Entertainment

WAIT! DON’T SHOOT

TAKE a dash of “The Office” throw in a handful of “Heroes,” a generous splash of “Jake 2.0” and one cup of “Forty Year Old Virgin” and what do you get? “Chuck,” NBC’s new series lead-in to the blockbuster “Heroes.”

In other words, it feels vaguely familiar. But worse, “Chuck” cudda been so much more.

But for reasons too obvious to bother with, NBC managed to take a really terrific and fun premiere and somehow let it morph over the following episodes into just another take-it-or-leave-it show. In fact, by the third episode I found myself hitting the “display” button every two minutes to see how just how much longer it would go on.

Here we have Chuck Bartowski, a geek (every show has at least one or two this season) who works in the “Nerd Herd” of an electronics store called Buy More. One night Chuck opens an email from his former roommate at Stanford. The email contains all of the U.S. government’s secrets which somehow download right into Chuck’s brain. This, of course, makes Chuck not just the most knowledgeable human on the planet, but the most wanted as well. He hides in plain sight while keeping his gig at Buy More.

Chuck is assigned two handlers. There’s NSA tough guy, Major John Casey (Adam Baldwin), who mostly beats people up in his undercover job as a salesman at the store, and CIA agent/beauty Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strechowsky).

As the CIA’s top (heavy) agent, Sarah worms her way into Chuck’s nerdy, naive heart before he realizes that even though he has all the information in the world, he missed the one about Sarah being after him only for his brains. In the premiere, at any rate, we fall for her the way Chuck does. She’s the classic dish who can kick the hell out of the toughest assassins in the world. Between the rival agents, there’s plenty of action, and on that score the show doesn’t disappoint.

Sarah works undercover as the fry girl at the local wiener joint (wink, wink) where she wears a milkmaid outfit. The flare skirt gives Agent Sarah many opportunities to roll over the counter giving the little boy customers and viewers big crotch shots. I, for one, am relieved to know that the CIA pro vides black bikinis to their top agents.

Into the mix is Chuck’s faithful sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster), who looks vaguely like she should be in the WWF. The rest of the cast fares better, especially Chuck’s co-sufferers at Buy More like his best friend, Morgan (Joshua Gomez), who along with Major John are the stand-outs in the show.

If you’re in it for the action, give “Chuck” a tumble. But if you expect your female characters to be more three-dimensional than their triple Ds, then look elsewhere.

“Chuck”
Tonight at 8 on NBC/4