‘Chuck’ is in parts an awesome show, and in other parts, well… not that awesome, really.

But that doesn’t stop me from liking the hell out of it. This is a show about a nerd named Chuck that one day receives an e-mail from his former best friend that contains all the CIA’s and NSA’s top secrets. Adding to the drama is the fact that the aforementioned best friend also destroyed the only other database (besides poor Chuck’s scrambled head) that contained these secrets.

This show never fails to entertain and it has got some really good co-stars that you can always rely on. The main protagonist (you know his name) is good, don’t misunderstand me, but he every time Adam Baldwin makes an appearance I keep wanting to smack the cameraman and yell, “Follow Jayne, you idiot! Who cares about that Chuck nerd?”. Then suddenly out of nowhere pops the Perfect Goddess Yvonne Strahovski, thus making my all too male brain go haywire and file a request for an emergency reboot. And while I sit, slightly dazed from the sudden system failure, “Capt. Awesome” enters, bringing the awesomeness levels up to an hitherto unexplored level of yipee-kaye-yayness.

But do not despair: ‘Chuck’ has enough problems to bring me down to earth in nought point zero seconds flat. The whole love affair between Yvonne’s character and Chuck is terribly predictable, unoriginal and irritating. The plot-quality range from ‘okay’ to ’somewhat clever’, and it’s got some big problems story-telling wise in the overreaching arc. It’ll be interesting to see whether the second season manages to write itself out of its impending doom, though I wouldn’t be too bothered if it didn’t either.

It’s like a silly(er) version of ‘Heroes’ (the good first season, not the disappointing second one) and a slightly less funny edition of ‘Reaper’, but with more heart. It’s okay, but nothing more.

7.0 /10 (weak)

The Story: A teenager is discovered walking around naked in the middle of a town. He’s taken to a youth facility, and it quickly becomes clear that he’s got no memory whatsoever. He can’t speak, doesn’t know how to go to the toilet, he doesn’t even have a name. The caretaker calls a psychiatrist, and she decides to take Kyle, as they agree to call him, home to better study this interesting youth that doesn’t know what clothes are good for, but can solve the hardest equations without breaking a sweat. This season takes on how Kyle adapts to human society and his quest for the truth about who he really is, where he came from and why someone took away his belly button…

The Reasons It Sucks Royally: The acting is downright atrocious. I’ll allow that the main character is atrocious in an intriguing way , but none of the other characters can use the same excuse for their shoddy performances. I only began watching this because I thought the premise of the show sounded a bit cool, sorta like ‘The Pretender’ maybe. And it was cool until Kyle stopped making interesting observations about human kind and became a lovesick teenager alá those found in ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘The O.C’. The choices they took about where to take this show makes me want to cry because it could have been passable if the producers just had enough cojones to incorporate some more unusual plot devices.

3.0 /10

‘Life’ is a new police show that began airing last fall on NBC and got to complete half its season before it was assassinated by the writer-ninjas. It has already been picked up for a second, hopefully, full season, which I sincerely thank the almighty Gods of Television for, because I really enjoyed this.

Okay, so it isn’t like someone peeked out the window and figured out how to make the wheel rounder. There isn’t really anything original about ‘Life’, but everything it does, it does with courageous aplomb and noteworthy success.

The meta-plot deserves a special mention since it’s very well spaced out and is concluded in a jaw-dropping two-parter (”Dig a Hole I” and “Fill It Up II”) that was a tied things neatly together while leaving other stuff open enough to be exploited later on. In other words: Just the way I like it.

The actors are of a very high quality, which isn’t that surprising considering that a lot of them starred in a little show called ‘Deadwood’. Even the characterization was spectacular and made the smallest recurring role seem like a many-faceted person. The main character, ‘Charles Crews’, is like a jolly ‘Gregory House’ meets ‘Dexter Morgan’, though not as awesome as either of them (but nearly, which is good enough for me.)

Extra kudos must be thrown at ‘Life’ for having a ‘Firefly’ irregular, Christina Hendricks, in a similarly irregular part. She is as lovely as ever.

Life is a very good show that I highly recommend. The episodes are of a generally high quality, with the absolutely best one being “The Fallen Woman”, and it’s probably got the best soundtrack bar none, save *maybe* ‘Entourage’. I can’t wait to get more of this; it may very well be my favourite “new” series.

8.5 /10