Lifting Fog

Besides maybe a special variant action figure, nothing gives nerds more pleasure than latching on to a TV show no one else watches. There’s something intimate to it, like you’re forging a deep personal relationship that no one else could possibly understand. It’s difficult to explain, even to those REAL people closest to you (“You don’t know Futurama like I do, Mom!” you scream over the phone. “It’s good to me!”). Your homemade t-shirt and weird e-mail signatures don’t help.

The great irony here (not grasped by nerds, who unsurprisingly do not understand the concept) is that without mainstream support, our shows are doomed to cancellation. And like any passionate love affair, when these things end… they end badly. Talked to any Battlestar Galactica nerds lately? Probably not, since they all killed themselves when their show ended a few weeks ago. Same story with Firefly, Futurama, Jericho: show ends, nerds commit ritual suicide. It’s very sad, and can’t be good for the economy.

What can you do to stem this ever-rolling tide of mass nerd offings? The answer is simple: save the last bastion of nerd hope on network television. Save Chuck.

Like I wrote last fall, Chuck is the most consistently entertaining show on network television. Great writing. Great acting. Great music. But since no one sings or dances, Chuck‘s head is on the chopping block. Not yet renewed for a third season, its last three episodes this spring may constitute the definitive end of the series.

I understand why people would be hesitant to get into the show, I do – it’s an hour-long action-dramedy (strike one) starring no one particularly famous (Strike Two) about a computer technician unwittingly roped into the world of government espionage (STRIKE THREE). On paper, it’s a hard sell. NERD CITY. But if Lifting Fog exists for any reason at all, it’s this: to convince you that what you’re doing is probably not nearly as cool or fun as what you could be doing if you listened to us, because all we do are cool and fun things. That is the best mission statement ever.

So trust The Fog, America, and watch Chuck. Buy the first season on DVD. Share it with your book club. Your estranged children. Get the message out that this is a great show worthy of your TIME and ATTENTION and that unless you do something RIGHT NOW and with MAXIMUM ENTHUSIASM then MORE NERDS WILL CONTINUE TO DIE. The stakes are clear. The power is yours.

Tags: Chuck, Josh Schwartz, Nerds, Shameless Plug, The Power Is Yours

This entry was posted on April 7, 2009 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Gripes & Tirades, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.