Chuck Gets In On The Action
Chuck is another series that I actually have seen very little of, but know enough about to recall that it stars Zachary Levi as a typical modern day geek, or nerd, who becomes a super spy with the help of Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski). Normally, Chuck never participates when its time to fight the bad guys, but season three changes that and you will see Chuck get involved in much more action. Zachary Levi talks about that briefly in the extra features when he explains that learning fight choreography was a new challenge for him.
For the most part though, the half hour comedy show sticks to its normal, enjoyable self. The nineteen episodes, all of them keeping with the ‘Chuck Versus…” naming format, have Chuck and Sarah squaring off against a myriad of challenges. It’s interesting just how much content the producers are able to pack into a half hour as they’re able to cover a variety of genres. First and foremost is of course the comedy, but there is a lot of action, romance, and drama involved too.
Chuck Versus Blu-ray
The Blu-ray release contains four discs and a full color booklet that acts as a handy episode guide. Each disc contains extra features which I will breakdown shortly. As for presentation quality, Chuck doesn’t look as good as a lot of other TV shows I’ve seen on Blu-ray. There is a consistent lack of ‘pop’ in the image quality and actually a very noticeable amount of grain. It’s not that you can’t tell that you’re watching the show in HD, but, if cost makes a significant difference to you, the DVD set may be worth considering as I don’t think this Blu-ray offering gives that much of a visual improvement. The sound package, Dolby 5.1, does fine, although this isn’t the type of show that lets your sound system flex its muscles.
The extra features include a lot of deleted scenes in standard definition. The breakdown:
Disc 1: Deleted Scenes:
-Vs. Pink Slip (1)
-Vs. Operation Awesome (1)
-vs. First Class (3)
Disc 2: Deleted Scenes:
-Vs The Beard (2)
-Vs The Tic Tac (2)
-Vs The Final Exam (3)
-Vs American Hero (2)
Disc 3: Deleted Scenes:
-Vs The Other Guy (3)
-Vs The Honeymooners (1)
-Vs The Role Models (1)
-Vs The Tooth (1)
-Vs The Living Dead (1)
Disc 4:
Behind & The Scenes & Schemes
-Chuck-Fu & Dim Sum: (22m, HD): Scenes from various season three episodes, along with cast and crew talking about the characters and the show itself and how it’s gotten to season three. There are also four minutes of Comic-Con footage.
-The Jeffster Revolution (11m, HD): “Interview” of the two members of the band Jeffster.
-Gag Reel (6m, SD)
Overall, this his a straight-forward release that should appeal to fans of the show.