TVSquad

Anyone who's followed the NFL over the last fifteen years knew what Michael Strahan's plans were going to be after retirement: TV, TV and more TV. It was a given; during most of his career with the Giants, Strahan loved to be in front of the camera, and often did commentary and studio gigs on his off-weeks or during the playoffs.

Now, with a Super Bowl ring in-hand, the newly-retired defensive end is making his move. Not only has he joined the FOX NFL pregame show, but he also just completed filming a cameo on the NBC geek adventure comedy Chuck. He plays Mitt, the manager of the sporting goods store that's in the same shopping center as Buy More, the store where Chuck works. He and his crew take over the home theater portion of the store during lunchtimes, playing Madden '09 and making a mess. My guess is that we'll set up a geeks vs. jocks scenario with retail being the venue, instead of the locker room.

This fall Special Agent Sarah Walker will get a blast from the past as she attends her ten-year high school reunion and comes face-to-face with her old nemesis. Nicole Richie will play a spiteful and sarcastic character who tortured the special agent for years. Sarah Walker has to go to the reunion for a mission; her date, of course, is Chuck.

Executive producer Josh Schwartz says Nicole Richie is actually quite funny: "Nicole auditioned for the part and was very funny. This role is a great opportunity for her to show off her comedic skills and be diabolically evil and kick some butt."

Or Chuck, or Pushing Daisies, or Private Practice for that matter. With the announcement that FOX was going to offer a marathon of The Sarah Connor Chronicles starting on August 10th I got to wondering about the other freshman shows that made an impression on viewers before the Writers Strike abruptly ended their seasons. Many of these shows haven't been seen since the end of last year.

For Life, the last original episode to air was December 5th. With the second season premiere slated to air during the first week of October, it will be nearly a year since viewers had a chance to bond with Detectives Charlie Crews and Dani Reese. That's a bit of a concern when it comes to this show. On the surface Life is a criminal procedural. However, underneath there has been an second story about Charlie's quest to clear his good name for a murder he didn't commit. While the first arc of this story was completed in its "season finale," there is plenty of story to tell.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tony Hale, who played Buster on Arrested Development, has signed on to two second-year series to play recurring roles. On Chuck, Hale will play Emmett, an efficiency expert sent in by Buy More who stays on as the store's assistant manager after he sees how poorly the store is being run (which is going to happen when one of your techs and one of your salespeople work for government agencies). On Samantha Who?, Hale will play Samantha's new doctor, Andy Adams.

I'm pretty sure neither role will be as funny as Hale's turn as Buster, the hook-handed soldier / mama's boy that was always one of my favorite AD characters. But, hey, an actor's gotta work, and Hale picked two pretty good shows to work on. By the way, right at the top of Hale's IMDb profile are some of the sweetest words I've read all month: "Arrested Development (2009) (announced) .... Byron 'Buster' Bluth"

[via Pop Candy]

As we told you last week, RedEye is in the middle of their annual Best Character on Television tournament, and now we're into the second round. It looks like some strong favorites have emerged, while some fan favorites have been voted off the island.

That wouldn't include Don Draper from Mad Men (who lost to Jermaine and Bret from from Flight of the Conchords), Morgan Grimes from Chuck (who lost to Michael Scott from The Office), or Captain Jack Harkness from Torchwood. He actually lost to Herbert from Family Guy. That has to be embarrassing.

As part of yesterday's fall schedule announcement, NBC also debuted its plans for online content. Beginning this summer, NBC will produce short, original episodes -- webisodes -- of The Office, Chuck, and Heroes. NBC isn't saying much about what these webisodes will entail, but NBC Universal co-chair Ben Silverman promises they'll be meaty. He said the new WGA contract allows NBC writers to go all-out with the work, without wondering whether they're being fairly compensated.

You may remember The Office did a series of webisodes in 2006 called The Accountants, where several of the co-stars investigated missing account money. It even won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Broadband. This July's webisodes are essentially a renewal of that series.

Battlestar Galactica has one. So does Supernatural, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and Angel. Even the newest incarnation of Doctor Who has one as of January. What do these shows have, besides a huge fan following? They all have their own comic books which take place during the current run of the series or continue the story where shows ended their run. And now, NBC's action-comedy Chuck will be joining the ranks of the small screen in small print.

The Chuck comic book, which will be created by DC Comics imprint WildStorm, will follow Mr. Bartowski and his Nerd Herd and secret agent pals in a series of worldwide adventures that producers of the television show just don't have the budget for. Being a comic book you can probably expect some cliffhanger endings, bigger special effects, and Chuck to gain some mutant powers.

The comic book series will be available starting June 11th.

[via PopCandy]

When I posted about CBS's post strike announcement, I said it would be great if the other networks followed the Eye's lead. Well, almost as soon as I hit "Publish" on that post, NBC came out with two press releases discussing some of their post-strike plans.

The first release confirms what we had been guessing at since we got the news of the settlement: Chuck, Life and Heroes have all been picked up for 2008-09, but none of the shows will return until the fall. The second release discusses the return dates of several shows (list after the jump). It's not as helpful as CBS's release because it doesn't tell us how many episodes are left (so, for all we know, we'll see the Scrubs conclusion on DVD, as Bill Lawrence told Mike Ausiello). But at least we know when all of these shows are coming back -- April 10 seems to be the big day for fans of 30 Rock and The Office, for example.

Now we have FOX, CW, and ABC left. Think they're going to step up to the plate soon?

(S01E13) Breast. Opening. Ever! Okay seriously, I was a little surprised at how blatantly they were just staring, and recording, close-ups of cleavage in the opening. Isn't this American television? The home of the prude boob(less) tube? But leave it to those crafty Chuck writers to make this seeming incongruous, and gratuitous, scene an integral part of the plot later on.

The NBC promo machine, while not only splicing in cute little ad-libbed (I'm guessing here) bits with the actors, promised more new episodes of Chuck "Coming Soon." Well, I don't know how they define soon, but considering there are no more episodes written and the writers are still on strike as of this writing, it looks like their soon is my later.

There are very few times that I wish I lived in Los Angeles (I'm a cold weather guy). This is one of them.

The annual William S. Paley Television Festival kicks off on March 14 (at its new home at Hollywood's Cinerama Dome) and runs through the 27th, and it looks like a lot of great shows are going to be celebrated during those two weeks. Already announced are panels that will reunite the cast from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, as well as nights devoted to Chuck, Mad Men, Pushing Daisies, Gossip Girl, Dirty Sexy Money, Elvis Presley, and Judd Apatow. And there are still more events to be announced next week.

(S01E12) "If you want to go through life all emotionally constipated and alone, then suit yourself. I'll let you get back to protecting the greater good, you freaking robot." (Chuck to Casey)

Last night's first of two new Chucks was about learning that the supporting characters are human, too. Casey than just a cold-as-ice NSA Agent who would probably kill everyone in the room if he was ever the subject of a roast and has mastered the art of communicating with eye winces, grunts and scowls. Ellie and Devon/Captain Awesome actually have a relationship issue, which ... Morgan? ... diagnoses?! And we get nothing on the tired "is it or isn't it?," "does she or doesn't she?" non-romance between Chuck and Sarah (thank god!). In fact, they barely had any screen time together and I think it was, well, awesome!

When NBC aired Chuck's Christmas-themed episode early in December, people were wondering if the show had any other pre-strike episodes left. The good news was that there were two episodes left to air, but NBC wanted to hold on to them until the strike was settled and air them with the remaining season's order of episodes.

Of course, it looks like that's a long way from happening. So NBC has shifted gears and decided to air both of the remaining episodes on a single night. But, according to SCI FI Wire, they won't air in the show's usual Monday night slot; they'll air on Thursday, January 24, at 8 and 10 PM. In between the Chuck episodes will be an episode of Celebrity Apprentice. Well, that makes perfect sense, because the two shows have very similar fan bases. What's that? They have completely opposite fan bases? Who knew?

[via Pop Candy]

Being a fan of both Chuck and Reaper, I've had this discussion with friends before: if I had to work either at the Buy More or Work Bench, which one would I prefer and why? I'm sure many fans already discussed this somewhere on the web but when I read the "Battle of the Box Stores" blurb in the December 7 edition of Entertainment Weekly, I thought it was about time we had the same discussion here at TV Squad.

Joshua Gomez, Morgan on the NBC action-comedy Chuck, loves his video games. And, when I say 'loves' I really mean 'LOVES'. He's a man who can spout philosophically about the difference between Halo and Halo 2, and can spend 12 straight hours on the couch playing Xbox. Now, that's dedication! Especially since he never mentions anything about bathroom breaks.

So, being cast as a die hard gaming wonk on Chuck was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. That, and he was able to find a kindred gaming spirit in the show's star, Zach Levi. In an article at the gaming website Kotaku, Gomez talks about the game references that are liberally sprinkled throughout an episode. He mentions that many of those references are ad-libbed because the writers aren't actually gamers, themselves.

(S01E11) "Why do people hate the rich?"

So I guess it's official -- Chuck is actually in love with Sarah. I know it's what the show has been heading toward but, when Chuck briefly dated Lou, I thought he was finally coming to terms with the reality that he and Sarah will never end up together. Now it looks like he's ready to go all Scarecrow and Mrs. King. As Casey would say, "(Grunt)."