Chucked In

There is a special place in my heart for trashy tv. Especially well written, witty dramedy.

A master of this genre is Josh Schwartz. Thanks for The OC. Thanks even more for the guilty pleasure that is Gossip Girl. And the biggest thank you now comes for Chuck.

Who would have thought that the skinny, awkward Jewish boy with a quick wit and not so much luck with the ladies would have me hooked?

Chuck like Seth Cohen from the OC has landed in the middle of Alias without all that creepy Rimbaldi (or however you spell it) sci-fi stuff. There are undercover ops, surveillance, double crossings and awesome fight scenes. Giggles, and action, and that Unresolved Sexual Tension that is the basis for almost every good tele show.

The premise is that this going-nowhere geeky guy accidentally downloads a huge secret computer into his brain, making him an asset to all kinds of organisations, both good and evil. Sure, it isn't the most believable premise for a show, but the zippy pace and the cute as a button characters are such compelling viewing. Plus the hammy melodrama of the retail scenes is so hyperreal you can taste the polycotton polos, and leaves a sensation on your fingers like you have been counting notes all afternoon.

Of course, Zachary Levi (who shall now be known as Cousin Zach) is just far too impossibly cute to be a computer nerd who never gets the ladies. And Adam Baldwin really is just playing his character out of Firefly, with slightly more sanity. But only slightly. And faces from Alias and The OC keep popping up in cameos all the time.

I knocked the whole season over in a few days, and am now desperate for Season 2 to be released on DVD. Another waiting game!