marine’s vocabulary.  And they are making history even today in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere.

November 10th is the Corps’ 234th birthday.  With the indulgence of my Devil Dog brethren, here is this Army veteran’s countdown of the Top Ten Marine Corp movies: (more…)

WE WANT YOU! Want a chance to show your appreciation for those that have served our country? The opportunity is here. 

On Saturday, Oct. 10, more than 150 wounded heroes will complete a 7-day, 475-mile journey from San Francisco to LA. The Wounded Heroes, many home from Iraq and Afghanistan, are cycling down scenic Highway 1 from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Their goal is to raise awareness and money to provide bikes and equipment for mental and physical therapy for fellow military heroes. The final leg of this journey brings the riders down San Vicente Blvd. from 26th to the West LA VA. 

This is where you come in.  We are looking for everyone, You, your family, friends, community members, organizations, and congregations to come out and line San Vicente Blvd. all the way to the VA. Welcome home these brave men and women and cheer them on their final miles.  Special guest riders include James Cromwell, Adam Baldwin, Tobey Maguire, Mike Vogel, Patricia Heaton, David Hunt, Kristy Swanson, Adam Housley, and Andrew Breitbart.  (more…)

Thank God for America’s Armed Forces and Her courageous men and women in uniform who selflessly stand for us “between our beloved home and the desolation of war.”

Such brave and heroic souls, with their families’ steadfast love of country and sacrifices in support of their mission – to secure the Blessings of Liberty to our selves and our posterity – provide for us all the sacred opportunity to pursue our own happiness, hopes and dreams.

For that, we fellow Americans must pledge our humble and eternal gratitude to all those in service to our nation, past, present and future. (more…)

The day got off to a great start when former President George Bush showed up to visit the wounded warriors and give us a big sendoff on our way to Arlington and Texas Rangers Ballpark.

The weather again cooperated with a brisk tailwind to get to the ballpark in time to throw out the first pitch. The last day was full of celebration and looking back at the week that brought us all together. The ride is full of stories that none of us will ever forget. (more…)

The day got started with cloudy, cold, and windy weather as the group made its way to breakfast. By the time the ride briefing was over and it was time to start, the skies became blue and the roads dry. It was a beautiful day to ride to Austin. On Day 2, the ride always goes smoother and the pace picks up a bit as everyone settles into their rhythm. Despite a brisk head wind, the groups finally formed and the fun got into full swing….

Each day along the route, the USO Canteen sets up a lunch rest stop which is a great relief for all of the riders. Today, the town of Manchaca hosted the ride. A local insurance agent, Lety Johnson, was so happy to have met us–her son is leaving on Saturday for US Marine bootcamp. She hopes the group comes back next year so she can sponsor lunch. (more…)

The day got off to a great start as the weather was great with sunny skies and temps in the mid 80’s as a tailwind blew the R2R group all the way 55 miles to San Marcos. After a quick ride briefing, Chad was presented with a special bike that Cowboy legend Roger Staubach autographed for him–it is neat to see grown men brought to tears.

The guys and gals also got geared up; can’t say enough about all of the support this program receives from our partners.  Jerseys, socks, arm warmers, glasses, the all important Chamois butt’r, and T-shirts…soon we were off. (more…)

The TV series “Chuck” this last week had some dialogue on the benefits of carrying one’s gun with them (Chuck Versus the Predator). Chuck (Zachary Levi)  formulated a mission at the Buy More electronic store and insisted the team — Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) and Casey (Adam Baldwin) — not carry guns. Chuck then gets captured by a Fulcrum Agent… (more…)