[Televisionary]

"You are a Bartowski, Chuck. Start acting like one." - Ellie After the darkness of last week's episode of Chuck , last night's installment ("Chuck Versus The American Hero"), written by Matt Miller and Phil Klemmer and directed by Jeremiah Chechik, brought back a lot of the humor and lightness that had been missing, with the action spinning out to include Casey, Morgan, and Devon's task force, the Picasso-like stalking skills of Jeff and Lester, and a nice callback to Ellie's belief that Casey is a degenerate lowlife. But it also offered a major revelation in the second half of the episode, one that will likely shape next week's installment, originally designed to be the season finale. Yes, NBC has initially ordered thirteen episodes for Chuck's third season and "Chuck Versus The American Hero" was designed to be the penultimate episode of the season. That's abundantly clear from the aura of change drifting over the characters,

"It's America, Chuck. Everyone has a choice." - John Casey If there's one single theme for this season of NBC's Chuck it would be appear to be identity. How do we define ourselves? How do we let others define us? Does it matter whether Chuck is a spy, an asset, or a civilian? If you take John Casey out of the espionage world, is he still Casey? And are we more defined by the actions we take or those that we don't? This week's episode of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Final Exam"), written by Zev Borow and directed by Robert Duncan McNeil, brought these issues to the forefront of the series, posing several questions about the way in which our three central spies see themselves in reference to the rest of the world and the way in which they view each other. As Chuck prepares to take his final mission, the one thing that stands in his way is a final test, the last hurdle in his path to becoming a full-blown spy. But if he's willing and able to take

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Robert Knepper ( Heroes, Prison Break ) has reportedly been cast in a villainous recurring role on Season Two of Syfy's Stargate Universe . Citing internet reports, several sites are reporting that Knepper will play Simeon, a mysterious member of the Lucian Alliance, and will appear in a multiple-episode story arc to last between six to seven episodes. (via TV Squad ) Producing partners Josh Schwartz ( Chuck ) and Stephanie Savage ( Gossip Girl ) have signed a multi-year deal with Warner Bros. Television and have set up their own shingle, Fake Empire, which will be based at the studio. Pod will develop projects for television, film, digital, videogames, music, and publishing. ( Variety ) The Wrap's Josef Adalian, meanwhile, has an interview with Schwartz and Savage, who jointly answered Adalian's questions via email. [Editor: The duo answered the question I had, which was whether Chuck would fall under the Fake Empire um

"What's dead is dead. It's too late now." - John Casey The push and pull between personal desire and professional responsibility have been at the beating heart of Chuck since the very beginning of the series but never moreso than in this, its third season, which has seen its troika of spies have to make some rather tough choices in pursuit of maintaining a balance between the two. In this week's episode ("Chuck Versus the Tic Tac"), written by Rafe Judkins and Lauren LeFranc and directed by Patrick Norris, several characters had to come to terms with fully realizing and accepting the consequences of their decisions, past and present. Are our dreams constant? Can they change? What happens when we get what we think we've always wanted? For Chuck, Casey, Sarah, Devon, and Ellie, each of them had to cross a personal Rubicon this week as they examined their own lives, their dreams, and their current realities. Ghosts have a nasty way at turning up at une

Every good hero needs a sidekick. Someone who has your back, can offer well-timed quips, and who innately understands the complexity of your mission. Chuck has been stymied of late from a lack of emotional release. Unable to talk to Awesome (because he can't lie to Ellie), reluctant to talk to Sarah (because their relationship has been fractured due to her involvement with Shaw), and unwilling to risk a limb by opening up to Casey, Chuck has found himself bottled up, which has produced a bit of a complication with his new Intersect-derived abilities: he can't flash. This week's game-changing episode of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Beard"), written by Scott Rosenbaum and directed by Zachary Levi, found Chuck the weak link on the team for the first time this season. Not flashing means not being able to provide intelligence to the team as well as not being able to handle himself in the field... all of which makes Chuck one big liability. No surprise then that the team w

"I hope your lies keep you warm at night." What is in a name? At its core, it's our truest sense of self, a reflection of our identity, a label that we apply to ourselves to sum us up at our most basic and individual level. But for spies like Sarah Walker, a name is just a cover story, a new identity in a series of never-ending lies that she puts on as easily as most of us do our clothes in the morning. Spies are in the business of lying and Sarah's done a bang-up job at lying to herself for most of her adult life, allowing her true self to slip away amid a cascade of lies both small and large. She's kept her true name to herself for the last three years, not even trusting Chuck with her true identity, her true sense of self, the name that conjures up both the kick-ass superspy she is today but also the tomboy teenager and the child whose innocence was so brutally ripped from her. This week's episode of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Fake Name"), written

Last week, I had the pleasure of dropping by to lend my voice and thoughts about the current season of Chuck (and the next four upcoming episodes) to Chuck Vs. the Podcast. As part of the ongoing podcast's 42nd episode, I chatted with host Gray Jones about my thoughts on "Chuck Versus the Mask," the love quadrangle, what's coming up for our intrepid spies, and much, much more. (The episode itself was the second half of a great installment that also featured The Chicago Tribune 's Maureen Ryan .) You can watch/listen to the podcast below or over at Blip.tv . Or you can download the podcast from iTunes as well. Depending on what your bag is, I suppose. Chuck returns tonight with a brand-new episode, the series' first in three weeks, at 8 pm ET/PT on NBC. You can read my advance review of the next four episodes here .

Anticipation is running high for the return of NBC's action-comedy Chuck after three weeks off the air (thanks to the Olympics) and the unveiling of a romantic subplot that, er, may have rubbed certain fans the wrong way. The public reaction to the last episode that aired ( "Chuck Versus the Mask" ) took many people--including this critic--by surprise, not because the writers had once again managed to keep Sarah and Chuck separate but by the vehemence and venom being hurled at the series' producers and the installment's writer, Phil Klemmer. (It also had some fans clamoring for what would most certainly be a destructive boycott of the series itself, a terrible and foolhardy effort that would lead not to any plot direction changes but to an inevitable cancellation.) I had the opportunity over the weekend to watch the next four superb installments of Chuck , which returns to the NBC schedule a week from today, and was extremely pleased by what I watched. For one, t

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. HBO has officially announced that Academy Award winner Kate Winslet ( The Reader ) has come aboard the pay cabler's five-hour miniseries Mildred Pierce . Based on the novel by James M. Cain (which was the basis for the 1945 melodrama starring Joan Crawford and Eve Arden), Mildred Pierce will star Winslet as the titular character, a self-made millionaire who struggles to earn her daughter's love. Project will be directed by Todd Haynes ( Far From Heaven ), who will write the script with Jon Raymond. Production on the five-hour miniseries, to be executive produced by Haynes, Christine Vachon, and John Wells, is set to being in New York in April. ( Variety ) The Wrap's Josef Adalian breaks down the current crop of series that are said to be on the bubble for renewal next season, including Chuck, Fringe, V, FlashForward , and Community and names the five series he feels are worth saving. "Being on the bubble is incredi

While Chuck 's emotional heart lays in the thwarted relationship between Chuck and Sarah, it's impossible to maintain the will-they-or-won't-they dynamic indefinitely. We've seen both internal and external rationales for why they wouldn't end up together, not least of which is the pull between professional duty and personal desire. Some potential love interests have come and gone: there was Rachel Bilson's Lou, Jordana Brewster's Jill, Matthew Bomer's Bryce Larkin. Each of them in their own way cast a thorn into our star-crossed lovers; after all, while Chuck and Sarah might be meant for each other in a cosmic way, that doesn't mean that they wouldn't seek out less complicated companionship in the here-and-now. I don't think any of us would have predicted that Kristin Kreuk and Brandon Routh would provide perhaps the very best love interests for Chuck and Sarah to date. Yet on last night's episode of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Mask&qu

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Variety 's Michael Schneider is reporting that 20th Century Fox Television and the studio's feature film division are working on adapting FOX's long-running drama series 24 for the big screen. The studio has hired Billy Ray ( State of Play ) to write a screenplay for the feature version of 24 , which would see Jack Bauer jump across the pond to thwart a plot in Europe. Film would be executive produced by Kiefer Sutherland, Howard Gordon, Brian Grazer, Robert Cochran, and Joel Surnow. "Insiders cautioned that a 24 feature is still very much in the preliminary stages," writes Schneider. "There are a number of factors influencing how quickly it moves ahead, including the fate of the TV show." That fate is still to be determined, though it's thought very likely that Day Eight will be the final season of 24 . ( Variety , Entertainment Weekly 's Hollywood Insider ) Entertainment Weekly 's Micha

As much as I love Chuck (and am obsessed with this current season), I have to say that last night's episode wasn't my favorite. Last night's installment of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Nacho Sampler), written by Matt Miller and Scott Rosenbaum, was oddly inert after the strength of the last few episodes. I'm not entirely sure why, really, considering that Miller and Rosenbaum are two of the strongest scribes on the writing team but the episode felt like it was barely held together with all of the increasingly large plot holes. While I was glad to see Hannah (Kristin Kreuk) attempting to fit in at the Buy More and Morgan and Ellie finally growing increasingly suspicious of Chuck's behavior as well as Chuck reevaluate his role in the spy world, the episode's strength lay more in its themes than its execution this time around. It's been demonstrated throughout Chuck 's run so far that Chuck is a fish out of water when it comes to the espionage world. He&