Why Isn't "Chuck" Better?

"Chuck" ought to be a particular kind of amazing show. Dynamite premise - adorably nerdy worker bee at Best Buy-ish electronics store gets all the secrets of the CIA downloaded into his brain. Good bits of multigenre fusion - "James Bond" meets "The Apartment," light workplace comedy mashed together with action drama. The protagonist is a post-Seth Cohen beta hero; the love interest is a kung-fu femme fatale bombshell out of Diaz-era "Charlie's Angels." Adam Baldwin is involved, and everything Adam Baldwin says or does is a gold mine. It's a show by Josh Schwartz, creator of "The O.C." and "Gossip Girl," an expert in high-quality post-Housewives guilty pleasure.

And yet, week after perilous week, "Chuck" just lies there. It's a show full of tiny pleasures - bit players like Captain Awesome, hot chick karate, Adam Baldwin Adam Baldwin - and that is why I keep watching, waiting for the whole enterprise to click together.

So far, it hasn't. The stars have no real chemistry - Zachary Levi hits the right chord of amiable heroism, but Yvonne Strahovski is blanker than blank. That wouldn't be so bad if so much of the show didn't focus on her inner emotional torture - it's obvious to everyone (literally everyone) that she loves Chuck, but she can't admit it to herself, her job gets in the way, blah blah blah. It's the old Mischa Barton complex - the most complex character is played by the least talented performer. It'd be funnier if she were more cutthroat spy - episode 4's rival feminagent, played by Mini Anden, hit all the right flirty-twisty Emma Peel notes much better than Strahovski.

The problems with their romance became obvious when Rachel Bilson guest-starred. Bilson, clearly doing a favor for her old showrunner Schwartz, played her patented Summer Roberts blend of fast-talking neurosis and fiery passive aggression, and struck instant sparks with Levi. Here's the kind of romance Chuck SHOULD be having - one that would really bring the whole Clark Kent/Superman dualism of the series home.

But no. Instead, we get Chuck's clueless best friend, Morgan, a character clearly intended for comic relief who fails at nearly every turn. Joshua Gomez is a gifted actor, but the producers, in trying to set up a best-friend character, pushed him way too far over the edge - his worship of Chuck approaches that of a zealot consumed with Soviet era cult of personality. For much of the first season so far, the guy's had zero inner life besides wondering where Chuck is and waiting for Chuck to find him. This is a modern bromance of the most pathetically jilted sort - you want to yell, "Just kiss him already!"

Consider the climactic scene of "Chuck versus the Sandworm," which involve one of the series' principal characters racing into a party to find another principal character of the series, whose face shifts from mournful to exhilirated upon realizing they have been found by the only person they care about. This is an exact repeat of the closing scene from the New Year's episode from Season 1 of "The OC," right down to the slow motion and the song ("Dice" by Finley Quaye and William Orbit - one of those songs that defined 2004, for a certain type of person at a certain time of their life whose only experience with modern music came from soundtracks for "The OC.") The difference being that the earlier scene culminates in Ryan telling Marissa he loves her, this new scene culminates in Chuck telling Morgan that he should be the head of the two-person costume they wear every year, shaped like a sandworm from Dune, which is shaped like a gigantic sci-fi cock.

The show's taken Morgan in a good direction by pairing him up with Anna Wu, who's just the right blend of bad bi-curious asian girl and goth-sweet coworker to make the romance believable. "Chuck" got picked up for a full season - it's reasonable to think, with time off for more wages, the writers will bounce back with more goodness like that. Post-"Lost," post-"Sopranos," it's easy to forget that plenty of good shows need some time to find their footing.

Or so I keep telling myself. The main overriding problem with the show, so far, is how oddly repetitive the spy plotlines have been. The narrative arc of each show is really not so dissimilar from old actioners like "The A-Team" or "Charlie's Angels" - Chuck will flash on someone who just so happens to be an international arms smuggler/counterfeiter/drug dealer/superspy; the CIA flips out and sends him, the girl, and Adam Fucking Baldwin in; the girl and Adam Fucking Baldwin get into trouble and Chuck awkwardly and sweetly saves the day. Why can't Chuck ever do something, you know, INTERESTING with his gigantic backlog of knowledge? Get back at a business rival, say, or get himself free cable?

Come on, Chuck! Be better!