Posts Tagged ‘ Chuck ’

According to THR and, oh, everywhere, the future Captain America is amongst these actors; and since they are all apparently on a 30 day holding contract pending casting, it sounds pretty real:

Mike Vogel

Age: 30
Height: 5′ 10″
Pros: Pretty, in Cloverfield, in She’s Out of My League which looks pretty funny, turned down role of Angel in X-Men 3.
Cons: Pretty, in Cloverfield, short (well, same as me).

Michael Cassidy

Age: 26
Height” 6′
Pros: Was in Smallville and The O.C.. Tall.
Cons: Was crap in Smallville and The O.C.. Not blonde. A bit young.

Patrick Flueger

Age: 26
Height: 6′
Pros:Virtual unknown with no baggage in spite of being in The 4400, blonde, right height range.
Cons: Virtual unknown, a bit young, looks like a smug arse in this picture.

Scott Porter

Age: 30
Height: 6′
Pros: Awesome in Friday Night Lights (which is also awesome), was front runner for Superman in that botched JLA movie, looks the part, can sing and dance a bit.
Cons: Was front runner for Superman in that botched JLA movie.

Wilson Bethel

Age: 26
Height: 6′.
Pros: Virtual unknown, was in Generation Kill which is apparently pretty good, right height range.
Cons: Virtual unknown, bit skinny, scary eyebrows.

Chace Crawford

Age: 24
Height: 6′
Pros: Pretty, is in Gossip Girl, which isn’t exactly a pro, but worked for Blake Lively on the superhero front and was all I could think of.
Cons: Pretty, too young, is in Gossip Girl, is Chace Crawford.

John Krasinski

Age: 30
Height: 6’3″
Pros: Plenty tall, could bulk up, can act, has fanbase.
Cons: Has huge amounts of preconceptions and baggage, may be too comedic a draw, will break internet in half and lead to even more ‘Steve Carrell as Red Skull, Rainn Wilson as Baron Von Strucker’ jokes than we’ve had in the past day.

Apparently in the running but with scheduling conflicts:

Garrett Hedlund

Age: 25
Height: 6′ 1.5″
Pros: Plenty tall, virtual unknown with no baggage, is in Tron Legacy.
Cons: Looks a bit weedy, virtual unknown, bad hair.

Jensen Ackles

Age: 31
Height:6’1″
Pros: Pretty, right height, can act, was in Smallville and, of course, is Dean Goddamn Winchester and really that should be enough.
Cons: If by ‘scheduling’ issues they mean, ‘is shooting Supernatural season six’ then that’s a pretty big problem. Otherwise, not a one.

Of the listed contenders, I know who I’d prefer (Ackles or, failing that, Porter) but is this a real list, or is it just a smokescreen to cover for someone inexplicably not on the latest list, but was mentioned earlier:

Ryan McPartlin

Age: 34
Height: 6’3″
Pros: Is Awesome in Chuck, literally.
Cons: May be too Awesome.

The bad news is that Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles has officially been canceled, which would seem to suggest that we won’t be seeing Summer Glau kicking too much ass anytime soon.

Unless she turns up in the newly renewed Dollhouse, of course.

The good news is that Chuck was renewed, albeit on a tighter budget and for a short season, which means we will get to see Yvonne Strahovski kicking ass.

Of course, as I don’t watch either show regularly and plan to catch up on DVD, I have all this to look forward to anyway!

A while ago I asked who should play Captain America…and better late than never, and recorded for posterity now that I’ve taken the poll down, here are the winners!

With a massive 46 people voting…

In last place was Night Owl-to-be Patrick Wilson with 8% of the vote.

In fourth place was Captain Awesome himself, Ryan McPartlin, with 10%.

Third place went to former Riley Finn, Marc Blucas with 13% of the vote.

In second place with 26% was Someone Else – suggestions included James Spade (to Shatner’s Red Skull, of course!), Mark Valley (I like him but I think he’s too old for the role), Neal McDonough (ditto) and Travis Schuldt (thanks for someone obscure Mike!) and finally…

…the winner is the better half of the Winchester brothers, Jensen Ackles with a whopping 41% of the vote!

The people (all 46 of them) have spoken!

A couple of things have become apparent to me lately:

So…I’ll make more of an effort.

Promise.

So Heroes is back tonight for the start of the second season. Ain’t it Cool has some spoilers up here if you’re interested.

Personally I’m a little ambivalent about the show’s return after the terrible season finale earlier this year - I thought there were issues as a whole with the entire first season, but that finale really took the biscuit. I’m hoping that the creators learned from the first year that more characters don’t necessarily make for better stories – but then I’ve also seen the number of actors and actresses who seem to be being added to the show…

…then again when they’re along the lines of Kirsten Bell and David Anders, I can’t complain too much.

Also starting tonight, Chuck – which leads in to Heroes. I caught the pilot and reviewed it here. A fun-looking show, if nothing special (although Yvonne Strahovski is easy on the eyes). The night on NBC is rounded out by Journeyman, starring potential Thor Kevin McKidd and the really rather attractive (and fantastically named) Moon Bloodgood, which sounds an awful lot like Quantum Leap.

Clearly Monday on NBC is sci-fi night!

On Friday, the better half and I caught the pilot of NBC’c Chuck, kind of The Office-meets-The 40 Year Old Virgin-meets-Alias from OC creators Josh Schwartz and McG.

It’s a good fun pilot and while personally I preferred New Amsterdam, I think that Chuck will get more viewers and have a longer life. Chuck – played by Zachary Levi – is a twenty-something geek working for Geek Squad Nerd Herd in Best Buy Buy More with best friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez), living with his doctor sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and her boyfriend the hilarious Captain Awesome (trust me on this: he is Awsome).

Chuck’s former college roommate Bryce – in a great tongue-in-cheek action cameo by too-handsome-for-regular-work Matthew Bomer – sends an email to the eponymous loser which contains all the country’s secrets just before destroying the only other copy of those secrets. When the email is opened, all of these are downloaded straight into Chuck’s brain – and he starts to know things and recognise patterns in events that he couldn’t see previously.

Cue two agents moving in to see who this Chuck guy is; the beautiful CIA agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) that happened to be Bryce’s ex and the tough NSA agent John Casey (Adam Baldwin) who happened to be the guy who gunned him down. One wants to finagle the information from him, one wants to strap him down and get it out any way he can.

The problem is that this whole thing doesn’t make much sense. Motives are blurry – especially as regards the NSA side of things – and the resoution to the CIA/NSA conflict is pretty unsatisfactory. There’s also no indication of why Bryce would send this information to Chuck, especially as he hasn’t seen him in years. We also don’t know why Bryce went rogue. (I’m sure these last two points will be focuses on the show, but y’know, annoying).

As a pilot, it sets up the status quo for the series well, but the mixed comedy and action tones doen’t always gel together especially as regards Bryce’s death and John’s eventual role. I’m also curious as to how we’re going to get ‘missions’ every week – its not like Chuck’s mind is getting updated with new information all the time.

Still, it’s well acted, wittily scripted and mind-numbingly enjoyable – but when the best bits come from Chuck’s interactions with Captain Awesome, Morgan and his fellow Buy More employees, it feels like the action-spy bit is pretty much unnecessary.

Oh, and Tony Todd is criminally underused as Sarah’s boss.

Chuck premieres on NBC September 24th at 8 – leading into some show called Heroes. There’s also a fun Chuck site here.