It looks like “Chuck” might live – and we didn’t even have to buy sandwiches this time.
The official renewal may not come until Sunday, when NBC announces its fall schedule, but Michael Ausiello is reporting that NBC has renewed the show for a 13-episode fourth season, and I’m hearing that he’s right.
The ratings haven’t been great this spring, but they’ve largely held steady. Creatively, the show has been on an upswing the last few weeks (while I didn’t love the most recent episode, the one coming Monday is very strong and sets things up nicely for the two-hour finale on May 24). And NBC may view “Chuck” as a good companion for JJ Abrams’ “Undercovers,” which, like “Chuck,” features a pair of romantically-entangled spies.
I’ve been saying for a while now that very weird things would have to happen for NBC to not pick up “Chuck,” if only because there are only so many new shows any network can launch at once in the fall without torpedoing them all. But because NBC has been picking up a lot of new shows over the last week, and had renewed practically practically everything left in primetime but “Chuck,” “Mercy,” “Trauma” and the original “Law & Order” – and conflicting reports were flying all afternoon about whether NBC had finally canceled the mothership – I know there was some concern that there might not be any room for Chuck, Sarah, Casey and the Buy More gang come next season.
Instead, it appears we’re going to get at least one more year of awesomeness.