Chuck Update! Two Night, Three Episode Premiere Announced

If your actually reading this at the time of posting (which I really hope your not since this site is nowhere NEAR ready to be viewed), you might notice that two out of our first five stories are about everyone's favorite funny spy, Chuck.

Like I said in my last post, I love Chuck. But this is actually pretty big news.

NBC has decided to bring Chuck back a little early. Fans will remember NBC originally announced that the show would return in March after heavy promotion during the Olympics. And fans might also remember the queasy feeling they got when they heard they'd have to wait that long to see it return.

Luckily, fans can cross two months off that ten month hiatus. That's right, Chuck will be back in early January and while it's not much, it's something.

But the BETTER news might just be how NBC plans on handling the premiere itself. The show will premiere on Sunday, January 10 at 9 p.m. with two episodes and then Chuck will settle into it's regular night and time Monday, January 11 at 8 p.m.

Three episodes in two nights?!? That's almost enough for me to forgive NBC for making me wait so long in the first place.

Almost...

While it might seem like a strange move for NBC in many ways (Bringing it back early, two night premiere, Sunday?), there are many reasons why they would do this, and fans aren't waiting til January to start speculating.

It's no secret that NBC has been doing terrible in the ratings race, and that's being kind. The cancellation of some of it's shows could explain why their bringing Chuck back a little early. Some people actually predicted that it would return in October when NBC suddenly cancelled Southland, but January was always a better bet and Chuck's creators always cited the possibility that the show could return earlier than March.

Although the two night premiere isn't completely unheard of in and of itself (FOX does it all the time) it does seem strange that NBC would try it, and with Chuck no less which, lets face it, isn't a ratings phenomena. Some are speculating that NBC is trying to burn off some of the extra six episodes it ordered a few weeks ago, which makes sense since it looks like they aren't too keen on the idea they presented earlier this year of running Chuck into the summer.

But the most curious move for me is the premiere on Sunday. Now, it might be a completely innocent move on their part, but I'm wondering what'll happen if it actually does well on that night. Sundays are a lot less competitive than Mondays and it'll be interesting to see if Chuck can do better on Sunday than it has in it's normal time slot. Fans have been advocating for a less competitive time slot and this might just be the excuse NBC needs to look for a better night.

Regardless of all of these things, I'm stoked! This is quite possibly the coolest premiere I've seen by a network in a while and I'm glad they chose Chuck to do it with.

Here's the official press release from NBC.

And here's a link to a special sneak peek at Season 3. I'll put it in the sidebar as soon as I get a chance.