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?”

It was an audition, typical pilot season, and I went in for the producers for the first and then they called me back for the studio, which was Warner Brothers, and that went well. So they called me back for the network audition and that went well and they gave me the job.

When I was auditioning for the network I saw Zach Levi there and another guy they had. It was really between the two of them, and the other guy was not tall. Zach is six-four and I thought “Good. I hope the tall guy gets it” ’cause then I got a shot.

This might have been one of the tallest casts ever with you, Zach and Ryan, and even Yvonne and Sara. Did you ever feel bad for Joshua Gomez?

No, because we needed a troll. Once you’re over six-foot, you’re in the tall man’s club, and it’s a little easier when you’re working with tall people. “Firefly” was like that too. Nathan Fillion is like six-one, or six-two, six-three, whatever, and most everyone else was tall on that show, so it made it a lot easier.

It’s kind of unique, I think, to have a show that’s been on the brink of being axed so many times come back. You were so close to syndication after season 4. Why wouldn’t the network at least get to that point where you can start getting some guaranteed money back off of it? John Nolte has posted recently about “30 Rock.” They pump it as this great show, this high rated show, and last season “Chuck” beat it. You guys were ranked 101 and it was 106.

Hold on, follow the money. Is “30 Rock” an in-house, all the way along, NBC production? I think it is, and ours, I know, is a Warner Brother’s licensing fee to NBC. Anytime you’ve got a show that’s an outside producer licensing it back to the network, there’s extra costs involved, so as people working on the show, you have to consider, well “what’s the licensing fee?” Is it a million per episode? Is it a dollar per episode? The business stuff is beyond my pay grade. Business is business. Robert Greenblatt, the head of NBC now, said that for the 13 episode half-season, Warner Brothers, the production company that was licensing it to NBC said “hey, they made us a deal we couldn’t refuse” because Warner Brothers wanted to get to beyond the magic number of 88, which is 22 episodes times four seasons. I think that’s the magic number these days. It used to be 100, but now it’s 88, and Warner Brothers wanted to get to that number so they were able to make a deal to get there. And, I think the bottom line is: follow the money.

It’s a show that wasn’t highly rated in the demographic, or as highly rated as certainly they wanted it to be. But they were close enough to a syndication number that they could get that. I don’t know what any syndication deals are. It’s certainly not a number that I could retire on. I’m not looking for that. Bottom line is, I’m happy that we got five seasons, 91 episodes was the total, I believe. Ninety-one episodes out of a show that was a bubble show from the get go. So, we’re very happy with that. It was a good run. Five years these days, in this market, is a good run. And that’s the bottom line of the message I want to express is that these days, to get that far along is an exception to the rule. And we had a fan base that was a huge part of that. They were very loyal.

There were a lot of factors for “Chuck” behind the scenes that kept it going, whereas other shows would not have kept going. “Heroes” cost a lot more than we did, we were able to keep our budgets pretty low, and it’s a big benefit that the powers that be, the heads of Warner Brothers, they liked the show. And NBC, they really liked the show. They liked the characters and the producers and the story lines, so they wanted to keep it going but, five years, hey, let’s wrap it up. And that’s fine. I’ve got no problem with that. I’m not as heartbroken by this as I was by “Firefly” with only thirteen episodes, like, dude, there’s so much more to give.

You seem to do a lot of military-type roles. How much of John Casey is really Adam Baldwin?

I have been blessed, through those military roles, to meet military men and women. My father was in the United Stated Naval Air Corps in World War II. My grandfather was in the army in World War I. So, I have a legacy. I did not serve, but I respect and admire those that do. I always will. And anyone that is a technical advisor, who’s had military training, on our show I try to glean as much authenticity as I can and add that to the character that I’m playing. And I recognize the fact that I’m just an actor trying to play a role. It’s an action comedy, so I try to balance the funny with the action and the seriousness in that.

I do take the responsibility of portraying a guy who’s serious about protecting the nation and I am a serious patriot, an American Patriot. I believe that without our military, fighting men and women, that our country would have fallen long ago. But they didn’t allow that to happen so I support and defend that in my civilian capacity as much as I can. And I try to portray that as well as I can. So, I love the military. I love weapons as tools of defending liberty, individual liberty, and freedom. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in the American founding documents, or as Madison or Adams called them, America’s political scriptures, which are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

You’ve been working pretty much constantly since 1980 with “My Bodyguard.” Did you ever fear that having political views like yours would hurt your career?

No. I’m fearless for several reasons. One is because, I think, the truth is not something that people can hold against you. And I have a Twitter stream where I consistently ask folks to tell me where I’ve been factually incorrect. And if someone can point that out I’m happy to say “hey, you’re right. I missed that point, I missed that fact” and I’ll correct it. But that’s a rare exception.

Casey defends, protects, serves America, which is what America’s scriptures say, which is protect, secure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, that’s what Casey, he is. You know, the folks (on “Chuck”) were accommodating to the fact that I brought a perspective that they necessarily didn’t have in their life, or their creative writing, that could make John Casey more authentic. So I tried to do that as much as I can. I was a supporting character, I’m not Chuck. The show is called “Chuck,” I’m John Casey, but I tried to be a supporting role, a pivotal role but a supporting role and be a team player. You want to be a team player. So the key is, for conservatives on a show, is don’t be an asshole. Like, Wil Wheaton has “don’t be a dick.” It’s Wil Wheaton’s rule or law or whatever the hell it’s called. Yeah, don’t be a dick.

But here’s the dirty little secret about Hollywood that I’ve talked about and people don’t talk about enough is that, most people in Hollywood are on the right side of the political spectrum. They just are. Because they live their lives like normal American people do. And the majority of normal Americans are center-right, because they want the government out of their lives, as John Casey does. He wants to protect people’s lives, keep government out of it. But, there’s political correctness that infects Hollywood. Our main enemy, while in the background may be Russia and China, our virulent enemy right now is radical Islam and those people that would support radical Islam to blow up our buildings and kill our people and all that stuff. It’s unfortunate that we aren’t able to address that on a TV show that bows to political correctness. What’s the Jack Bauer show, “24?” I mean, they did it. I wish we’d done more of it.

Since there are so many to the right of center in Hollywood, why do you think it’s so rare to have someone who actually admits it?

Well, there are few people who can.

But why is that?

It’s a combination of reasons. I’ll just speak for myself. I grew up with parents who were teachers. And in my youth and twenties, thirties, before I had kids, when I was still focusing on myself, I bought into what my friends, who I thought were my smart friends, taught me or told me to believe. And that’s very common in Hollywood. The leftist ideology is extremely common in the intellectual circles. And it’s very attractive, it’s seductive, it’s sexy to be smarter than you really are. Now, I didn’t go to college, I didn’t graduate college. So I admired those who did. And I admired those who had information that either seemed collegiate, seemed intellectual, high intellectual purpose, whatever, and I aspired to that. So I succumbed to “this is true. The leftist argument is true” because it was really the only argument I’m hearing. It was the echo chamber effect. The Pauline Kael “I never met anyone who voted for Nixon” in ’72, when he won in a landslide. The Pauline Kael effect. I ran in circles of people who, it didn’t even come up. Hell, I didn’t vote for a Republican president until the second term of Clinton.

What changed?

Well, Clinton. And, I’ve written about this on Big Hollywood, the information that became available in the new media. I’ve written about Rush Limbaugh’s effect, but that’s just one piece of the puzzle. You know, Limbaugh had a broad outreach. Most people in America, most people in Hollywood who are working are center-right. It’s just they’re not vocal about it. The problem is, if you become vocal in a workplace there are people who will defend you and there are people who will not defend you.

So the conservatives, center-right, libertarians, whatever you want tocall it, they’ve just decided to remain silent and work, get their money go home and raise their families, which I admire and I respect. And I’ve talked to lots of guys over the years who just live their lives that way. It’s not arguable.There are people who will bring the argument to work. And I think that’s wrong, left or right. Although, you’re going to get a pass, for the most part, because the bosses, the creative people who are sitting in the chairs hiring you, are going to say “I disagree with you so I don’t want to have to deal with this tension.” But, I don’t argue with these people on the set in any way.

I certainly never would instigate an argument about politics on a TV or movie set. It’s stupid. Unless you can take it off to the side and talk to people and say “yeah, does this make sense or does this not make sense?” Because, why would you want to piss off your boss? But there are people in the business who want to piss off their boss because they’re pissed off. And that’s stupid, in any business. Why would you want to piss off the boss? I’ve met guys in Hollywood, actors and actresses, who have a legitimate point of view, but who push it too hard in the workplace. And that’s a mistake.

That’s my take with these leftists who speak out. Sixty percent of the country is right leaning. Why would you want to risk alienating sixty percent of your potential audience?

Well, that’s a whole other argument. That’s your product, what you’re delivering to the market. John Nolte wrote that great article the Top 10 Ways Hollywood Can Win Its Audience Back. It’s spot on why movies and TV are alienating the audience. John’s article is one of the most profound and true articles about Hollywood that I’ve ever read. I don’t know how much of a student of Hollywood you are, but when I first got here in the early ’80s they told me to read Goldman’s book “Adventures in the Screen Trade.” That’s the deal.

Who was your favorite “Chuck” guest star?

Scott Bakula. He and Chevy Chase were my favorite male guest stars. My favorite female guest stars would be Carrie-Anne Moss and Rebecca Romijn because she is just stunningly beautiful. She is just amazingly, stunningly beautiful.

Were you satisfied with the ending they came up with?

Yeah, it was nice. It turned out OK. I can’t complain. It’s hard to comment because I haven’t seen it. Having shot it, I would say that I think the characters were served. And their relationships were served.

What were your feelings when filming came to an end? Was it bittersweet that you actually got to have a definite ending and you weren’t cut off during the summer when it had just been another cliff-hanger ending?

Yeah, that was a big advantage for us. We were given the blessing of that. It was hard, but at least we had a chance to close it out, to shoot on film “goodbye.” It was a good run. Five years is a good run in anybody’s book, in any TV show. You get five years, for cryin’ out loud, that’s two more years than “Star Trek” got. That’s good.

Did you keep the picture of Ronald Reagan that was in Casey’s apartment?

Well, that was mine. That was a copy I have, so I have the original. Yes.

What’s next for you?

It’s just coming out of holiday season. There’s nothing on the table. I’ll never work again. The perennial actor’s lament, “I will never work again.” I don’t know. I don’t have anything on paper yet.

Would you prefer to stay in TV or go back to movies?

TV’s great. It’s consistent work. We’ll see. The answer is, I don’t know. But, I’m happy to have been a part of a show where young actors, who really are nice people, got a chance to show themselves for who they are, and what they are talent wise. And they will continue. That’s my goal as an elder statesman of the show. These guys, they’re going to be around for a while. So, I’m blessed in that regard.

The final episode of “Chuck” airs at 8 p.m. EST tonight on NBC.

This afternoon, the university in question reversed their decision.

—–

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.

In retrospect, however, it is clear that the removal of the posters – although done with the best intent – did have the effect of casting doubt on UW-Stout’s dedication to the principles embodied in the First Amendment, especially the ability to express oneself freely. As many people have pointed out in the days since this issue surfaced, a public university must take the utmost care to protect this right.

Therefore, UW-Stout has reconsidered its decision to remove the two posters from outside the professor’s office, meaning he can display them if he so chooses.

Read the original piece here.

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.

As Ben documents in exquisite detail, the conservative blacklist operates both directly and indirectly.  In some cases, television industry bigwigs simply refuse to hire conservatives because they hate conservatives – the late Bruce Paltrow comes off here as a particularly obnoxious jerk, which goes a long way toward explaining his half-wit daughter Gwyneth.  But much of the reason is simply affinity.  As Ben documents, the industry has always been a very small community of like-minded individuals who dwell not only within the physical confines of the same LA/NYC world but, equally importantly, share the same world view.  If you are not one of them inside the bubble, they will never see you to hire you.  Naturally, this leads to the kind of nepotism that explains the rise of overrated no-talents like Gwyneth Paltrow – many of the people who hired her had known her since she was a weird-looking little kid and besides, it couldn’t hurt to do a favor for a guy with the pull of her father Bruce.

Ben shows how this direct and indirect phenomenon also applies to the content of the shows themselves.  Some industry players make no bones about it – they seek to directly influence the audience with outright propaganda.  What’s interesting is that this is rarely successful – audiences hate being hit over the head with unadulterated lefty agit-prop and quickly turn away when it gets too heavy-handed.  A good example is Ellen, an innocuous little comedy series that did okay until the star and her on-screen doppelganger came out and made the show all lesbian, all the time – and not hot lipstick lesbian but whiny, crunchy, let’s-do-macramé-and-other-crafts lesbian.  No one wants that.

But the indirect approach is the most effective, and Ben presents an airtight case that much of the liberal normalization promoted by television is the result not of a conscious desire to change the world but simply by a desire to reflect “reality.”  Of course, the “reality” of liberal Hollywood types is not the reality of some nuclear family with 2.5 kids and a minivan in a suburb of Kansas City.  Hollywood’s “reality” reflects its own freaky, dysfunctional lifestyle; this bizarre anomaly is the image broadcast to America as “normal.”  Sadly, too many Americans accept that image and internalize it – a quick examination of statistics on any social pathology is going to show a correlation with the liberal long-march through the television industry that Ben so thoroughly documents.

And document it he does.  How did he get these interviews?  Don’t these people have minions to Google the guys who want to talk to them?  Ben speaks to dozens of Hollywood players, from out conservatives like Big Hollywood contributor Adam Baldwin to hugely successful (and therefore largely liberal) TV executives, writers and producers like Brandon Stoddard, Fred Silverman, Leonard Goldberg, Abby Singer, Larry Gelbart , David Shore, Marcy Carsey, Tom Fontana and Marc Cherry (the Desperate Housewives creator who is a rare Hollywood Republican).

Ben’s not one to just shrug his shoulders and sit there – every time we meet for lunch at a kosher restaurant (Ben takes his faith as well as his politics seriously; he also tolerates my unsuccessful efforts to score a cheeseburger) he is working on about a dozen ideas.  Primetime Propaganda not only makes the case but offers solutions.  The answer is neither confrontation nor retreat, but engagement.  In fact, it’s almost a Gramscian “long march” infiltration strategy.

One more thing – Primetime Propaganda is not only an essential and irrefutable argument about the state of Hollywood and a battle plan for addressing the problem but a great read.  Sadly, I had to wait to peruse my advance copy because my Hot Wife kept taking it for herself.  Fans of The Stage Right Show are already familiar with how Ben’s mind works faster than his mouth – he has so many ideas he literally cannot talk fast enough to get them all out, though he tries mightily.  On paper, Ben’s insights have a chance to come out slowly and in detail, but the same lacerating wit still shines through.  There are zingers galore.  You get the best of Ben – smart and smartass.

But a thousand-word review cannot capture either the full depth of Ben’s argument or the wealth of interesting facts behind many of our favorite shows, like how The Dick Van Dyke Show broke through racial barriers.  He goes through dozens of shows in detail – it’s fascinating and alarming all at once.  Best of all, while this is an important book for conservatives who want to know why TV is what it is, reading it is not a painful duty – it’s a pleasure.

Primetime Propaganda presents an open and shut case – the charge is that television is a liberal enterprise that acts directly and indirectly to impose its worldview on its dwindling audience while simultaneously acting to exclude conservative voices and views.  And there can be only one verdict after reading this damning indictment:  Guilty as charged.

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:

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?

At first, things looked good. The opening episode of Season 2 rocked, most memorably in the startling scene when Jackie Earle Haley cold-cocks a skinny little waif in a thunderous recapitulation of his character’s essential Sam Spade ethic of never playing the sap for anybody. But by the end of the hour, it became clear that some horrendous changes were in the making. Not one but two ladies were added to the permanent weekly roster alongside the three guys — and as the second episode progressed it became clear that both were firmly stuck in the sad realm of hoary Hollywood feminist cliché. In scene after tiresome scene, both characters repeatedly dissipated every attempt at recapturing the sleek, blistering, cat-and-mouse action of the first season.

Now, whenever Jackie Earle Haley begins to quietly infuse a scene with menace, threatening to put some industrial-grade hurt on the bad guys, the same skinny little waif he cold-cocked earlier leaps in uninvited, ruins his plans, and (totally out of character for Haley’s Guerrero) is allowed to skip away without repercussion. And now, whenever the formidable assassin/cop tandem of Mark Valley and Chi McBride put one of their brutal but effective tough-love plans into motion to help a client, the other new woman (who has become the team’s boss in another of Hollywood’s painfully tired and overused feminist-fantasy plot twists) incessantly questions the heroes’ motives and actions like a harried mother chastising her bratty kids.

What a disaster. In place of the excellent female characters that wove their way in and out of the first season — Emmanuelle Vaugier’s game FBI agent, Kristin Lehman’s mobster’s daughter turned district attorney, Autumn Reeser’s spunky computer hacker, Leonor Varela’s South American guerrilla spitfire, Grace Park’s icy oddsmaker, Moon Bloodgood’s Alaskan doctor — we now have two regulars who offer nothing to the existing team except whining, complaining, nagging, bitching, moaning, and (in the case of the new boss) passive-aggressively yapping out crisp, rude orders in between bouts of mewling “Maybe I can’t handle this.”

You would think that in this day and age, hip Hollywood writers would avoid that most catastrophic of clichés, the hectoring female sidekick. The difference between Season 1 and Season 2 of Human Target is like the difference between Raiders of the Lost Ark’s Marion Ravenwood and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’s Willie Scott. As scene after mind-numbing scene degenerates into domesticated, needy, hyper-emotional neuroticism, what used to be a blissful escape from reality now feels like just another hour at work, class, or home.

Another demerit against the second season is the absence of composer Bear McCreary, whose cinematic orchestral effusions have been replaced by a techno score (punctuated by the use of contemporary pop tunes like Outkast’s “Hey Ya!”) indistinguishable from any number of other insipid modern television series. They didn’t even keep the show’s main theme, choosing instead a faux rock style for the opening credits:

Doing some research, I discovered that Human Target’s showrunner, Jonathan E. Steinberg, was dumped after Season 1 and replaced by Matt Miller. Miller hails from NBC’s Chuck, another show that started out with lots of promise before largely degenerating into a series of exhausted “will she?/won’t he?” scenes of manufactured romantic drama unworthy of a soap opera, much less a pleasantly goofy spy satire. I note that Chuck also features a harridan-as-boss dictatorially snapping out rude orders from her booster chair in the Pentagon (actress Bonita Friedericy is 5’3’’).

ZAP2It’s “TV By the Numbers” blog reports that, given the declining ratings ever since these terrible moves were made, Human Target is now “certain to be cancelled.” If so, it will be a mercy killing. I fear that conservatives won’t get the TV shows they want until technology allows for Hollywood-quality programming to be made and streamed online completely independent of the big studios and their advertisers. It is then that we’ll see shows like Human Target continue on in their original alluring vein rather than succumb to death by a thousand perfume inhalations.

”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.

The chemistry between these three is tremendous and together they are both entertaining and charming.   While Zachery, Yvonne, and Adam do the heavy lifting, they are backed up by a chorus of secondary characters that seem like they would be equally at home in a Douglas Adams’ novel as they are within the world created by the writers of Chuck.  In short, this is a three dimensional show that goes beyond the main characters.  The guys off the bench are not just simply a backdrop or comic foil for the big three, but can carry story-lines on their own and make significant contributions.  This makes it no surprise that Chuck was a favorite of the critics.  Of course none of this meant very much when Chuck was slated for cancellation after the 2009 season. 

Critics liked Chuck, but he wasn’t bringing the sort of ratings that warranted renewal.  Conventional wisdom says that if they focused less on creating stories and more on filming Yvonne Strahovski in lingerie, they could have attracted more people from the herd of those who find “Jersey Shore” or those “Real Housewives of…” shows so compelling.  Thankfully, the creators seemed to have more integrity than that.  In most cases, Chuck would have been quietly cancelled and probably replaced with a celebrity talent show.  This wasn’t “most” cases however.  For a change the critics, viewing public, and big named sponsors were on the same page when it came to saving this show.  An aggressive letter writing campaign by thousands of dedicated fans, articles written by supportive critics, and publicity stunts with major sponsors like “Subway” got the show renewed.

This is not the first time that a letter writing campaign has been mounted to save a television program.  Many fans of “My Name is Earl” made a similar effort to save that show, but NBC still dropped the ax.  Adam Baldwin spoke to Big Hollywood about why the fan-driven, “Save Chuck” effort succeeded where others had failed.    

“There are two main elements that contributed to survivability.  The main ones are the fan reaction to the show and the support that they put in over the time that it has been on the air.  It is a dedicated fan base, loyal, and outspoken.  The other main one is the fact that the producers were able to take a day out of the schedule.  We were originally an eight day shooting schedule and that was cut to seven days, which decreased the budget by a full day, making the show more cost effective.”

While the strong fan support and the flexibility of the producers, cast, and crew were enough to save Chuck, the show was relegated to the purgatory of the winter season, and theoretically had to prove its worth…again.

They started slow, with series low ratings numbers, but finished strong enough to instill confidence in NBC executives.  They ordered 13 episodes for the fall season, with an option for an additional nine episodes.  Success comes at a price.  And Chuck may have stepped into a trap that has often been a series killer for many previous television programs.

A big part of the show has been the ongoing romantic entanglement (well actually, the non-entanglement) between Chuck and Sara.  For quite some time it was very clear that the characters were deeply in love, but circumstances, duty, bad advice from friends, romantic clumsiness, and the fact that most geek types are not used to girls who are not made of polyurethane kept getting in the way.  It created a delicious sort of sexual tension that was entertaining but ultimately unsustainable.  In the past, once a show resolved the tension and got the characters together, it changed the on-screen dynamic in ways that ultimately led to cancellation.  In short, the episodes became less captivating without the “will they or won’t they” aspect.  A good example of this is the show “Moonlighting” from the eighties.  Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd played the leads in that detective show.  Once the characters entered into a romantic relationship the program entered into ratings insolvency. 

The trap in this situation is that if the tension goes on for too long, the viewer will simply get frustrated and abandon the show.  If the tension gets resolved, the viewer will be emotionally satisfied, light a cigarette, and ultimately find a new show they can start a new tension-filled relationship with.  “Friends” avoided this with Ross and Rachel because of a strong ensemble cast.  There was always a balance of tension and emotional satisfaction that kept the audience fully engaged and tuned in. 

When asked about this, Mr. Baldwin seemed to agree that character diversity would also continue to keep Chuck fresh and entertaining.

“You have a broader range of characters that people tune in to see.  If people don’t want to see just the two having a love story, then they can cut over to the Buy More.”

Going forward into its fourth season Chuck is in a precarious position.  At this point in time they have 54 episodes under their belt.  This is short of the number of episodes that Chuck needs for a chance at syndicated immortality. For that honor they need approximately 88 unique episodes.  The 13 episodes that NBC bought for this season pushes the total to 67, and if the extra 9 episode option gets picked up they are sitting on the syndication bubble of 76.  So this is a make or break year for Chuck.  I believe that the writing and the actors are up to the task.  This is an extremely fun show, and if the goal is to entertain the audience then I say mission accomplished.  The only danger that Chuck faces from a creative standpoint is if they try to fall back on the tired old saw of recapturing the sexual tension between Chuck and Sara.  That ship has sailed, and the dynamic between the two is changed forever. 

Neither the Mayan calendar that predicted the end of the world, nor the Amazing Kreskin had much to say about the future of Chuck, but in a perfect world Chuck will have a very long run.  Chuck represents hope for a large segment of the population.  Chuck makes everyone who can fix an operating system but is confused by the female obsession with shoes think that there is a better, more exciting life out there for them.

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.

Two relatively average people, not the speechifyin’ president,  account for the victory, with a great deal of help from a suddenly sober Randy Quaid, who has a few of his own choice lines (“Hello, boys. I’m baaa-aack.”)

Those of us old enough to remember the theatrical release also recall that in those days of Bill Clinton’s falling popularity, audiences cheered when the aliens blew up the White House. But President Whitmore (buffed up in the movie as a former fighter pilot himself) escaped the death ray, and more than a few noticed how conveniently the first lady was wiped out in the attack, leaving the president free to, well, date.

Despite the preachy subtext of environmental-wacko-ism, and the unlikelihood of a hungover Quaid winning the day, Independence Day reminded us that even if it is only survival itself, there are things worth fighting for.

In the world of Barack Obama, that message seems much further distant than a mere 14 years.

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.

The show follows Chuck navigating his way through a double life between his cover job at Buy More and his spy life going on top secret missions.  Chuck is the quintessential  “every guy.”  He is smart, but a bit geeky.  He is cute, but not a pretty boy.  He is genuinely good with a moral compass that is sometimes at odds with the missions he is tasked to perform.  His handlers, spies Sarah Walker and John Casey, act at times as his protectors and at other times as fellow agents. Chuck is in love with Sarah so there is a romantic angle as well.  Other characters include Chuck’s sister Ellie and her husband Devon (nicknamed Awesome because he is, well, awesome), his best friend Morgan, his boss Big Mike, and Buy More co-workers Jeff and Lester. 

The show has it all – great action scenes, adventure, mystery, romance and humor.  The show is, above all, very funny.  At times it is hilarious.  The characters are caricatures in some ways, but they are written and acted with hearts and souls and humor that make them so much more than that. 

Adam Baldwin’s John Casey character is a perfect example.  If you have ever heard those super tough guy jokes about Chuck Norris (or Dick Cheney or Jack Bauer), you will immediately recognize the type of character John Casey is. You know, jokes like “there is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live” or “some people wear Superman pajamas, but Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.”  Just swap out Chuck Norris’s name with John Casey’s and that is the kind of character he is.    

This is my favorite Casey quote so far:

Lester: How do we know we can trust you, son that you’re not some kind of spy for the man?

Casey: Because the only thing I hate more than hippie and neo-liberal fascists and anarchists are the hypocrite fat cat suits they eventually grow up to become.

Even as tough as Casey is, his character shows real human feelings from time to time, and his devotion to mission and country and his willingness to lay down his life for them is heartwarming in its own way.  The other characters are very different, but every bit as good as Casey.  I am focusing on him here since he is the gun-toting, commie-hating, conservative badass on the show (and because I am hoping to convince Adam Baldwin to follow me on Twitter).

I’ve watched “Chuck” since the first episode of Season 1 and have thoroughly enjoyed it, but never as much as this season when my nine-year-old daughter discovered the show.  There is some sexual content on the show, between the Chuck and Sarah characters, as well as with Chuck’s sometimes disgusting and bizarre Buy More co-workers.  But the episodes are mostly family friendly, and the majority of the sexual content is brief and/or insinuated.  

Although this is her first season watching the show, she has a good feel for all the characters.  Last week when the character Ellie was hiding with a gun while Casey approached her unaware, my daughter said, “Don’t worry.  She can’t kill Casey.  He is indestructible.”  But my daughter’s favorite character is the hilarious, and sometimes mildly pathetic, Morgan Grimes (Chuck’s best friend played by Joshua Gomez).  I have watched her laugh so hard at Morgan that she could barely catch her breath.   

Monday night at 8 p.m. is now one of our favorite “together” times and as she watches the previews for the coming week’s show she complains about having to wait an entire week to see it.  I don’t know how she is going to take having to wait until the next season begins, but thankfully there will be a next season, and she has not yet caught up on all the episodes from Seasons 1 and 2.  We recently rented the pilot and the first few episodes and have already watched them, but we still have the rest of Season 1 and all of Season 2 to work our way through over the summer.  If you have not yet discovered “Chuck,” I recommend you do the same.

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.

The Stage Right Show broadcasts live every week night from 9:00 PM – 11:00 PM Pacific Time on Blog Talk Radio.

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.

—–

“The Stage Right Show” broadcasts live, Monday through Friday from 9:00 PM – 11:00 PM, PT.  You can listen live here, and you can listen to archive shows 24/7 here.  Podcasts are also available for immediate download through iTunes.

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.

The Stage Right Show broadcasts live every week night at 9PM Pacific Time.  All past shows are available in their entirety at itunes.

—–

This week we will feature live broadcasts from CPAC in Washington DC!