Chuck: The Complete First Season review

Chuck: The Complete First Season is the latest brainchild of The OC creator Josh Schwartz, and retains that show’s fondness for geeks and nerds with its story of Chuck Bartowski, a 20-something computer geek who winds up with government secrets downloaded to his brain.
This outlandish premise keeps throwing together excellent episodes packed with espionage, action and laughs. Imagine a spoof of Alias with a nerdy guy as the lead (and a hot, blonde CIA agent masquerading as his girlfriend) and you’ve got a pretty good idea what to expect.

Richard W Holliss: This well-shot series benefits from some nicely set up camera pieces, reasonable anamorphic 1.78:1 picture quality and very little picture noise. Facial close-ups of the eponymous hero and his chums boast good skin tones and plenty of texture. Night locations also offer a reasonable colour fidelity and shadow detail.

Rik Henderson: You’d think that Chuck’s mix of gags and action would lend itself well to an active soundtrack. It’s annoying, then, that the Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes for each episode are standard TV fodder. Almost everything in the mix is focused on the front speakers, albeit with a modicum of L/C/R steerage. The rears are only used for subtle atmospheric effects and adding depth to the music. Use of the LFE channel is pretty persistent, but could hardly be described as aggressive.

Anton van Beek: When it comes to Warner Home Video handling television content on DVD, you never know how things are going to turn out. Hit shows like Supernatural and Pushing Daisies get boxsets that are completely bereft of bonus bits, while mouldering oldies like Thundercats and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman fare better. Thankfully, Chuck benefits from a healthy dose of supplementary material. Each of the four discs offers up deleted scenes, and dotted around the set is a series of featurettes about the characters (including audition footage), a gag reel, a chat about the first season with the cast and show creator, and four mini-featurettes produced for the internet. The only thing it’s really missing are some episode commentaries.

Warner Home Video, R2 DVD, £30
HCC VERDICT: 4/5