I also never even knew of these podcasts until a week or two ago. I’ll definitely try to go back and catch as many as I can.

As for the finale, I hated it at first. I was disappointed as soon as Sarah downloaded the glitchy intersect. From the first season we saw Chuck transform from a nerd herder to a hero. We saw Casey slowly, but surely show a soft side. We saw Morgan transform from the funny best friend, to the master spy. And when Sarah downloaded that glitchy intersect, we saw Sarah transform from the cold spy that eventually adjusted to normal life, but then all her character development was taken away. I was really hoping to see more of a happy ending.

But after rewatching every episode, I am slowly warming to the finale. Sure, I wish that Sarah never lost her memories, and sure I wish the series would go on forever, but at least we got closure. And at least we get to come up with our own conclusion. I like to think that the final kiss lifted the “emotional rock” (Chuck 4.08) and Sarah flashed on all her memories. It would have been nice to actually see, but at least I am allowed to fill in my conclusion.

I know it’s a long shot, but I’d love to see a Chuck season 6 or Chuck movie. I know it’s all about money and ratings, but how could someone not want to pick up this show? It’d did decent for Friday nights, and would have likely done better had it not had tough competition from the start. Zach Levi said the fans should get a kickstarter going for a Chuck the movie. I think that would be a great idea, to show that Chuck fans won’t go down without a fight.

About the finale and the reaction to the finale… I enjoyed the episode, but I have not really enjoyed the discourse that has taken place since it aired. I didn’t expect everyone to like the finale as I did, but in every place where I’ve seen it discussed, I’ve gotten the sense from some of the people that didn’t like it or even hated it that there is/was only one valid reaction to have towards the finale and that was theirs.

Any attempt to defend the episode itself or the powers that be who conceived it has been met with hostility. An example of that would be all the talk about the poll that was mentioned in this podcast. I can only imagine what the people trashing the poll would have said about it had the results been more in line with their opinion of the finale than the other way around. I bet that they wouldn’t be here questioning the integrity and merits of online polling as a form of mass opinion gathering. It’s being made to sound like it was this big conspiracy to make sure that the positive view of the episode was the view that won out and I don’t get that at all.

Just because you personally don’t hear about something, it doesn’t mean that what happens there doesn’t count, is invalid or is in some way tainted or lacking in integrity. Were the people who disliked or hated the episode that voted in the poll incapable of doing the same things that the people who liked it are being accused of doing or are you saying that those people would never think of doing that because they have more integrity than the people who liked the finale?

You try to offer up an explanation as to why you think they did the ending the way they did it and the response is, more often than not, “That’s a bunch of crap. Don’t make excuses for them. It was lazy writing, pure and simple.” I mean, you’ve got people who liked the finale largely taking differing opinions in stride saying, “Agree to disagree. You didn’t like it and I did. That’s fine.” I’m not going to say that the people who liked it always come off as that level headed or that the people who didn’t like it or hated it always come off as that arrogant and full of themselves, because I’m sure that there have been plenty of largely civil discussions about it in my different forums, but in the places I’ve been, this is the kind of stuff I’ve witnessed.

I get having passion for something that you spent years of your life watching and interacting with people about, and I get being frustrated and even angry when it doesn’t turn out the way you had hoped it would, but it goes too far when you start accusing writers of being lazy and when you basically accuse the people who liked the ending of either being sheep who would have eaten up anything the writers threw together or of having lower standards of quality simply because you disagree with how the series should have ended. It cuts at the professionalism of the people involved in making the show when you refer to the writing as “lazy” just because you’d have done it different and frankly, I don’t like being called a “sheep” simply because I enjoyed an episode of a TV show and you didn’t. Don’t insult my ability to think for myself and know what I like or dislike.

As I mentioned earlier, I often read and wrote on the Chuck message board at NBC.com and I’ve done so for a couple of other shows in the last few years as well. I saw it as a unique way to share the fan experience with other people I never would have otherwise met and to be able to talk about the shows we all supposedly loved in a safe environment, and after having done it a few times and seeing what inevitably happens in every forum I visited, I decided that it was no longer worth it. I’ve seen far too much intolerance of others’ opinions (usually in the form of someone accusing whomever held a positive view of an episode or storyline of being “sheep” when they themselves thought the episode or storyline was “crap” or “lazy writing”. It usually devolved into a flame war from there.) and I’ve seen too many boards and forums almost collapse because of that intolerance to want to have that experience again. It’s a shame really. There are a lot of creative, interesting and intelligent people on those boards who really do seem to love the shows they talk about. It’s the people who think that their opinion isn’t being accurately represented who usually touch off the eventual destruction of discourse when they decide to try to bully people into listening to them and validate their opinion.

End of long-winded diatribe. Had to get that off my chest. Carry on.

“They were willing to end this show on a happy note several other times. Why not here? Instead of DESTROYING a major character and leaving her there. It DID wipe out five years of character development. They did not give us much at all in the way of memories beginning to come back, or even any kind of comfort level between Chuck and Sarah. I can’t believe how selfish he sounds. It sounds like it was all about him and his fellow writers. It just wasn’t appropriate for a final episode. It was mean.”
-posted by Jack on March 5th 2012 at 5:32pm

For instance, I myself have helped friends win contests with the simple act of voting from 3 different browsers on the same computer – multiply that by 3-4 computers in my home and that’s alot of repeat votes. Then multiply that number by how much free time I have and the fact that I can easily change the ip on my router, clear my cache, and start the process all over again….including breaking it down to just one computer and one browser with cache cleaning between votes.

Then add that number to as many friends as I can get to join me in voting my way.

So no, I’m sorry, I don’t trust internet polls for anything.

The website quotes visitor numbers at “around 102,000/mo – forum visitors not included” and of those “4,103 people took the survey, compared to 2,131 in May 2011. This represents about 4% of the average visitors per month to ChuckTV.net during season 5″

The fact that I, who have been watching Chuck since episode one, have never been to the site (for lack of knowledge of it, and no time for hunting down all sites other than NBC’s official site) didn’t get to vote in this poll, is more indicative of the lack of attention and fans that were removed from the equation.

I don’t know many Chuck fans locally but of the fans I do know, all but 1 was disappointed with the end. And that one was in the “I guess it was ok” group.

Just saying that internet polls are as innacurate as pre-columbian world maps…and I put no stock in their results.

Cheers.

the poll was at ChuckTV.net, which has 200,000 regular monthly visitors, and several times more than that the week after the finale.

So… over half a million people (estimated) had a chance to see the poll, and over 4000 of those decided to vote. That’s a better selection than you’ll get in many political polls, which brag an accuracy of within a couple of percentage points.

Here it is:
http://chucktv.net/2012/02/24/survey-says-most-people-liked-the-chuck-finale-more-survey-results/

Thanks,
Gray.

what a shame..it was such an awesome show!

Appreciate effort from all the cast and dedicated work from people behind the tv making this all happen. I could see the heart that went into every episode and that’s what was special about the show.

And now i’m left with the problem of what to watch when Chuck is not around…*sigh*

Polls like that are inherently flawed and sample groups can be skewed so I call shenanigans on your so called “majority” of fans who liked the ending.

I still maintain that the ending was not what the hard-core fans wanted nor were expecting.
What’s wrong with a happy ending that is gratuitous when you know the chapter is finished and the book is closed, never to be re-opened?

The biggest problem that we, the true “relationship” oriented fans, had with the ending is that we felt cheated. All of the progress that Chuck and Sarah had made as a couple and all of their plans that we were lead to believe would come to fruition were wiped away and trashed as if by careless and thoughtless whim.

I agree with the others that choose to ignore the final 3-4 episodes than to accept, as sheep, whatever we are fed just because the writers got lazy.

As for the cast, I love the chemistry between all of the actors and I wish them great success in their future endeavors and I hope to see them together again in something new. A truly terrific ensemble cast.

if you’re new to the podcast, check out the 80-minute Q&A we had with Chuck co-creator Chris Fedak after the finale:
http://www.chuckpodcast.com/105-chris-fedak-answers/

Thanks,
Gray.