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NBC Goes Undercover With J. J. Abrams

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | May 3, 2010 | +

I suppose the thing that really would have qualified as news would have been if NBC didn’t pick up a highly publicized, presumably less-than-cheap pilot from J.J. Abrams, but nonetheless: the network has given the go-ahead to Undercovers, the married-spies romance-drama.

Good thing that NBC doesn’t already have a romance-drama about a couple who also happen to be undercover spies! Especially one struggling in the ratings! Because it would suck to be that show right now! Ahem. In I’m sure totally unrelated news, Josh Schwartz tweets,

Watching tonight’s Chuck could be very important… So watch live!

No DVR! No skipping the commercials! We’re doing fine, though!

In seriousness, no, I don’t think Undercovers kills Chuck; I just don’t think it exactly helps. It could even be that the shows get packaged as an NBC “Spy Night”—but if it happens, it’s not because NBC thinks the pairing will juice Chuck’s ratings but simply because the network has too many holes to fill.

After all, NBC did program both 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and that worked out really well. For one of them.

Related Topics: chuck, Uncategorized

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  • Dave

    I’ll expand on a tweet I made: I think it’d be really interesting to see how well a high-profile JJ Abrams show does on NBC in Chuck’s timeslot, going up against House, CBS comedies, and whichever ABC reality show happens to be on.

  • rhys1882

    What I am very excited for is the fact that the two leads are black. Brings some much needed color to network TV. (And yes they are black, not African-American. Neither of them are from America.)

  • Rorschach

    I don’t know if Undercover kills Chuck or not, but these extra 6 episodes might. Clearly they had no idea what to do when Chuck gets with Sarah. I hope the shippers are happy. You broke Chuck!

  • mrbilliam

    Huh. I thought these episodes were a lot of fun. And I’ve actually really liked the fact that rather than the episode ending on a moment of romantic angst, they’ve instead ended on a moment of romantic happiness which made me smile.
    I guess you can’t please everyone. But does “Chuck” seem to have an inordinately high number of fans who are ready to jump ship at a moment’s notice?

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