Last year while in St Andrews, I co-hosted and co-produced a radio show called "TV Killed the Radio Star" with my friend and classmate, Gillian. In the fall of 2009 I was a guest on the show, but then the next semester I was on the show every week. The entire show was dedicated to songs that have been played on tv shows, which has become more of a phenomenon over the past several years with shows like Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs playing trendy songs. Because I contributed roughly half of the songs each week, I began to pay closer attention to the music on shows and commercials. It's a really great way to find new music. Some shows like Chuck play at least three or so new songs each week, so I began to watch Chuck while still in Scotland so that I could get some good material for the radio show. I discovered Bon Iver this way.
The show is a comedy about a normal guy in Burbank, CA who works as a computer salesman/repairer at the 'Buy More.' His old college roommate sends him a computer file, the "Intersect," that allows spies to download information quickly into their brains. Traitor spies are trying to steal the Intersect, so Chuck's old roommate destroys all the other software and trusts Chuck to take care of the information now in his brain. Because this normal guy in a dead-end job has such an important national security device, a team of spies goes to Burbank to protect him. The rest of the shows are about their missions and the romance between Chuck and his handler, Sarah. I stopped watching last summer while in the middle of Season 2 because I got sick of one of the story lines: Chuck was losing the girl to a super cool British spy. I didn't get back into the show until a few weeks ago when I just happened to catch a few minutes on tv. Now I'm just about caught up. I love how the characters have developed and matured over the past two seasons, and Season 3 was freaking awesome. There has been a lot of speculation about whether or not the show would come back for a fifth season; the show is still on the air this season because Jay Leno screwed over NBC so that they couldn't develop new shows. However, Chuck does have better ratings than all the other shows on NBC's Monday nights, and it is incredibly cheap to produce compared to most other shows. Also, NBC has extended it for this season, which could be a good sign. All of this reminds me of Scrubs, which was always on the brink of cancelation since its ratings were never very good, but it kept coming back year after year because it had a loyal fan base. I do hope that Chuck lasts now that Chuck's character has developed and become much more interesting. I'd love to see where the new subplots and new relationships go from here.
Watching the show has made me miss having a weekly radio show and picking new music to play each week. In this blog post I've embedded some music from Chuck that I would play if I still had TV Killed the Radio Star.
Local Natives- "Airplanes"
I absolutely loathe the first few seconds of the song, but the rest of the song is so spectacular that it more than makes up for those first annoying seconds. In fact, those first few seconds have grown on me. The song is played in Season 2, Episode 15 (Chuck Versus the Beefcake) after Chuck 'breaks up' with Sarah (they were never dating; it was just their cover for why she was always around him). At this point the viewer begins to see how much Sarah really does care about Chuck even though she tries not to let her emotions get in the way of her job. While the song is playing, it seems too late for him to get her back because another character has made a move on her.
Frightened Rabbit- "Swim Until You Can't See Land"
I wish I had known about Frightened Rabbit, a Scottish band from a town southeast of Edinburgh, while I was still over there. It's not that I would have had time to go see them in concert, but I could have at least said I listened to Scottish music. Anyhow, this song plays in Season 3, Episode 10 (Chuck Versus the Tic-Tac) when a couple characters have been given opportunities to leave Burbank and away from Chuck. The 'General' has just offered Sarah a promotion that would move her to DC. Elli has been thinking about moving to Africa to work for Doctors without Borders, and she is finally telling Chuck that she is moving. At this point she and her husband have either lived in the same apartment as Chuck or in the same building. One of the reasons why her husband, Devon (aka- Captain Awesome), wants to move to Africa is to get away from the danger Chuck's life as a spy brings around the family, but Elli doesn't know that.
The Naked and Famous- "Young Blood"
Isn't this an awesome name for a band? This song comes in one of the best episodes in the series, Season 4, Episode 13 (Chuck Versus the Push Mix). This episode could have been the last in the series because NBC only ordered 13 shows when they brought Chuck back for another season, but the season will go on until episode 22 or so. In the episodes leading up to this one, a lot of the plots move very quickly just in case the show had to end sooner rather than later. This episode ties up several loose ends. I haven't seen any of the subsequent episodes yet, but I would assume that they will have more spy action/comedy than romance and other drama now that some of the subplots have settled. The last 10 minutes of this episode are freaking spectacular and just keep getting better and better with each passing minute. The final screen shot is photography genius. It's in the closing shots that this song plays. I won't give any more details just in case my readers actually want to watch the show. However, I will say that the crew uses the same hospital in this episode that Scrubs used for Sacred Heart, which used to be a real hospital before Scrubs began filming in the building. It's actually kinda cool that Chuck used this set because the actress who plays Elli, Sarah Lancaster, made a couple appearances in Scrubs as 'Lisa the Gift Shop Girl.' JD tried to date her, but that blew up in his face. Years later he realized that she was still working in the hospital. He thought she had died, but she had only gotten married. He stopped noticing her when she put a wedding ring on. He was really confused and said, "I bought flowers for your funeral." "I know. You bought them from me." "That must have been awkward."
No comments:
Post a Comment