Shane Life

I’m not talking about the abysmal-looking Dane Cook / Jessica Alba vehicle Good Luck Chuck.

No, I’m talking about the upcoming new NBC show of a similar (albeit shorter) name, CHUCK.

A big internet-head-nod to Brian, who pointed out that Amazon Unbox was offering the pilot of NBC’s new show for free. While I certainly am not a huge fan of Amazon.com’s new video download service (particularly the part where their player doesn’t work on a Mac), but I thought this presented a perfect opportunity to try it out. Free TV show that I want to watch that I won’t be able to record on Monday because it airs at the same time as the Dancing with the Stars premiere and the How I Met Your Mother premiere. Since we only have 1 DVR…you get the idea.

Anyway, I checked out the show, which (as I described earlier) is about a guy who works at a Best Buy-type store as a member of the “Nerd Herd” and he unwittingly is sent an e-mail from an old college buddy who happens to be working for the CIA, putting him in the middle of an espionage mess.

One thing that I didn’t realize before was that it is executive produced by McG, most famous for directing music videos and both Charlie’s Angels movies. Not only that, but Chuck’s sister Ellie is played by an Overland Park, KS native named Sarah Lancaster (who was previously known mostly as Gift Shop Girl on Scrubs). So it has that going for it.

I don’t want to give away too much because I thought the show was pretty good (and it has a decent twist at the end), but it is one that I am certainly going to attempt to make room for in my fall TV-watching schedule. Since it is on NBC, I expect that Zucker & Co. will manage to screw it up by episode 6 and rumors of its cancellation will begin to surface, ending all interest in what seems to be a decent show (and perhaps a slightly more comedic version of Alias). If you think I’m kidding, please see: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

I know my readership isn’t many, but it’s powerful. I am asking you to give it a shot at least. It airs this Monday night NBC isn’t promoting it nearly as much as Bionic Woman and my guess is that they are putting both up in the hope that one catches on with the intent of the other getting canceled. My hope is that both end up being good and both stay on the schedule. But alas, it’s NBC. They’re bound to mess it up.