All dork and no play?
Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 23, 2007
'THE BIG BANG THEORY' Rating 2 1/2 out of 4
'CHUCK' Rating 4 out of 4
Can a dork score a girl? This depends on which new TV show you watch during the fall season of dorks, geeks and nerds.
If you turn on NBCs "Chuck," you'll see a tall, strapping young man who becomes not only an accidental spy/brainiac, but also the dorky object of beautiful female affections.
But if you watch CBS's "The Big Bang Theory," you'll see socially awkward science geeks who play "Klingon Boggle" and fail to effectively chat up a naked blonde in their own apartment.
What's going on here?
"Dork is the new cool," says Zachary Levi, who plays Chuck.
And Hollywood wants to capitalize using different tacks.
NBC follows the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" approach with "Chuck" (as does the CW's "Reaper") by making characters sexually robust and embraceable by dorky viewers who will immediately understand certain jokes, such as: "I'm working on a five-year plan, I just need to choose a font."
And there's no studio audience to pass judgment on "Chuck."
By contrast, "Big Bang Theory" goes the "Frasier" route and portrays geeks as wimpy smartypants who make others bristle at their intellectual flatness.
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One "Big Banger" brags: "I have 212 friends on MySpace." Another responds in this obvious, already old joke: "Yes, and you've never met one of them."
"Bang" characters explain their geeky jokes aloud, so a studio audience and non-dork viewers at home can laugh at them, not with them.
In other words, everything about "Chuck" is new and warm. Everything about "Big Bang Theory" is traditional and cold.
They're both well-crafted comedies for what they are. But if you enjoy one and not the other, this might say something about who you are and the current state of your relationship with dorkiness.
As for me, I'm a "Chuck" man. For the most part, the premiere episode is entertaining in big chunks, and merely stupidly absurd in a few dumb scenes. The writing is crisp, the direction is nimble, and all the actors inhabit their roles perfectly.
"Chuck" is a computer tech in a Best Buy-like store called Buy More. One day, he watches hours of visuals sent to him by e-mail, and this turns his brain into a vat of national secrets.
Soon enough, the CIA and NSA will turn him into an accidental spy who knows too much.
Chuck is a charming guy, due to a humble but confident performance by Zachary Levi, the center of the action comedy featuring a certain amount of "Alias"-like sleekness.
Chuck is fairly representative of America's "quarter-life crisis," in which some "kids that are 24, 25 years old" are working in "big box" stores, producer McG says.
And "Chuck" may serve as wish fulfillment for video gamers, as Levi said during show promotions:
"We play these video games so that we can go on these missions in our head," he said. "Now, we get like, 'Oh, please let me shoot a gun. Please let me be in a car accident. I want to do it. Throw me out of the helicopter, please.' "
The female co-lead is a Third Wave Feminist, as McG identifies her. Sarah (Yvonne Strzechowski) not only looks fit in boy shorts and a bra, she's a whipsmart CIA agent who can dance suggestively at a club while simultaneously throwing knives accurately at men swarming toward her.
Now, compare all that to "Big Bang Theory," in which the writing is quick, the direction is adroit and the actors find their voices quickly -- but there's nothing much fresh in the setup.
Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki from "Roseanne") are physicists who meet a dumb blonde neighbor they desire named Penny (Kaley Cuoco, "Eight Simple Rules"). They stumble over their words. She smiles at them pitifully.
The tone is theatrical American farce; Parsons most resembles Niles from "Frasier." Galecki gives Leonard a bit more social grace. But neither knows how to flirt with Penny, except to entice her to dinner with science riddles and an offer of a "clean colon."
It's interesting to note that co-creator Bill Prady is a brainiac who, while promoting the show, said he never had the girl problems his characters have.
"I'm a married man, and I've been very successful with women, and I don't need to have my wishes fulfilled on television," he said.
But if people like Prady and my dad [a physicist] and many other dorks have been able to get girls, why do these "Big Bang" geeks have to be social losers in a traditional sitcom way?
One answer may be that "Big Bang Theory's" network, CBS, has an older audience. Older viewers, a presumption goes, are drawn to older TV formulas like dumb blondes and nutty professors.
ABC and NBC, on the other hand, attract younger viewers and have moved away from studio audiences and the notion that intellectuals, dorks and blondes are primarily to be made fun of.
So maybe Prady was a dork, but so was McG, who is a little more giving with his characters:
"That's my inner nerd as a guy who went to high school; I graduated 5-foot-2, orange Afro, braces -- and shoe skates. I never had one date, and you'd always dream about empowered women sort of giving you the time of day."
McG, you know, directed "Charlie's Angels." This wasn't revenge of a nerd. It was a sign of the times: Dorks have style and they get girls, so let's get on with it, shall we?
'THE BIG BANG THEORY' Rating 2 1/2 out of 4
'CHUCK' Rating 4 out of 4
Can a dork score a girl? This depends on which new TV show you watch during the fall season of dorks, geeks and nerds.
If you turn on NBCs "Chuck," you'll see a tall, strapping young man who becomes not only an accidental spy/brainiac, but also the dorky object of beautiful female affections.
But if you watch CBS's "The Big Bang Theory," you'll see socially awkward science geeks who play "Klingon Boggle" and fail to effectively chat up a naked blonde in their own apartment.
What's going on here?
"Dork is the new cool," says Zachary Levi, who plays Chuck.
And Hollywood wants to capitalize using different tacks.
NBC follows the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" approach with "Chuck" (as does the CW's "Reaper") by making characters sexually robust and embraceable by dorky viewers who will immediately understand certain jokes, such as: "I'm working on a five-year plan, I just need to choose a font."
And there's no studio audience to pass judgment on "Chuck."
By contrast, "Big Bang Theory" goes the "Frasier" route and portrays geeks as wimpy smartypants who make others bristle at their intellectual flatness.
Advertisement
One "Big Banger" brags: "I have 212 friends on MySpace." Another responds in this obvious, already old joke: "Yes, and you've never met one of them."
"Bang" characters explain their geeky jokes aloud, so a studio audience and non-dork viewers at home can laugh at them, not with them.
In other words, everything about "Chuck" is new and warm. Everything about "Big Bang Theory" is traditional and cold.
They're both well-crafted comedies for what they are. But if you enjoy one and not the other, this might say something about who you are and the current state of your relationship with dorkiness.
As for me, I'm a "Chuck" man. For the most part, the premiere episode is entertaining in big chunks, and merely stupidly absurd in a few dumb scenes. The writing is crisp, the direction is nimble, and all the actors inhabit their roles perfectly.
"Chuck" is a computer tech in a Best Buy-like store called Buy More. One day, he watches hours of visuals sent to him by e-mail, and this turns his brain into a vat of national secrets.
Soon enough, the CIA and NSA will turn him into an accidental spy who knows too much.
Chuck is a charming guy, due to a humble but confident performance by Zachary Levi, the center of the action comedy featuring a certain amount of "Alias"-like sleekness.
Chuck is fairly representative of America's "quarter-life crisis," in which some "kids that are 24, 25 years old" are working in "big box" stores, producer McG says.
And "Chuck" may serve as wish fulfillment for video gamers, as Levi said during show promotions:
"We play these video games so that we can go on these missions in our head," he said. "Now, we get like, 'Oh, please let me shoot a gun. Please let me be in a car accident. I want to do it. Throw me out of the helicopter, please.' "
The female co-lead is a Third Wave Feminist, as McG identifies her. Sarah (Yvonne Strzechowski) not only looks fit in boy shorts and a bra, she's a whipsmart CIA agent who can dance suggestively at a club while simultaneously throwing knives accurately at men swarming toward her.
Now, compare all that to "Big Bang Theory," in which the writing is quick, the direction is adroit and the actors find their voices quickly -- but there's nothing much fresh in the setup.
Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki from "Roseanne") are physicists who meet a dumb blonde neighbor they desire named Penny (Kaley Cuoco, "Eight Simple Rules"). They stumble over their words. She smiles at them pitifully.
The tone is theatrical American farce; Parsons most resembles Niles from "Frasier." Galecki gives Leonard a bit more social grace. But neither knows how to flirt with Penny, except to entice her to dinner with science riddles and an offer of a "clean colon."
It's interesting to note that co-creator Bill Prady is a brainiac who, while promoting the show, said he never had the girl problems his characters have.
"I'm a married man, and I've been very successful with women, and I don't need to have my wishes fulfilled on television," he said.
But if people like Prady and my dad [a physicist] and many other dorks have been able to get girls, why do these "Big Bang" geeks have to be social losers in a traditional sitcom way?
One answer may be that "Big Bang Theory's" network, CBS, has an older audience. Older viewers, a presumption goes, are drawn to older TV formulas like dumb blondes and nutty professors.
ABC and NBC, on the other hand, attract younger viewers and have moved away from studio audiences and the notion that intellectuals, dorks and blondes are primarily to be made fun of.
So maybe Prady was a dork, but so was McG, who is a little more giving with his characters:
"That's my inner nerd as a guy who went to high school; I graduated 5-foot-2, orange Afro, braces -- and shoe skates. I never had one date, and you'd always dream about empowered women sort of giving you the time of day."
McG, you know, directed "Charlie's Angels." This wasn't revenge of a nerd. It was a sign of the times: Dorks have style and they get girls, so let's get on with it, shall we?
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