Post-Mortem: Chuck

After five seasons, Chuck is over. There was doubt at the end of every season as to whether it would get renewed for the next one or not, and at the end of the fourth season, the creators — Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz — decided to make the fifth one the final one for certain, so that they could end it on their own terms. Not counting one-season wonders, it’s been a long time since a show has ended that I’ve watched from the very first episode all the way to the end — even with 24 I missed the first two or three hours.

So, as the first show to conclude since the start of my blogging, Chuck gets the distinction of being the first show to get not just a season Post-Mortem, but a full series Post-Mortem. I’ll go over what I loved, what I didn’t like, what changed over the years and what went right and wrong with each individual season. Obviously, there will be spoilers. If you haven’t seen the finale, go back to your DVR and watch it. If you haven’t seen the series… well, go buy or rent the boxed sets, wait for the fifth season, watch it, and come back. It’s worth it. And comments are always welcome, even months later. For the rest of you, keep reading.

Mr. Destiny

The 1990 comedy Mr. Destiny is centered around the notion that, if you change one key event in a person’s life, the whole life changes. It’s a familiar, often-visited premise in movies; It’s a Wonderful Life did it on such a grand scale (with the event being the life happening at all) that it’s spawned almost as many imitators as Elvis Presley. With a few rare exceptions, the genre consists of some apparently-luckless individual wishing on one simple change to their past that would make everything better. Their wish is granted, and initially it seems wonderful, and then they start to see the bad side of things and just how good their actual life really was by comparison.

In some alternate life, perhaps I chose to watch a different film than Mr. Destiny tonight. I’d like to think that other Morgan might have been some tiny bit happier for it, but who knows? Maybe he got stuck watching Jack and Jill instead.