"Chuck" Versus the Amazing Disappearing Crowd Scenes

Make no mistake: We're "Chuck" fans. Zachary Levi is hilarious (he has a squeak next week that turns a tense scene into one of high comedy) and, when he needs to be, other things, too, like poignant; Yvonne Strahovski is cute, empathetic and kick-@ss and Adam Baldwin is funny. (The cast at the Buy More, well, they pretty much just hit their one notes and can be kind of annoying.)

But there's a recurring plot device in "Chuck" that we noticed in our random viewing last season that has returned with a vengeance, and it's a) actually really stupid or b) an inside joke that we haven't completely been made privy to: The fact that crowds absolutely disappear when action turns to gunplay. It kind of happens tonight, but in two weeks, it happens twice, baldly and spectacularly mind-numbingly, where dozens, scores or even hundreds of extras inexplicably vanish when bullets start flying.

For those unversed in the "Chuck"-iverse, a little catch-up: Chuck (Levi), your average Echo Park slacker who toils (sort of) in a Burbank big-box store, accidentally had the entire government national-security database (known as The Intersect) downloaded into his noggin before the original computer system blew up, so the government routinely needs him in order to save the planet. Sarah (Strahovski) and Casey (Baldwin) are government agents assigned to protect him; he's sweet on Sarah and she's warming to him, while Casey tends to find his current task beneath his skill set, which is killing lots of people without remorse.

Tonight, The Intersect is about to be restored, if the government can locate the Cipher, the key element of the computer program that has somehow fallen into the rogue hands of a shadowy organization called Fulcrum. Of course, if The Intersect is restored, the question is, is Chuck necessary any longer, and the answer is, No. He is not. Thank God the American government is so stupid as to ship a vital piece of national security via a messenger service, and not have an agent transport it there personally.

But my main beef with this episode is with the music supervisor - if my clock radio awakened me two mornings in a row to Huey Lewis songs ("Hip to be Square," "The Power of Love"), you can be damn sure I'd change the channel. And they use Flight of the Conchords' "Foux du Fafa" in a scene without exploiting any of that song's humor, so, what's the point?

Next week, John Larroquette guest-stars as a James-Bond-style spy past his prime (too addled by martinis and women to actually save the world - "His liver must look like camouflage," Chuck observes) who schools Chuck in the art of seduction to score the Cipher away from a sadistic woman known as the Black Widow, because she "kills all her mates." This is another episode where a bunch of people conveniently disappear when the big action sequence comes down.

But that's nothing compared to week three, which actually becomes pretty insulting to viewers' intelligence. (One can just imagine the derisive jokes made by cast members on the set when they shoot these scenes.) "Chuck" is, above all, a comedy, and a serviceable one, at that. But when it makes logical and logistical lapses that strain every synapse in a viewer's cerebrum, you become less enamored of it.

Simply put: No thought = Utter enjoyment of "Chuck." Some thought = Less enjoyment of "Chuck." Real thought = Your brain explodes while watching "Chuck."

- "Chuck:" 8 tonight, NBC (Channel 4).