This week has made me reminisce about the past. A lot of it has to do with the fact that The OC turned 10. Some of it has to do with it being August and my school kid association of August as the end of something (summer, mostly). And a little of it is because I'm starting to tie up loose ends in another Josh Schwartz TV show Chuck.


Chuck skewed geekier than The OC but the show captured the same fun with an extra dose of unabashed silliness. If The OC's true charm was hidden underneath botoxed foreheads and bikinis, Chuck wore its geekiness as proudly as a Nerd Herder wore his pocket protector. The cast was slightly older but just as beautiful (not to mention unreasonably tall) and even though Chuck never reached the cultural significance of The OC, it somehow lasted a season longer (it felt like it was on the chopping block every season).

But I never obsessed over Chuck like I did with The OC. In fact, I never even finished the series. Hell, I didn't even know there was a fifth season. There were many reasons why I cared less for it—I was older, I was in New York—but as all this The OC nostalgia comes back to me in an orange glow on the Internet, it's making me miss the escapist excellence of some TV shows. Like Chuck.


I don't always have to watch great shows like Mad Men. Or Breaking Bad. Or even Game of Thrones. Like how I don't always have to eat at fine dining restaurants like Per Se all the time (even if I could afford it). Or wear a suit everywhere I go (or wear a suit at all). Life is better when we take ourselves less seriously. Chuck, which hardly ever took itself seriously, captured the lightness and balanced the ridiculousness of what television should be sometimes. You don't always want to be taught about the degrees of darkness and how the game is rigged against us, you want to see a geek land the hot girl and save the freaking world with his friends. Chuck might not be remembered like The Wire but that doesn't mean it needs to be forgotten.

So now after this nostalgic trip, I'm gonna finish out the series because the 8th month of the year means it's time to finish something. For all you folks who stuck through Chuck when it was on the air, more power to you. For those of you who haven't watched it, you can start watching the some of the first season on the WB. [The WB]