To The Fans Of Chuck

To The Fans of Chuck from Matt Barber on Vimeo.

Note To The Fans From Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak

We at team Chuck are a humble bunch, but we can’t deny that we’re very proud to share this with you. Season five of Chuck. Take a moment…let that sink in. Season five of Chuck!

We’ve learned a lot over the past five years: You can disarm a bomb with fruit juice, arcade skills, or some good old-fashioned Internet pornography. Never underestimate the power of sandwiches in renewal negotiations. And then there are those two semesters of brain science we took, just to confirm that sunglasses really can teach someone kung-fu. (First lesson: It’s not called “brain science.” Second lesson. Of course they can. They’re sunglasses.)

But most importantly, we’ve learned how great it is to be part of such a loyal and enthusiastic community. We wouldn’t be here in season five if it weren’t for you and our fans. Your support has been critical not just in making this show possible, but in making it such an enjoyable ride.

This season will take Chuck back to the basics, as he and his team go independent as Carmichael Industries. Without the help of the CIA or the Intersect in his head, Chuck is once again the underdog, relying more than ever on his wits, his team, and also on a new Intersect — Morgan Grimes. And as Chuck and Sarah begin life as newlywed spy partners, they’re led to consider the future of their spy life. In addition, we’re excited to have a new cast of guest stars on board, including Mark Hamill, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Cheryl Ladd. Who else could be Sarah’s mom but an original Angel?

So here it is, Chuck season five: the final chapter. And remember: Friday is the new Monday. Tell your friends, your readers, your viewers, your pen pal, your town counil member, your therapist, and your Twitter followers.

And enjoy!

Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak

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‘CHUCK’ CREATORS JOSH SCHWARTZ AND CHRIS FEDAK DISCUSS ‘SEASON 4.2′ – SPOILERS!

By pretty much any standard, last week’s episode of “Chuck” was jam-packed, what with the bad guys being taken down, Chuck (Zachary Levi) proposing to Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) and Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) giving birth. But according to co-creator Josh Schwartz, “Chuck vs. the Push Mix” actually left a few things out.

“Eleven episodes’ worth has been left out,” Schwartz tells Zap2it, referring to the final 11 episode of Season 4 that start Monday (Feb. 7). “Plus another season.”

Wait — another season? Does Schwartz know something the rest of us don’t?

“No, no, not at all,” he says. “I’m just saying we’ve got enough. We’ve got enough gas in this tank.”

Any news about Season 5 is still a good ways away, but Schwartz and “Chuck” co-creator Chris Fedak have a lot to say about the rest of Season 4, including the returns of Linda Hamilton and Timothy Dalton and parenthood issues — among other things — for Ellie and Awesome. Here are some highlights from Zap2it’s interview with the duo.

Zap2it: The situation with the back-11 order this season is pretty similar to what you went through last year, right?
Chris Fedak: Yes. We had an order for 13 episodes, so we broke a very tightly plotted 13 episodes that we wanted to culminate with Ellie giving birth and Chuck proposing to Sarah. So we were kind of tied into that structure.

Josh Schwartz: Me being the negative Nelly I am, I told Fedak to put it all in [episode] 13. “That’s it — there’s no way we’re going to get more episodes again.” Luckily he didn’t listen to me.

Fedak: [Laughs] Josh wanted to have the wedding in 13 as well.

When you get an order for more episodes sort of late in the game, how do you handle it? Do you just go scurrying back to the writers room?
Fedak: We’re always scurrying back to the writers room. That’s pretty much the usual for us.

Schwartz: Fedak is one of the best scurriers in the business.

Fedak: We have big arcs and shapes we’ve been talking about for the last couple of years. So last season we put Chuck and Sarah together at the end of episode 13, and we knew we wanted to do a show about Chuck and Sarah as a couple. So we took those back six episodes and focused on that part of the story. This year, with Chuck and Sarah engaged, it’s a new season in a way.

With episode 14 and on, we’re kind of relaunching the show, and we’re doing it with a couple of really fun, action-packed episodes. The last couple episodes have been very mythology-oriented — we’ve taken on Volkoff, we had the mom story. So now we’re launching Season 4.2. This part of the story is the team in action again. … We have big mythology we’re heading to, but it’s kind of fun to reset and do some standalone missions.

Schwartz: We also have Sarah as a belly dancer coming up. That should be enough.

Fedak: It will erase your mind.

Will Linda Hamilton and Timothy Dalton be back on the show?
Fedak: Linda is definitely returning to the show — she’s actually in [Monday's episode]. And Timothy is also returning.

Do you have a timetable for his return?
Fedak: We’re working on that now, but both will be in multi-episode arcs.

You can’t leave Volkoff alive and just have him disappear, I guess.
Fedak: Once you have Timothy Dalton — he’s just been so wonderful. When you talk about scurrying back to the writers room, after we watched the first episode with him, we were so excited because it gave us the opportunity to build out that character some more. So [having] 11 more episodes, we definitely wanted to bring Volkoff back and have some more fun.

What’s your philosophy on mixing in standalone episodes with the bigger arcs?
Schwartz: The bigger stories have great momentum to them and great traction to them. It’s sometimes a function of the number of episodes per season — you need to have standalone episodes. But some of those standalones have been some of our favorites. When we first started the show, we were asked to rely heavily on standalone episodes, because there’s this philosophy that people are finding the show for the first time over the first handful of episodes.

But when we locked into that first run of mythology episodes, around episode six of the first season, that’s where the show really found its creative footing and where people got invested in a real emotional way. So those arcs are always very successful, but some of those standalones have been some of the classic “Chuck” episodes.

Fedak: We love both [types of episodes]. And we also like to build our mythology episodes so there’s at least some standalone component to them. The mission is something you can watch and not totally be tied into the arc of the show. But when it comes to having fun, the standalones give us an opportunity to break out and try something on for size.

Is it kind of like an “X-Files” approach then?
Fedak: I think we might do more mythology episodes than “The X-Files” did. … In Season 1 we really got into how many would be standalon and how many would be [arced]. But like Josh said, [the ongoing story] was something the audience latched onto. … It was exciting for us because it allowed us to do those kinds of episodes.

Schwartz: And you get to dig deeper, you have more emotional repercussions, the world of the characters becomes richer. There are so many things about it that are exciting. But it’s scary too, because you’re saying to the audience, “This train is not going to the same stop every week, so if you’re on the train you’ve got to stay on.” When a show decides to leave its episodic nature behind and embrace more serialized storytelling, creatively it’s very rewarding. In terms of viewership, you never know. So as Chris said, we’re thrilled the audience wanted to take that ride.

Now that Chuck and Sarah are engaged, is either of them going to be extra-eager to plan the wedding?
Fedak: We have a really exciting picking-out-china sequence. … Whenever you’re getting married, there are crazy things that happen. It’s one of the most stressful times in any couple’s life. What’s fun for us is to turn that into, what’s the exciting spy version of that? How do we fold it into Chuck’s spy life? As well as the fact that Sarah is a superspy — the more we bring her into the kind of human world of Chuck, it’s exciting to see the woman behind the superspy mask that is Sarah Walker. It’s another great opportunity for us to continue to explore our characters.

How will having a baby affect Ellie and Awesome [Ryan McPartlin]?
Fedak: It’s funny, because in my personal life, I have a daughter named Clara …

Schwartz: Nepotism! [Note: The baby in the show is not Fedak's daughter; she's just named after her.]

Fedak: That’s definitely part of the family story. “Chuck” is not just about the spy world; it’s also about the family life. And the fact that there’s a new Woodcomb who’s part of the Bartowski family is an exciting change to the show. But there are other things going on with their lives. We have some neat stuff in the back 11 — and the spy world isn’t done with them. A lot of what we’ve done this season is to explore the spy world from a family perspective, so we’re going to have some very interesting stuff come up for Ellie and Awesome, and how they may perhaps, in their own way, get into a bit of trouble.

And since Ellie just had a baby on screen, can we assume you won’t write Sarah’s real-life pregnacy into the show?
Fedak: We’ll be shooting around it a little bit.

Are there any remnants of the Buy More as a CIA front?
Schwartz: Greta will all be explained soon enough.

Are there other Gretas coming in?
Schwartz: Some classic Gretas [namely Stacy Keibler and Isaiah Mustafa] will be returning, and the whole Greta operation is going to pay off. In a satisfying way, don’t you think?

Fedak: Absolutely.

Schwartz: What was designed once as shameless stunt casting to keep ourselves alive will pay off in a creatively satisfying way.

Fedak: That was a fun thing. It started off as a lark … then as we kind of got more into it, we decided to build it into the mythology of the show. We have some stuff coming up that explains what Greta was all about.

What about the weaponry that was built into the store? Is there any chance that, say, Jeff or someone could accidentally trigger it?
Fedak: I’d say it’s pretty well secured, but you never know.

“Chuck” continues its season at 8 p.m. ET Monday on NBC.

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Chuck 4.14 Vs Seduction Impossible promo "Mondays are awesome!"

Indeed, Mondays are AWESOME on NBC and it´s the only notch they know!

Watch the joint promo for Chuck, The Cape and Harry´s Law:

SPOILER ALERT: CHUCK BOSSES ON VOLKOFF’S RETURN, A CHUCK/SARAH WEDDING, AND… SEASON 5?

As far as epic Chuck episodes go, last night’s action-packed hour certainly ranks near the top (if not at the top). To recap: Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) gave birth to a mini-Awesome, Big Bad Volkoff (Timothy Dalton) went directly to jail, Casey (Adam Baldwin) cheated death for the millionth time, Jeffster held an entire hospital hostage with their vocals, and, oh yeah, Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) got engaged! Or did they? Read on as exec producers Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz answer that burning question (among others), tease the remaining 11 episodes (wedding?!) and weigh in on a possible fifth season.

TVLine | You really must’ve thought last night’s episode was going to be the season finale. You practically left no stone unturned.
CHRIS FEDAK | [NBC originally] only ordered 13 episodes, so we broke the season accordingly. We knew that Episode 13 needed to be designed in a way so that we could [resolve] a lot of the story. We knew we wanted to end Episode 13 with Ellie giving birth and Chuck and Sarah getting engaged. But much like last season, 13 now becomes a launching pad for the second half of the season.

TVLine | The episode could’ve easily been a series finale.
JOSH SCHWARTZ | Luckily, Chris didn’t listen to me. Because I was like, “Throw it all in there. Weddings, babies — it all needs to happen in this episode.”
FEDAK | It’s true. I held back the [Chuck/Sarah] wedding. We had a lot of conversations about literally getting to the wedding in episode 13.
SCHWARTZ | We felt grateful to be back this season with 13 episodes. You go into it saying, “Let’s play the hand that we’re dealt — make the best 13 episodes possible but don’t expect more than that.” That’s the exact mentality that’s gotten us through the past four years.

TVLine | So Chris, what was the argument you made to Josh about not having a wedding in Episode 13?
FEDAK | There was so much story to tell — with [Mama B] and Chuck and Sarah and their relationship — [the wedding] was the one thing that we knew we could push. And in the end, if episode 13 had been our series finale I think the engagement was a strong enough moment that it still would’ve worked. Now we have the opportunity to build toward perhaps maybe a wedding at the end of this season — if Chuck and Sarah are so lucky to survive that long.

TVLine | Are you saying “maybe” because you haven’t made the decision yet, or because you don’t want to spoil it?
FEDAK | I’m saying “maybe” because we’re working on that part of the season now. Things can happen between engagement and wedding. The Chuck/Sarah relationship is the cornerstone of the show and we’re not looking to break them up or throw too many problems at them. But you never know when cliffhangers are going to happen.

TVLine | Talk to me about the decision to drown out the dialogue from the proposal with the vacuum.
FEDAK | We essentially did the proposal scene in Episode 11. It was a great proposal scene. It was in France, it was romantic, and Chuck essentially said everything he was going to say. So since we felt like we had done the big epic romantic proposal scene, we thought this one should be simple and in a very common place. Still super-romantic but different than what we had done.

TVLine | Can you put fans’ minds at ease and confirm that Sarah did in fact say yes?
SCHWARTZ | She hugged him right before it faded to black.

TVLine | But did she say yes?
FEDAK | [Laughs] She said yes.

TVLine | What happens to Mama B now?
FEDAK | She’s still part of the show.
SCHWARTZ | And you haven’t seen the last of Volkoff either.

TVLine | Really? Will they be a major presence in the final 11?
FEDAK | They’ll both be in multi-episode arcs.

TVLine | Can you confirm that Lauren Cohan’s character will turn out to be Volkoff’s daughter?
FEDAK | Lauren is joining the show and maybe she folds into the mythology.
SCHWARTZ | When you have somebody as good as Timothy Dalton you figure out a way to keep him in the show.

TVLine | Will she figure into a love triangle with Chuck and Sarah?
[Long pause]
FEDAK | We’ve done the triangle a couple of times. That’s a very exciting character and that’s a very exciting story that we’re telling but I think you’ll quickly see that we’re going down a different road — something we haven’t done before.

TVLine | Is Papa Bartowski really dead?
FEDAK | He’s still dead.
SCHWARTZ | We were grateful we got Scott Bakula back to do the voice of Stephen Bartowksi this season.

TVLine | How will Robin Givens’ character figure into things? I hear she makes Casey an offer he can’t refuse.
FEDAK | She does. She comes into our story in episode 16 and she very much speaks to the mythology of the show. After episode 14 and 15, which are both really fun standalone episodes, we bring back the mythology and what’s happening inside the bigger Volkolff arc — and Robin’s character factors into that. She plays a kind of a foil of sorts to Chuck. But she also knows a lot of things that Chuck doesn’t know. She also has a lot of secrets that are even kept from Gen. Beckman. So it’s an interesting deepening of the spy world.

TVLine | How are you feeling about your chances for a fifth season?
SCHWARTZ | It’s a nail-biter. Chuck fans are going to have to dig down deep and rally once again.

TVLine | Will you write the season finale as a series finale?
SCHWARTZ | Luckily this is a path we’ve been down before. We will leave nothing behind, but the door will still be left open for the future.

Want more Chuck scoop? Check out this week’s Ask Ausiello. (You didn’t think I used everything here, did you?)

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Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz

http://www.zap2it.com/videobeta/d2c1f938-27e1-4791-a55d-9143c2600e1b/Entertainment/Zap2it-on-the-Scene-Chuck-producers-on-Baby-Awesome-Linda-Hamilton
"Creators of NBc's hit series Chuck talk about the upcoming season 4; including an awesome baby, a kick-ass mama, and also promising to feature some awesome music."