Heavy is the Head That Wears the Crown: Trust Issues and Bond Flicks on "Chuck"

I liked last night's episode of Chuck but I can't shake the feeling that the series, at times a deft blend of comedy, action, and romance, isn't quite living up to the potential displayed in the pilot.

Usually a pilot offers a cursory look into a new series' world, sets up its characters and ongoing situations, but ends up just a basic foundation for the rest of the series, a blueprint that over time fades into the background. Chuck's pilot happened to be a fantastically strong entry, skillfully executed in terms of characterizations, plot, and action.

Unfortunately, I don't feel that any of Chuck's subsequent episodes have been as strong or as tightly plotted as that original pilot episode. Sure, I've enjoyed several of the episodes, laughed out loud, cringed, and been on the edge of my seat, but they all lacked that same spark and energy of that first installment.

Sure, there were things about last night's episode of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Sandworm") that I loved: the scenes between Chuck and evil weapons designer Lazslo (guest star Jonathan Sadowski) in which they bonded over, well, Bond; the discovery of the bugs in Chuck's apartment (particularly the one in Sarah's gift); the way that Captain Awesome has inappropriate physical contact with everyone around him; the scene in which the Captain attempts to make a man out of Morgan via the tuck and taming his mane; Morgan's speech to the HR drone; Chuck and Morgan's desert-island sandwich conversation; Chuck, having learned about trust, cutting the green wire on the bomb; that final scene in which Sarah photographs an actual moment with Chuck rather than a faked one. And did I mention Chuck's terrifying hairpin ride aboard his driver's seat? Awesome, as one might say.

Still, I couldn't help but feel that there was something missing. I don't feel as though we've progressed with any of the characters' development (though Morgan was, thankfully, toned down a bit and gained some semblance of maturity by the episode's end) and at the end of the episode, we're still rather back where we began. That's the nature of a procedural series, yes, but I want more. I want to feel as though we're moving towards something, an overarching plot or purpose to the series that makes me want to rush back to watch again next week.

Don't get me wrong. Chuck is hands-down one of the strongest entries in the war of the new fall series but, like Chuck Bartowski himself, I don't feel as though it's reaching its true potential.

What do you think? Do you like Chuck just the way it is, with self-contained stories from week to week? Or do you wish that there was a stronger story arc at work here?

Next week on Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Alma Mater"), Chuck returns to where his life seemingly went wrong: Stanford, where he must help a college professor and learns that perhaps it wasn't an accident that Bryce Larkin, the man behind most of his life's misfortune, sent him the Intersect.