With shows like Heroes, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and The Big Bang Theory on TV nowadays, nerds seem to be getting a lot of attention. But I have to say, the finest of them all doesn’t seem to be as much attention. That show? Chuck.

It may not have the stereotypical science geeks that the Big Bang Theory offers, the franchise history of Terminator, or the genre ties of Heroes, but Chuck is a little different. While the storylines are, to some degree, nerd-centric, the real beauty of it lies in the little things. The casting- Voyager’s EMH as a computer expert, Meriadoc Brandybuck as a British rock star, Imhotep as a Fulcrum agent, and Firefly’s Jayne as the CIA thug. The show’s set decoration and prop choices are second only to The IT Crowd in nerd decorations- I love that Chuck has an issue of Knights of the Dinner Table on his wall, and the fact that he’s put the plans for the intersect into a copy of Ex Machina- a magazine about a guy who has superpowers given to him by a electrical accident- is a pretty brilliant choice. Plus it is loaded with references to other things nerds love- callbacks to Spies Like Us, IG-88 grenades, tickets to Zihuatanejo, and getting an “Oh, boy” from Chuck’s dad? Fantastic. Pile on top of that things like playing arcade games to Rush, a businessman named Lo Pan in Chinatown, jokes about ComicCon, and episodes directed by Lieutenant Tom Paris, and this show is nearly overloaded with the geek love.

One of the greatest things about the show, though, is the nerds- they look like normal people. Sure, they don’t look like most of the people on TV, but you don’t have any of the Urkel-esque “pants hitched up to the waist, snort when I laugh” overdone nerds that you see on, say, The Big Bang Theory or Ugly Betty, which both seem to follow the theory that TV nerds are good looking people made ugly by glasses and bad fashion sense. If you saw any employee of the BuyMore walking down the street, they’d just look normal, rather than Hollywood’s parody of what nerds look like, and that is surprisingly nice to see on TV today.

On top of that, the show is just fun. After following the heavy plots and turns of Heroes and Terminator, it can be pretty nice just to switch off the drama-ometer and enjoy the show. Don’t get me wrong, Chuck has some great plot and tough moments for the characters, too, but it’s never as heavy and dramatic- you’ve always got Morgan, Captain Awesome, or Casey around the corner with some dialogue that’s going to make you laugh after a bit. Sure, it may have similar problems to Heroes, in that so many things in this story seem to tie to people Chuck knows, but I can accept that easier than with Heroes- maybe, somehow, Chuck triggers my suspension of disbelief better than a show about people with superpowers. On the other hand, maybe I’m just willing to forgive a show that doesn’t take itself as seriously. Either way, there is no show out there that triggers my sense of nerdjoy the way that Chuck manages to on a weekly basis.

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