'Chuck' Saves the Day with Porn

I watched my first premiere of a new fall series last night and I have to say if the rest of the offerings are as good as Chuck, we are in for a great season. I mean what else can you say about a show where the hero saves the day with porn of all things.

In the premiere of Chuck, we meet the series' namesake Chuck (Zachary Levi), a computer geek who lives with his sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and her boyfriend that Chuck refers to as Captain Awesome (Ryan McPartlin) become he's awesome at everything he does. Chuck seems to have one friend, an equally geeky co-worker Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez) who has a weakness for porn.

A supportive sister Ellie is trying to help her brother get over his college sweetheart (or maybe it was just a crush) by hosting a birthday party in his honor full of women. Unfortunately, Chuck is still hung up on this girl from college.

Pretty smart in his own right, Chuck, however, lives in the shadow of his college roommate Bryce Larkin (Mathew Bomer, Traveler, Tru Calling), an accomplished engineering student, track star and gymnast who stole the girl of Chuck's dreams in college and got him kicked out.

Unbeknownst to Chuck, Bryce is a rogue CIA agent who has just stolen the encrypted secrets of the CIA and NSA combined and emailed them to Chuck before being shot and killed.

Chuck then opens the email and is unknowingly inundated with images that contain the secrets of the NSA and CIA. Here's where the real fun begins. Both the CIA and the NSA send operatives after Chuck, whom they think might be a spy or worse.

The CIA sends sexy Sarah Walker (newcomer Yvonne Strahovski) to retrieve the secrets while the NSA sends John Casey (Adam Baldwin, Firefly) to eliminate Chuck. Neither succeed, but both soon discover that the secrets now reside in Chuck's head when he tells them that somehow he knows that a general in town visiting is about to be assassinated. Hilarity ensues as the together the trio stops the bomb using a computer virus on a porn site (discovered by Morgan earlier) to shut down the computerized bomb.

I tuned into this show mostly because of Adam Baldwin. I loved him in Firefly as the ever gung ho mercenary Jayne. I was a little disappointed at first to find him as a suit sent simply to eliminate Chuck. But as the episode progressed we started to see Casey and Chuck interact. And I think the final scene with Casey as the "new employee" at BuyMore foreshadowed many more moments where Baldwin's rare humor ability will be showcased.

Overall, I thought it was a good pilot. I definitely will be tuning in next week. It makes for a nice light entertainment preceding Heroes on NBC airing at 8 p.m. on Mondays. The pilot will be reshown on NBC Saturday, Sept. 29 at 9 p.m. and on Sci Fi Channel at 11 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 30.