Week 4: Chuck Versus the Wookie
Original Airdate: 10/15/07
Episode Rating: A-
Each of the early episodes of
Chuck established something different about the series. The
Pilot established the plot;
Chuck Versus the Helicopter brought Team Bartowski together and gave us a solid introduction to the trio and how they would work together;
Chuck Versus the Tango was the first to utilize the "mission-of-the-week" formula. This week's episode,
Chuck Versus the Wookie established the fact that the show would never hire an actress with anything less than a supermodel level of beauty.
Wookie centers around a mission to recover a stolen diamond, a mission brought to the Team by an old rival of Sarah's named Carina, who, like Sarah herself, is unbelievably gorgeous. Now, I know what you're thinking: am I accusing
Chuck of being a shallow show? No...not really, anyway. I mean,
Chuck has never once been subtle about their strategy to bring in male viewers (i.e. the catfight between Sarah and a high-school rival, played by Nicole Richie, in a season 2 episode that takes place in a large, running shower), but then again there's always a plot behind it, and all of the actresses on the show never fail to give a good performance. I mean, even Nicole Richie's did a good job in her aforementioned guest spot in season 2. How does that even happen?
But I'm getting off track:
Chuck Versus the Wookie is an extremely fun hour of television that takes lots of twists and turns. Much of that comes from guest character Carina, played by Mini Anden, who is essentially a third-party wild card in the proceedings. Without her character, this would be a fairly standard episode. The fun part is that you never know whose side she's on, nor how soon it will be before she changes sides and does something unpredictable. She's not the series' best guest star by any means, but her character does keep things fresh, proving that while
Chuck is a mission-of-the-week show, no two missions would be alike.
Wookie also introduced one of my favorite aspects of the series---the show's penchant for packing a ton of content into just 42 minutes. From this point on, no episode of
Chuck truly feels like it's as long as it is, and not because of bad pacing or slow plot. No, episodes of
Chuck feel longer than 42 minutes because the writers always pack the plot with numerous twists, multiple subplots, and more. Most TV shows leave me wishing that the episode had been longer at the end of the hour, but the same can't be said of
Chuck, and
Wookie exemplifies this.
While this is a great episode, there are still a few kinks in the system that would take the whole of season one to work out. The love story between Sarah and Chuck isn't quite there yet (it was improved greatly from the first moment of season two onwards), and while the spy story is fun, they haven't found the perfect level of 'camp' just yet.
Chuck has never really taken itself too seriously, which is one of the show's best aspects, but it would take another few episodes before they find the right balance between unbelievable scenarios, action, and ruthlessly humorous villains. However, one thing that was well ironed out by the fourth episode was how well the Buy More storylines and the mission storylines come together in the end. There are some very fun moments in
Wookie that involve a crossover from the mission into Morgan and the world of Buy More, an element of
Chuck that continues through the rest of the season and into the next one.
Entertainment doesn't get much more...well, entertaining than in an episode like this, so if you haven't watched
Chuck Versus the Wookie lately, tonight is the perfect time to do so. Join
Chuck fans nationwide by watching the episodetonight at 7:00 PM on DVD or online (links above) and chatting about it live via Twitter or
www.chucktv.net.