Bullet Points: Encore Edition

Now you know what happens when I spend too much time away from my office: I return with more to say than will fit into one post.

• This seemed rather inevitable, didn’t it? Following the success of TNT-TV’s 10-part adaptation of The Alienist, Caleb Carr’s 1995 Victorian thriller, the same U.S. network has decided to bring Carr’s sequel, The Angel of Darkness (1997), to the small screen. There’s no word yet on when the finished product might be broadcast, but The Killing Times offers this plot synopsis:

It is June 1897. A year has passed since Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline. Kreizler and his friends—high-living crime reporter Schuyler Moore; indomitable, derringer-toting Sara Howard; the brilliant (and bickering) detective brothers Marcus and Lucius Isaacson; powerful and compassionate Cyrus Montrose; and Stevie Taggert, the boy Kreizler saved from a life of street crime—have returned to their former pursuits and tried to forget the horror of the Beecham case. But when the distraught wife of a Spanish diplomat begs Sara’s aid, the team reunites to help her find her kidnapped infant daughter. It is a case fraught with danger, since Spain and the United States are on the verge of war. Their investigation leads the team to a shocking suspect: a woman who appears to the world to be a heroic nurse and a loving mother, but who may in reality be a ruthless murderer of children.

• By the way, I see that Carr’s long-promised third novel in the Laszlo Kreizler series is now being offered for “pre-order” by Amazon. Titled The Alienist at Armageddon, it appears set for a U.S. release in September of next year (from Mulholland Books).

• In a fine article for CrimeReads, Christopher Huang, Montreal-based author of the new novel A Gentleman’s Murder, reflects on how World War I gave rise to the traditional mystery story.

• This past August 4 marked the 126th anniversary of the infamous Fall River, Massachusetts, ax murders supposedly committed by Lizzie Borden and resulting in the demise of her father and stepmother. But it won’t be until September 14 that Lizzie, the latest film from director Craig William Macneill, premieres in U.S. theaters. Judging from a trailer posted in Slate, the movie suggests a sexual relationship between Lizzie (portrayed by Chloë Sevigny) and the Bordens’ live-in maid, Bridget Sullivan (Kristen Stewart), precipitated the violence—a theory previously explored in Evan Hunter’s 1984 novel, Lizzie.

• Would you like to attend next year’s Left Coast Crime convention—to take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, from March 28 to 31—but can’t afford the $300 (Canadian) registration fee? Well, it seems the convention’s organizing committee is offering three financial-assistance scholarships, which include the registration payment as well as $200 (U.S.) in expense money. All you have to do is apply by November 30. Click here for more information.

• The New York-born jazz singer and actress Morgana King, who played Vito Corleone’s wife in The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II, has died at age 87. She actually passed away in Palm Springs, California, on March 22 of this year, but as Star magazine explains, “Her death had gone unreported until a friend, [entertainment writer] John Hoglund, wrote about her this week … on Facebook.”

• In case you were wondering what became of Morven Christie, the Scottish actress who played Anglican vicar Sidney Chambers’ on-and-off love interest, Amanda Kendall, in the UK mystery drama Grantchester, she’s now set to star in a modern ITV-TV crime series called The Bay. As Radio Times notes, that six-part program is likely to be compared with the surprisingly popular Broadchurch. “Like the Dorset-set Broadchurch,” Radio Times writes, “The Bay takes place in a coastal town—in this case Morecambe—and is described by ITV’s drama boss Polly Hill as ‘a very real crime story about family and community … compelling and beautifully crafted,’ all of which will also strike a chord with Broadchurch fans.” Christie has been cast as Detective Sergeant Lisa Armstrong, “a fierce and hard-working Family Liaison Officer,” to quote from Killing Times, which goes on to provide these clues as to the show’s storyline:

When Detective Sergeant Lisa Armstrong is assigned to a missing persons investigation, at first it seems like any other—tragic, but all too familiar. As a Family Liaison Officer, she’s trained never to get emotionally involved. Her job is to support families during the worst time of their lives whilst also to be the eyes and ears of the police investigation; a cuckoo in the nest. But there’s something very different about this particular case. With horror Lisa realizes she’s got a personal connection with this frightened family; one that could compromise her and the investigation. As she grapples to get justice for the grieving family, Lisa discovers it could come at a cost.

• While writing recently about the 36th birthday of Yvonne Strahovski, who co-starred in the 2007-2012 NBC-TV spy series Chuck, I happened across this dream sequence spoofing the start of Hart to Hart, ABC’s older mystery starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers. I thought others might enjoy watching that video, too.

• Needless to say, I already own a copy of John le Carré’s 1963 novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. However, I may need to add to my collection The Folio Society’s beautiful new edition of that “breakthrough work that redefined the spy story.” It features interior illustrations by British artist Matt Taylor, whose cover for Penguin’s most recent paperback version of Le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy won The Rap Sheet’s 2011 Best Crime Novel Cover contest.

• “So how was the wife of the professional police detective portrayed in most Golden Age police procedurals?” short-story writer Carol Westron asks in Lizzie Hayes’ blog. “On the whole, she was hardly portrayed at all. She was mentioned as part of his background but played no part in the intellectual or emotional process that leads to the resolution of the case.”

• For the MysteryPeople blog, Scott Montgomery interviews author Max Allan Collins on the subject of his new non-fiction book, Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago (Morrow), which he penned with A. Brad Schwartz.

• And I long ago added to The Rap Sheet’s YouTube page the original opening from the NBC Mystery Movie series McMillan & Wife, starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James. But only yesterday did I realize that I never followed up by posting the main title sequence from Once Upon a Dead Man, the pilot film that gave birth to that beloved, 1971-1977 mystery drama. So here it is. Once Upon a Dead Man was directed by Leonard B. Stern and was first broadcast on September 17, 1971. Jerry Fielding composed the theme music.

Can’t This Spy Get Some Birthday Cake?

I was late in becoming a fan of the American TV spy “dramedy” Chuck—very late, in fact: only within the last few months have I started watching that 2007-2012 NBC series, and I’m currently about halfway through Season 4. I don’t really remember why I eschewed the show during its network run. It probably had something to do with its being broadcast on Mondays at 8 p.m.—not a time I think of as offering tremendous entertainment opportunities. (Chuck’s competition in 2007, for instance, included The Big Bang Theory and Dancing with the Stars.) Regardless, I originally missed seeing what has now become one of my favorite evening diversions.

The show is quirky and over-the-top at times. But it offers a wonderful cast of performers, among them Zachary Levi as the eponymous accidental spy Chuck Bartowski, Adam Baldwin as brusque career soldier/NSA agent John Casey, Joshua Gomez as surprisingly endearing computer nerd Morgan Grimes (Chuck’s best friend since childhood) … and of course, Yvonne Strahovski as canny, tough, resourceful, and—sorry, I’m a male—downright stunning blond CIA agent Sarah Walker. (If you don’t trust my judgment on that last count, check out this compilation video of Walker’s appearances throughout the series.) During the program’s early years, Chuck bounced around between a few girlfriends (one of them played by Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk), disappointed that Walker was his CIA “handler,” but nothing more. However, he kept coming back to Sarah, who—he learns much later—had fallen in love with him almost from their first meeting, though she was afraid to admit that. (It seems spies have to be independent, never enjoying free time enough for lasting relationships.)

I bring all of this up, because today—in addition to being National Paperback Day (you already knew that, right?)—is the 36th anniversary of Yvonne Strahovski’s birth. The Australian actress of Polish descent has gone on since Chuck to co-star in Dexter and the limited series 24: Live Another Day, and she can now been seen in The Handmaid’s Tale. In that Hulu dystopian drama she plays Serena Joy Waterford, a character described by Wikipedia as “a former conservative cultural activist”—“poised and deeply religious, but capable of great cruelty … She is desperate to become a mother.” (In real life, Strahovski is expecting her first child in September of this year.)

Happy birthday, Sarah … I mean Yvonne!

Bullet Points: Bouchercon Week Edition

• Denise Mina’s latest novel, The Long Drop, doesn’t lack for honors. In addition to its win, in September, of this year’s McIlvanney Prize, the book has now nabbed the Gordon Burn Prize. That report was made on Thursday during England’s Durham Book Festival. The Long Drop bested five other shortlisted nominees to win the commendation, which was named in honor of Gordon Burn, the British author of such books as Alma Cogan and Sex & Violence, Death & Silence.

• Among this year’s 24 recipients of MacArthur Foundation “genius grants” is Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of the Vietnam-set spy novel, The Sympathizer, which won both a Pulitzer Prize and a 2016 Edgar Award. To learn more about Nguyen, refer to this “By the Book” piece that ran in The New York Times in early 2017.

• “Now that Robert Downey Jr. and HBO are prepping a new cable take on Erle Stanley Gardner’s iconic Perry Mason, this may be a good time to consider the famous defense attorney’s many and various appearances other than between book covers.” So opines Dick Lochte in a Mystery Scene article that looks back at how Mason was portrayed not only on TV, but on radio, in movies, and even in comics.

• Speaking of the TV series Perry Mason, here is MeTV’s list of unusual episodes from that 1957-1966 legal drama. “Have you seen the one in color and the one starring Bette Davis?” the story asks in its subhead. Or how about the one starring Mike Connors?

• There have already been multiple big-screen and TV adaptations of Wilkie Collins’ 1859 “sensation novel,” The Woman in White, including what I remember was an estimable, 1997 BBC version (watch the trailer here) scripted by Dark Water author David Pirie. Yet now comes BBC One with yet another, five-episode dramatization of the spooky tale, this one starring Ben Hardy (EastEnders) and Olivia Vinall (Apple Tree Yard), and due for airing in the UK in 2018.

• Well in advance of that will premiere Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive, a documentary film—part of PBS-TV’s American Masters series—that “draws on Poe’s evocative imagery and sharply drawn plots to tell the real story of the notorious author …,” according to a news release. “An orphan in search of family, love and literary fame, Poe struggled with alcoholism and was also a product of early 19th-century American urban life: depressed from the era’s culture of death due to the high mortality rate and the struggles of living in poverty. Poe famously died under mysterious circumstances and his cause of death remains unknown.” Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive is scheduled for broadcast on Monday, October 30, beginning at 9 p.m. ET/PT—a pre-Halloween treat! The trailer for this presentation is embedded below.



• Yes, All Hallows’ Eve is now a little more than two weeks away. So expect plenty of related features to show up online, such as this BookBub Blog post recommending “20 Creepy New Books to Read This Halloween.” Also check out this Literary Hub offering of “40 of the Creepiest Book Covers of All Time.” Meanwhile, the New York City-obsessed blog, The Bowery Boys, has put together what it calls “brand-new, mysterious podcasts that will send a shiver down your spine.”

• I mentioned on this page in July that Tom Nolan, who edited the Library of America omnibus Ross Macdonald: Four Later Novels: Black Money/The Instant Enemy/The Goodbye Look/The Underground Man, was composing essays about all of those Lew Archer private-eye stories. I see that three of them are now available for your investigation—his thoughtful takes on Black Money (1966), The Instant Enemy (1968), and The Goodbye Look (1969). I look forward to reading what Nolan has to say about The Underground Man (1971), which is one of my favorites among Macdonald’s Archer yarns and was adapted as a 1974 TV pilot starring Peter Graves.

• When James Bond didn’t like The Beatles …

• … And how he was deeply affected by World War II.

• In a diverse recent blog post, Max Allan Collins mentioned that he has delivered the manuscript for Killing Town, his 10th Mike Hammer novel developed from fragmentary material Mickey Spillane left behind at the time of his death in 2006. Collins goes on to explain that Killing Town (due out from Titan next April) is “chronologically the first Mike Hammer novel,” and that he composed it based on “a substantial (60 double-spaced pages) Spillane manuscript from around 1945 … before I, the Jury!! It has an ending that will either delight, outrage, or disgust you … perhaps all at the same time.” Killing Town, concludes Collins, “will join The Last Stand [due out from Hard Case Crime next March] in the celebration of Mickey’s centenary, the first Mike Hammer novel bookending the final Spillane solo novel.”

• Sometime Rap Sheet contributor Mark Coggins sent me a notice he discovered recently in the newsletter Publisher’s Lunch:

Following the death of [book agent] Ed Victor (and before that, in fall 2016, the death of [UK publisher] Graham Greene), the Raymond Chandler estate has selected new representation. They are working with Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White for publishing, and Stephen Durbridge and Katie Haines at The Agency for film and TV. Greene’s son Alexander, director of Raymond Chandler Ltd., says in the release: “In choosing Peter and RCW and Stephen and the Agency we wanted to reintroduce Chandler to an audience who perhaps recognize his style but don’t immediately associate it with him or his archetypal character Philip Marlowe.”

One can only speculate as to the eventual results of these altered business associations. Could we be provided more literary revivals of Los Angeles private eye Marlowe? Another crack at a Marlowe TV series, or more new Marlowe films?

• Let’s hope this eventually reaches the United States! From Mystery Tribune: “Scandinavian crime fans will be pleased to know that Sagafilm’s new drama Stella Blómkvist, starring Heida Reed (Poldark) and directed by Oskar Thor Axelsson (Trapped), will soon come to life via Nordic streaming service Viaplay. The series is based on a series of novels that follow a hard-nosed lawyer named Stella Blómkvist as she takes on mysterious murder cases.”

• Gadzooks! The DVD release of C.S.I.—The Complete Series will be a “93-disc set includ[ing] 19 hours of special features, all 15 seasons, and all 337 episodes, plus the 2-hour finale.” I’m not sure I can even accommodate such a sizable package among my DVD collection. This CBS Home Entertainment/Paramount Home Media set will become available as of November 21, according to TV Shows on DVD.

• For the Mulholland Books site, Portland, Oregon, science-fiction author Fonda Lee (Jade City) has cobbled together a rundown of what she says are the “Top Ten Fantasy Crime Novels.”

• David Cranmer is doing a bang-up job, for Criminal Element, of celebrating the centennial of Robert Mitchum’s birth. He’s written over the last three months about Mitchum’s Western films, his noir pictures, and yesterday he recalled the actor’s war movies (including the 1983 TV mini-series The Winds of War). Mitchum, writes Cranmer, projected “the great inner strength of tight-lipped heroes who fought the good fight, usually against staggering odds.”

• Linwood Barclay talks with Suspense Radio about his latest novel, Parting Shot, which is due out on October 31. Listen here.

• Hard to believe, I know, but it has been a full decade since the debut of Chuck, NBC-TV’s action-comedy/spy series starring Zachary Levi as computer-service specialist-turned-special agent Chuck Bartowski, and Yvonne Strahovski as his CIA protector, Sarah Walker. In honor of this anniversary, TV Guide created a video compilation of their most romantic moments from the show’s five seasons.

• From In Reference to Murder:

Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to The Dime, a crime drama with a lesbian cop at the center that’s based on bestselling author Kathleen Kent’s new novel, from Hell on Wheels creators Tony Gayton and Joe Gayton, feature director Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes), and 20th-Century Fox TV. Written and executive produced by the Gayton brothers, The Dime follows Brooklyn cop Betty Rhyzyck, a tough-as-nails firebrand who moves with her girlfriend to Dallas to lead a group of detectives. Their more traditional sensibilities are a far cry from her blue-state mentality, and in order to survive, Betty and her team will have to put aside their differences.

• Marty McKee has an excellent piece in Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot about the reworked sixth and final season of 77 Sunset Strip, which starred Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Los Angeles private eye Stuart Bailey. To give that season “a kickstart,” McKee recalls, Warner Bros. “gave it a radical reboot. Everyone but Zimbalist was fired, and Bailey moved into a new office in the Bradbury Building as a solo act. New producers Jack Webb (Dragnet) and William Conrad … made the series less glossy and more noirish. While the new approach didn’t work—the series was cancelled after 20 episodes—it did give 77 a creative shot in the arm. To begin the sixth season, producer Conrad hired screenwriter Harry Essex (credited with Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Came from Outer Space, and I, the Jury) to concoct an ambitious five-part story that Conrad would also direct. The result was ‘5,’ which aired on consecutive Fridays in September and October 1963. Loaded with guest stars ranging from Richard Conte and Cesar Romero to Diane McBain and William Shatner, ‘5’ yanks Bailey out of L.A. to New York and even all the way to Israel to solve the case.” I wrote about that same multi-part episode of 77 Sunset Strip in this 2012 post.

• Congratulations to The Spy Command on its ninth anniversary!

• I know it seems a bit early yet to talk about next spring’s Florida SleuthFest (March 1-4 in Boca Raton), what with Bouchercon 2017 still underway in Toronto. But the deadline for discounted early registration for SleuthFest is this coming September 30. And would-be authors who wish to arrange manuscript critiques must submit their work by January 31—just over three months from now. More generally, this annual writers’ conference (sponsored by the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America) will have as its 2018 keynote speaker Andrew Gross, and Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D., has been tapped as forensic guest of honor. Other special guests will include James R. Benn and Hallie Ephron. More information can be found on the SleuthFest Web site or by contacting co-chairs Victoria Landis and Michael Joy via e-mail at Sleuthfestinfo@gmail.com.

• While we’re on the subject of near-future mystery-fiction festivals, I should also point out that discounted early registration for Left Coast Crime 2018 (March 22-25 in Reno, Nevada) is available only through December 31 of our present year. The guest of honors at that gathering will be Naomi Hirahara and William Kent Krueger.

• And let’s conclude here with links to a few author interviews worthy of your attention: John McFetridge, who played a large role in organizing this week’s Bouchercon in Toronto, talks with S.W. Lauden about his very underappreciated novels; MysteryPeople chats with both Adam Sternbergh (The Blinds) and J.M. Gulvin (The Long Count); Lisa Scottoline (Damaged) and Jussi Adler-Olsen (The Scarred Woman) field questions from Crimespree Magazine; J.J. Hensley discusses Bolt Action Remedy with the UK site Crime Fiction Lover; and Paul Bishop grills Greg Shepherd, the publisher of Stark House Press. Although it’s an essay rather than a Q & A, I want to mention as well Russian writer Polina Dashkova’s piece for BoingBoing about how she came to concoct her new-in-America thriller, Madness Treads Lightly.

“No More Mr. Nice Spy”

In case you’re completely out of the loop, listen up: Tonight will offer the long-awaited Season Three debut of NBC-TV’s popular action-comedy series Chuck, which stars Zachary Levi as a computer nerd, Chuck Bartowski, who becomes a reluctant but increasingly able spy, aided--and more than a little distracted--by captivating intelligence op Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski). This evening’s two-hour season premiere will air at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The show will return to its Mondays at 8 p.m. slot beginning tomorrow, January 11.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger offers a backgrounder on the show’s concept and strengths here. A Season Three preview and behind-the-scenes segment can be seen here, with more scenes here.

The Best TV Crime Drama Openers, #16

Series Title: Chuck | Years: 2007-2012, NBC | Starring: Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahovski, Joshua Gomez, Ryan McPartlin, Sarah Lancaster, Adam Baldwin | Theme Music: Cake

Thirty-two-year-old Josh Schwartz, the creator of the canceled FOX-TV series The O.C., and the creator and current show-runner of the hit CW teen soap Gossip Girl, also created (with Chris Fedak) the action-comedy spy series Chuck.

While I like Gossip Girl the least of these three shows, it is a fact that teenagers aren’t angels. They drink, take drugs, have sex, and act just like young people trying to find their own place in the world. But The O.C.? When it was great, I loved it. It had a spectacular first season that was nearly as good as the comedy-drama Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000), but was set in upscale Newport Beach, California. It was often hilarious and smart, and spoke frankly about what it’s like to be a teenager, when your hormones are raging and you might have interests that aren’t considered cool. Seth Cohen (played by Adam Brody) was a nerd icon for a reason, people. Josh Schwartz put so much story into The O.C.’s first season, that an average show would have taken three or four years to run it all out episodically. Beverly Hills, 90210 might have used many of the surprises in that series as season finale cliffhangers.

The O.C. would change things up while in the middle of a season, the pacing was intense, and it had a great cast. Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie) came from a background that might have led him to jail had he not been adopted by the Cohens. But as the show progressed, it revealed a sensitive if angry young man who had the quiet ambition to be an architect. Seth Cohen was your typical nerd, but like Ryan he was a smart young man who rejected the shallowness of his ritzy surroundings. He loved anime and comics; he also loved Summer Roberts (Rachel Bilson), and it was a joy to watch their relationship develop over the series’ four years. Summer herself was your typical California rich girl, but actress Bilson and writer Schwartz brought to her character a really great heart and a sense of humor. Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) started off as a good character, too, but … well, there are reasons people celebrated at the end of season three. I could go on about how great the rest of the cast was, how the quality dipped in the second and third seasons as the show’s popularity grew and Schwartz got overwhelmed and Fox interfered …

But we’re here to talk about Chuck, aren’t we? You just have to know where Schwartz came from, and what he learned from the successes and failures of his first series.

In the Chuck pilot, Chuck Bartowsky (Levi) was seen climbing out his bedroom window to escape his birthday party full of women his doctor sister, Ellie (Lancaster), wanted him to meet. And on his wall was a poster of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, the story of a regular guy who gets caught up in a world in which he has no idea how to survive. It’s a screwball classic and my favorite Hitchcock, and it fits Chuck perfectly as a metaphor.

Chuck is a regular guy, a tech repairman for Buy More’s Nerd Herd (a very close and clever version of Best Buy’s Geek Squad). He lives with his sister and her boyfriend, “Captain Awesome,” played by Ryan McPartlin. (Captain Awesome--another doctor, whose real name has been revealed only once so far, and then very quickly--seems to be, well, awesome at just about everything he does.) In other words, Chuck has no life. No life whatsoever. Although he was once a promising student at Stanford University, he got kicked out for cheating, and then his girlfriend was stolen away by his best friend. Chuck’s life hasn’t been the same since. Your classic underachiever, he excels juuuuuuuuust enough in the Nerd Herd to be mildly winning but still anonymous. The message: If you don’t have a lot, it doesn’t hurt as much if it’s taken away.

But then, much against Chuck Bartowsky’s will, he’s dragged into a world that combines equal measures of James Bond and 24.

At the beginning of the 2007 pilot for this series, we saw a good-looking young man fleeing for his life and using the French martial art parkour on his pursuers. It was a scene straight out of a Bond movie. Running into a clear white room, he found a computer and hacked into it. After locating the file he wanted, he e-mailed it to the first person he found on his contact list. As it turned out, the fleeing man was Chuck’s old Stanford roommate, now a “rogue” CIA operative. And the person to whom he sent that file?

Chuck, of course.

The morning after, our man Chuck opened up his e-mail folder and found a riddle from his former roommate concerning an old video game. By answering it, Chuck unlocked an entire server’s worth of sensitive information--formerly accessible only to the U.S. government. Suddenly, a flood of images crossed the screen, and Chuck blacked out from the overload of information he was seeing and that his brain was absorbing subliminally. Now, Chuck’s head is filled with all of the American government’s secrets. That transference didn’t make a ton of sense, and it was very science-fiction-y; but it was a cool idea, and Chuck has such a winking tone to it, that viewers are willing to accept its premise.

Not surprisingly, the feds send a couple of spies in pursuit of Chuck: CIA agent Sarah Walker (Strahovski) and NSA agent John Casey (veteran actor Baldwin, who plays the part to gruff and scary perfection--he could scare Jack Bauer). In the pilot, lovely blond Sarah conned Chuck into going on a date with her to see what he knows, and in the process of their exchange, government goons attacked, resulting in a really cool nightclub dance/fight scene, followed by a car chase in a Nerd Herd VW Bug. In the end, Sarah and Casey both decided that naïve Chuck can be used, since they can’t otherwise get the information out of his head without killing him. Casey takes a job as a Buy More salesman, while Sarah works at a hot dog joint in the same mall. Wackiness ensues as Sarah and Casey use whatever information Chuck flashes on (that’s how his brain works now--he sees a picture or a name and his brain latches onto related information) and go off to fight the bad guys. Poor Chuck is usually dragged along in some way.

While it never takes itself too seriously, there are some great quiet moments in this series, not limited to the portrayal of Chuck’s lonely life or the growing attraction between Chuck and Sarah. Actor Levi totally sells the emotional moments, as when his character pleads with Sarah to at least tell him her middle name, since he knows that “Sarah” is a cover, and he wants to know her a little better. And he’s a great physical comedian. Levi can do a really convincing pratfall, right up there with Dick Van Dyke, and his facial and vocal reactions to the craziness in his new life are wonderful. My favorite moment of the show thus far came when Chuck asked Captain Awesome to teach him how to tango, so he could go undercover at a high-class social event. At said engagement, he did indeed tango, but asked the woman to lead, because he’d only learned how to do the woman’s part of the dance. The ensuing tango made for a classic comic TV scene, as Chuck was embarrassed at having to follow, but totally committed to the tango so he wouldn’t blow his cover. (To see some of that scene for yourself, click here.)

A few critics have complained that Zachary Levi is too tall and good-looking to be a nerd. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s totally believable. Levi plays Chuck as a normal guy with pitifully few social skills, someone who is uncomfortable in his own skin. Chuck Bartowsky would rather be fixing a computer, or maybe looking at porn and playing video games with his best friend, Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez), than talking to a girl. After all, those other things can’t reject and hurt him. It’s a very tricky performance and especially painful, because you see that women could really go for Chuck--he just doesn’t know how to begin in that arena. I know a lot of guys just like Chuck. Heck, I was that guy once upon a time and still have to work at doing better.

Chuck is a great show, with a lot of heart, a keen intelligence both for pop culture (in the pilot, Chuck did the Vicki Vale riff from Prince’s Batman soundtrack), and clever plotting with a sharp sense of humor. The pacing, as in The O.C., is quick and snappy.

All I have left to talk about here is the show’s opening (embedded above). For my money, it’s the best and most original main title sequence I’ve seen in a long time that was not designed for a pay-cable TV series. It starts out with a shot of Chuck Bartowsky, then the camera zooms in on his Buy More badge. Unexpectedly, a stick figure with a briefcase pops out of that badge, one step ahead of gunfire. As that figure scurries onward (to the sound of a pop jazz theme--a chunk of “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” by the alternative-rock band Cake), the names and drawn faces of the Chuck cast flash by. The little stick figure is one hell of a survivor, by the way, riding a bullet spit out from a gun, evading a ninja, running from a helicopter, and of course climbing out of Chuck’s nose (those latter two acts both references again to North by Northwest). It works because it’s a tongue-in-cheek idea of the Bond universe invading the life of a normal guy, and the best Bond movie openings are always stylized and filled with dramatic action.

I can’t imagine a more perfect opening for Chuck. It’s screwball and stylish, but still conveys the show’s sense of danger. This series is a pop song of a drama, light-sounding but with hidden depths, so that’s why the band Cake is so perfect to supply the music. I love the show for the way it seamlessly mixes its super-spy drama premise with a lightning-speed pace and a comedic touch. While it winks at the audience, Chuck doesn’t skimp on emotional content or brains. It’s well worth your Monday nights at 8 p.m. Reward good entertainment by giving it your time.