Geeky Guest Stars

When TV shows have guest stars, it's sometimes too much. Over the top. Jump the shark territory.

Other times, the guest stars are almost like a geeky inside joke. Like the writers "get" that their audience loves these inside references, almost like an Easter egg inside the show just for us. No loss if you don't know the guest star, but frosting on the cupcake if you do. Mmmmm, cupcake.

When the guest star role is done well, I love it. Yes, I am a sucker. But it's the little things that make me happy.

Season 2 of Chuck has some great guest stars. Remember how I mentioned that the show reminds me a little of Alias? Well, Carl Lumbly shows up in "Chuck vs. the Sensei." He's the 2nd Alias vet I've seen so far (Kevin Weisman also makes an appearance). I love the Alias peeps showing up in another spy show -- I can only hope that Victor Garber shows at some point.

Gary Cole is in an episode (Chuck vs. the DeLorean), with the possibility of future ones. (You'll remember him from Office Space as Lumbergh, but the dude's been in a ton of stuff.)

Dominic Monaghan (Lost, LOTR, FlashForward) appears as a rocker in "Chuck vs. the 3rd Dimension." Apparently this was the 3D episode, which clearly doesn't come through on the Amazon Unbox. On my nice but regular TV. Without 3D glasses. Oh well, I would never have known if I wasn't looking up actors on the web.

Conan's sidekick, Andy Richter is an evil spy in "Chuck vs. the Suburbs." He can't ever seem to find a break on a show (or maybe he's the curse on them all), so I enjoyed seeing him, particularly as a bad guy. (I'll mention here that Jenny McCarthy was also in this ep, though I didn't really care. Oh, and Nicole Richie was in an earlier ep; again, don't care. They have no geek cred here as far as I can tell.)

And recurring guest for multiple episodes is the incredible Tony Hale. I grew to love him as Buster over on "Arrested Development" which ended way too soon. They keep promising a movie one day; I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one! In the meantime, I love Hale as the slightly maniacal assistant store manager. (PS - in looking Tony Hale up on iMDb, I see that he co-starred with Andy Richter in the very short-lived "Andy Barker, PI." It's like playing 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon or something!)

And I'm only just through half the 2nd season.

Chuck (Season 1)

First off, h/t to whomever recommended Chuck to me. I thought it was Katie & Johnnie, they won't claim it.

I'm late to the game on this one. Not a great way to try to prove my geek cred, I know, but I can only follow so many shows at once. So, now I'm catching up via Netflix & the WB website. I've watched the first 10 eps so far, and won't try to comment on each one. (If I can catch up in time to make notes about any of the current eps, maybe then I'll torture you with individual write-ups.)

Here's the series summary (courtesy of IMDB) so I don't have to tread that ground again (plus, they do a better job than I could):

When a twenty-something computer geek inadvertently downloads critical government secrets into his brain, CIA and NSA assign two agents to protect him and exploit such knowledge, turning his life upside down.

Overall, I like this show. The cast has a couple of familiar faces (Adam Baldwin of Firefly fame; Joshua Gomez who appeared in the short lived Invasion) but most seem to be newcomers - at least to my TV/movie watching world. The stories are fast-paced, if a little Alias-like. I like the use of popular music in the show; it's clear someone thought about the right song for the scene.

In shows like this, I feel like season 1 and sometimes 2 are often the best because they can explore one-off stories without getting into overly complex continuing sagas. I mean, if the show might get axed, is there really time to get into an ongoing plotline? But I can see the potential "will she/won't she?" story inherent in the romantic tension between Chuck and Sarah being one of those that drags the show down over time.

Since I'm still on season 1 and doing a great job of ignoring spoilers on what's to come, I'll remain optimistic and just enjoy the show.

(I don't know how to embed video clips yet, so here's a link in the meantime.)

http://www.thewb.com/shows/chuck/clip-this-is-the-part-where-we-hide/1229e112ca