"Chuck 2.0 Versus Jake 2.0" by Troy H. Cheek on Jun 15, 2009
A few months back, I chatted a bit about a couple of television programs I was watching at the time. Jake 2.0 revolved around a computer expert, Jake Foley, native of Akron, Ohio, who works for the U.S. government's National Security Agency (NSA) and was accidentally infected by nanobots which give him superhuman powers. He is able to control technology with his brain, making him "the ultimate human upgrade" according to the show's introduction. Chuck is an action-comedy television program from the United States created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. The series is about an "average computer-whiz-next-door" who receives an encoded e-mail from an old college friend now working in the CIA; the message embeds the only remaining copy of the world's greatest spy secrets into Chuck's brain.
Yes, I cobbled those descriptions from Wikipedia. What of it?
Both Jake and Chuck borrow heavily from The Six Million Dollar Man and The Infiltrator, a failed TV series from the 1980s or early 1990s which apparently only I remember ever watching, but that's beside the point. The point is that the creators of Chuck denied copying Jake or even being influenced by any of the other shows. Chuck is an original creation. I've got the interview bookmarked around here somewhere...
The Six Million Dollar Man, for those of you who aren't old, was a Glen A. Larson series about an astronaut who had parts of his body replaced with powerful cybernetics who then worked for a government agency fighting crime. The Infiltrator had a scientist merged at the molecular level with powerful cybernetics who then worked for a government agency fighting crime. Jake 2.0 had a technical analyst infected with nanites (powerful cybernetics) who then worked for a government agency fighting crime. Chuck had a computer store employee who had a powerful computer crammed into his brain who then worked for a government agency fighting crime.
Anyway, one of the examples of how totally different Chuck was from Jake and the other shows was that Jake, for example, had super fighting skills because of the nanites in his body, whereas Chuck just had a lot of knowledge implanted into his brain. In the last Chuck episode of season two, Chuck gets a new, improved bunch of knowledge implanted into his brain. The new, improved bunch of knowledge includes, get this, super fighting skills. He knows Kung Fu. I'm betting that they're going to say that the new knowledge base lets Chuck tweak his adrenal glands or something.
If the producers of Chuck are really smart, they'll show Chuck sore as Hell the next morning after one of his Kung Fu fighting episodes. His brain may now how to make his body do those moves, but his body isn't used to them. He's going to have bruises, strains, sprains, maybe even some minor broken bones that he didn't notice at the time what with the adrenaline and all. He'll need to undergo some major fitness training to get the best results from his new knowledge set.
At least Jake copped to copying the earlier shows. Heck, they even had Lee Majors (who starred as the titular Six Million Dollar Man) guest star as a former operative. Scoffing at Jake's vehicle of choice, Lee quips "I could outrun that car" and otherwise hints that in the Jake continuity he was also the Six Million Dollar Man or something similar. Lee also warned Jake that "there's always an accident" and got Jake thinking that maybe, just maybe, the government always intended for him (or someone else) to get infected with those nanites.
Chuck, being totally original, had an accident where what was supposed to be a computer database got uploaded into this head. Supposedly, this was a freak mischance. However, it's eventually revealed that this database (called the Intersec) was actually designed from the start to be uploaded into somebody's head. The Intersec is not just a database, but a computer program designed to run within the human brain. It was designed by Chuck's own father, played by Scott Bakula, who had also played the Infiltrator. Go figure.
Both Jake and Chuck have people higher up in their organizations whom they don't trust, who obviously don't have their best interests in mind, though they trust and love their handlers. Chuck and Jake (or, at least, the actors portraying them, Zachary Levi and Christopher Gorham) even look alike, have the same taste in clothes, and apparently the same hair stylist.
I guess I'm coming down pretty hard on Chuck. I don't mean to, mind you. I mean, Chuck is a great show, full of all sorts of references that you need to be a huge geek or nerd or something unpopular to get. I love it and am glad that it was renewed for a third season. It just gets me that every time someone points out the similarities between Chuck and Jake, Chuck fans (or even creators) come out of the woodwork to deny any similarities at all.
I say to stop denying and go with it. Have Scott Bakula say something about the Infiltrator project. Have Lee Majors guest star and show off his bionic strength. Go the full nine yars and let Jake show up and infect Chuck with his nanites or get Chuck's database copied into Jake's head. It'll be great.
Well, I'd watch it.
