Good-Bye to Chuck

The Chuck Cast

I suppose I should be grateful for getting 4 1/2 seasons out of my favorite TV show, Chuck, but I can't help but feel that NBC short-changed this fun offering.  I suppose in the long run, it's nothing personal, it's just financial - still, it's sad to see them go. 

I sometimes think the new shows are just trying to out-gross each other.  And I'm not talking about money now.  I am so sick of the vulgarity and disgusting visual images in the current TV line-up.   I tried to watch a couple of new shows recently.  They were billed as comedies, but they were sad, pointless, and filled with sexual situations that I found degrading to both men and women. 

To quote President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles:

You too live in a time of war, the spiritual war that will never end.  War itself now dominates the affairs of mankind.  Your world at war has lost its innocence.  There is nothing, however crude or unworthy, that is not deemed acceptable for movies or plays or music or converstaion.  The world seems to be turned upside down.

Formality, respect for authority, dignity, and nobility are mocked.  Modesty and neatness yield to slouchiness and shabbiness in dress and grooming.  The rules of honesty and integrity and basic morality are now ignored.  Conversation is laced with profanity.  You see that in art and literature, in drama and entertainment.  Instead of being refined, they become coarse. (See i Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Timothy 3:1-9)

You have decisions almost every day as to whether you will follow those trends..

Yvonne Strahovski, Zack Levy and Adam Baldwin of Chuck

The final episode airs this Friday on NBC, at 8 p.m. PST

Okay, to get back on topic, I spent the evening watching a DVD set of an oldie but goodie: Scarecrow and Mrs. King.  Remember that one from the 80s?  Well, it was refreshing watching a show that didn't offend me or disgust me, or gross me out.

Funny, now I think about it, the premise of Chuck was just Scarecrow and Mrs. King turned on its ear: the intelligent, but innocent, Mrs. King becoming the intelligent, but innocent Chuck Bartowski.  The invincible, good-looking spy Lee Stetson, replaced by the invincible, beautiful spy Sarah Walker.

Kate Jackson and Bruce Boxleitner of Scarecrow and Mrs. King

The networks despair over a rising generation that has so many entertainment choices that TV is far down on its list.  However, excuse me if I'm wrong, but good writing, and quality programming have always been a big draw with any generation.  If that wasn't true, we wouldn't have heard of some guys named Shakespeare or Ibsen.

Funny how we never seem to learn that.