Reader mail: Saving 'Chuck,' actor/producers, and more

Follow on Twitter
on April 27, 2009 at 1:55 PM, updated April 27, 2009 at 2:02 PM
Scott Bakula guest stars with Zachary Levi on tonight's "Chuck" season finale.
Letters, I get letters, and today's column starts off with a lot of letters focused on the open letter I wrote to NBC last week about trying to keep "Chuck" on the air.

Don't chuck 'Chuck'!

Dear Alan: Thanks for your great article about "Chuck," right now my favorite program. I actually started watching when you first started to write about it - before that I just didn't think it was the type of thing I would like. But, after my first episode, I was hooked. It is so clever and it always always always entertains. Just when a situation is getting dicey for our heroes, in comes a little comic relief and action. And, it does all this without resorting to crudeness.

I am horrified to think that NBC would not renew it. Should we start writing to NBC?

- Dorothy Addario, Watchung

Dear Alan: Thoroughly enjoyed your column in Monday's paper. I hope you actually sent it to someone in charge at NBC. My husband and I look forward to it every week for the very reasons you listed. It's consistently entertaining, and you really care about the characters. So where do we write our pleas?

- Pam DeAngelus, Cedar Grove

Alan says: This is more or less the gist of the many letters I got in response to my "Chuck" column: People love the show and want to know what, if anything, they can do to encourage NBC to renew it.

On Friday, I spoke with "Chuck" co-creator Chris Fedak for an interview about tonight's incredible season two finale (8 p.m., Ch. 4) that I'll post to the blog as soon as the show ends, and I asked him what you all could do.

"The most important thing," he said, "is to watch the show, and also to convince your friends and family, strangers walking past you on the street to watch the show. Whatever we can do to build our audience. Getting people to watch the show is our best selling tool, because the show's so much fun."

Beyond that, there are two separate fan campaigns going on. One involves Subway, which is one of the show's more frequent sponsors. A lot of fans will buy a Subway sandwich tonight to celebrate the finale, and fill out comment cards saying they bought it because they liked Subway's association with "Chuck."

The other involves sending boxes of Nerds candy to Angela Bromstad, the president of NBC Entertainment and one of the key decision makers about the show's future, which will be determined a week from today when NBC announces its fall schedule. Her address is:

Angela Bromstad
President of Primetime Series
100 Universal City Plaza
Bldg. 1320, Fourth Floor
Universal City, Calif. 91608

I don't know how effective either route will be - "Jericho" kind of ruined the whole "send a lot of food products to the network" idea - but if you feel like you want to do something besides simply watching the finale, those are your options.

"Chuck" star Zachary Levi already took a bunch of British fans to Subway over the weekend.

Who's in charge here?

Dear Alan: Recently I've noticed what seems like a trend of TV series stars also being listed as producers for their shows. On "Bones," both Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz are shown as producers, as is Eliza Dushku on "Dollhouse." When Denis Leary is credited as producer/writer on "Rescue Me," I can believe that because comedians are well known for writing their own material. But do actors like Deschanel, Boreanaz or Dushku really write for their shows, or is crediting them as producers just another way to increase their star power and income?

- Edd Alexander, Camarillo, CA

Alan says: A handful of stars with producer credits will also write and/or direct for their series. Leary has a hand in writing almost every "Rescue Me," and Steve Carell directed last week's "The Office," after scripting several previous episodes. But in many cases, stars get that extra credit as either a vanity thing or to give them some small amount of creative control, whether it's veto power over stories they don't want to do or the ability to say, "Hey, I want my character to start dressing much cooler this season."

What's next?

Hi Alan: I was wondering where you would rank "The West Wing" among some of the great TV dramas, such as "The Wire," "The Sopranos," "Lost," etc. I am still in the process of catching up (I bought the seven-season series on Amazon around Christmastime), but with the show being over for years, I can't find much feedback on it and I really enjoy watching a show while reading your reviews. Where did the show "go sour" for you, as I've heard many say, and did it ever come back? I am midway through season four now, so if you can avoid spoilers, I would appreciate it.

- Dan Jameson, Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Alan says: I would say the first two seasons of "West Wing" were incredible - a notch below most of the great HBO dramas, but among the best things network TV has ever produced. The show struggled a lot in the next two seasons, as Aaron Sorkin had to deal with the ramifications of giving the president secret multiple sclerosis, and as he pushed the show more and more into dark foreign policy stories in response to the real-life events of 9/11. Then the series fell off a cliff altogether after Sorkin left at the end of season four, before clawing its way back to respectability in its final season with the story about the Santos/Vinick presidential campaign.
