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.

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One of the things that is always fun to do is to figure out what shows I’m going to try out as some of my favorites are inevitably canceled (Studio 60) or put on hold until February (Lost). I’m excited for fall TV because How I Met Your Mother did not get canceled as it was reported it might. Overall, though, the fall TV season isn’t looking all that promising. There aren’t a ton of shows that I’m clamoring to see, but a couple have caught my eye and I’ll take a look at them.

Bionic Woman

Ever since we lost Alias, Alli and I have been a bit morose. That filled a certain void that we didn’t want to fill with 24. NBC has been promoting the heck out of Bionic Woman, which was helmed by one of the co-creators of the new Battlestar Gallactica. I haven’t watched much Gallactica, but the idea of a super-awesome bionic woman is intriguing and I’m going to give it a shot.

Carpoolers

Jerry “Mr. Rebecca Romjin” O’Connell stars in what looks like a funny look at the daily commute to work. I’ve been pretty patient with ‘Til Death (which turned out to be better toward the end of the season than it started out), but I don’t know how much patience I’ll have for this show. It looks funny though. There aren’t a lot of sitcoms out there that get into dude relationships all that much. This could be funny.

Big Shots

Touted as “Sex and the City for Dudes” (isn’t that what Entourage is?), this show brings back Dylan McDermott from The Practice and pairs him with Michael Vartan, formerly Michael Vaughn on the aforementioned Alias. Vartan, McDermott and two other guys (that look familiar but I can’t place them) play best friends and powerful businessmen at the top of their game, but somehow hampered by the women in their life. This has the potential to be a good show based on the actors it contains, but shows that are heavily geared towards dudes (see Carpoolers above) are traditionally canceled by mid-season.

Samantha Who?

Christina Applegate is a good TV actress. Most famous for portraying Kelly Bundy on Married With Children, she’s managed a pretty good career. Her portrayal of Rachel Green’s even brattier sister Amy on Friends was terrific (she won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in 2003). Even her pretty terrible show, Jesse, managed 42 episodes. Samantha Who? sounds like a good show in concept. Applegate plays the main character who wakes up from a coma to find that she doesn’t remember a thing from her former life. She eventually discovers that she wasn’t a nice person at all and goes to make good on her previous mistakes. Think of it as a spin on My Name is Earl.

Chuck

I don’t know a lot about this show, but the previews I’ve seen for it make it look kind of funny. Chuck accidentally becomes a government agent. That’s about all I know. Sounds good. I’ll give it a shot.

There are also some new shows that I don’t have any interest in at all, particularly Back to You (starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton on Fox) and Cavemen (Prediction: the idiot that green-lighted this show will be fired by the second show).

What shows are you excited for this fall?

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