Following last week's cliffhanger, Chuck (Zachary Levi) has found his absent father Steve (Bakula) thanks to Sarah's (Yvonne Strahovski) illicit search of the CIA database. Bartowski Snr's a middle-aged, introverted, paranoid genius whose life has apparently gone down the toilet, but Chuck manages to persuade him out of seclusion to attend Ellie's (Sarah Lancaster) impending wedding day.
Back home, there's an uneasy atmosphere as Ellie and her father meet for the first time in a decade, and matters are complicated when Chuck's next mission is to infiltrate Rourke Industries to prevent the release of a virus stored in the company's new operating system. Unfortunately, by accepting this "dream job" (using his own credentials and identity, no less*), Chuck will effectively be working for billionaire Ted Roark (Chase), the entrepreneur his father believes built his business using innovations he came up with.Honestly, "Chuck Versus The Dream Job" was fairly unexciting for the first half hour, with events kept alive purely through the geeky joy of seeing Scott Bakula back on our screens -- not least because he makes a very believable father for Levi (both in appearance and acting style.) Bakula propped up this entire episode whenever it sagged, in a way that Chevy Chase wasn't really able to, as he just played a rather boring amalgam of Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Bill Gates.
Thankfully, once Chuck realized Roarke had his own Intersect that Fulcrum are going to utilize using a Trojan virus distributed via his new software, and had to "suit-up" in Casey's (Adam Baldwin) combat gear for an unofficial solo mission, the episode burst into life. It helped that, for me, the surprise twist that Chuck's dad was actually legendary computer whizz "Orion" (responsible for creating the "cool parts" of the Intersect) wasn't something I'd considered. I feel a bit stupid for not guessing it now, but my defence is that Chuck's not a show I spend much time thinking about in-between episodes, so seeing timorous Steve transform into a confident ass-kicker was a joy.
There were some nice scenes for Captain Awesome (Ryan McPartlin) and Ellie in their reactions to Steve throughout, and a pleasing lack of Buy More distraction that seemed to prove the show's better when its 43-minutes focus on the main plot. There wasn't much for Sarah and Casey to do, but I laughed at the latter's reaction to being tranq'd multiple times by Chuck, and the episode didn't suffer from their periods of absence.Overall, maybe I'm being too generous awarding this episode 4-stars, as the majority of "... Versus The Dream Job" was underwhelming in key ways, but I feel that the fantastic last act, Bakula's twitchy performance, and a brilliant cliffhanger justified an extra half-star.
13 October 2009
Virgin1, 9pm
written by: Phil Klemmer & Cory Nickerson directed by: Robert Duncan McNeill starring: Zachary Levi (Chuck), Yvonne Strahovski (Sarah), Adam Baldwin (Casey), Joshua Gomez (Morgan), Scott Krinsky (Jeff), Vik Sahay (Lester), Bonita Friedericy (General Beckman), Ryan McPartlin (Awesome), Sarah Lancaster (Ellie), Mark Christopher Lawrence (Big Mike), Scott Bakula (Steve Bartowski), Arnold Vosloo (Vincent), Brian Kubach (Drew) & Chevy Chase (Ted Roark)
* I did wonder what Chuck's motivation was for accepting a job at the humble Buy More after Stanford University, if he could so easily get a dream job with the mighty Roark Industries. Has that ever been explained? A lack of ambition/confidence?
