Cursed Tongue: Nanosense

Posted by CursedTongue on October 10, 2007

NBC premiered Chuck, a Sci-Fi, spy series this week. The title character works in the “Nerd Herd” at a big box electronics store. Chuck is the guy who knows how to use and fix the technology that the store sells. You know, the kind of employee that doesn’t actually work at a big box electronics store, because he or she has a much better job than that of underpaid Best Buy computer monkey.

His former college roommate, Bryce Larkin, who Chuck believes went into accounting, is actually a spy. It turns out that perhaps Bryce should have gone into accounting, because during a daring escape attempt he dies. But not before he sends an encrypted e-mail to a guy he hasn’t talked to in five years, Chuck. Chuck opens the e-mail, unleashing a cavalcade of photographs.

But these aren’t the racy photos of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sunbathing nude with his secret life-partner, that one would expect to find in a secretive government agency’s computer. These are pictures of apple pie and bald eagles and puppies cuddling on blankets with kittens.

It sounds like the typical e-mail forward junk that people get from supposed friends, but don’t sell the three twelve-year-olds that NBC hired to write episodes of Chuck short. These are special photos that contain encrypted data from both the CIA and the FBI.

This encrypted-into-banal-calendar-photos data is so technologically advanced that as Chuck watches the images, they download into his brain in a process that can only be described at magic. Without de-encryption software or the use of mind-altering barbiturates, Chuck is able to decode this information and use it to stop assassins.

The pilot episode of Chuck might have been more believable if the data was downloaded via a USB cord shoved between Chuck’s butt cheeks. Certainly it would have been more entertaining to watch than seeing Chuck faint when his feeble brain couldn’t bear the weight of the magic download premise. What if he had blinked?

Instead of remaining on the server of Chuck’s ISP or bouncing on the web like every other e-mail this e-mail is completely gone once Chuck’s hard drive is destroyed. (Five bucks says that someone from the Justice Department called NBC to ask where they could get e-mail that didn’t leave an incriminating trail.)

And among two agencies that deal in information, did anyone think to back this magic data up? No. It only exists in Chuck’s puny, underachieving brain. The writers are asking us to believe that between the FBI and CIA nobody thought to set up a server bank to automatically backup top-secret magic data.

If the real CIA or FBI had a way to download photos into a person’s head, they would also have a way to retrieve them. And they wouldn’t hesitate one second in splitting Chuck’s head open like a pumpkin to scoop that information out. Only they don’t and they won’t. Because downloading encrypted data into an unaltered human brain is about as likely Hillary Clinton getting her own flock of genetically enhanced flying monkeys to generate a health care plan that might actually work.

The computer graphics department at NBC apparently didn’t have enough dramatic news montages to keep them busy, because episodes of Chuck demand flashy semi-transparent overlays of whichever magic photo Chuck is accessing. There is absolutely no other reasonable excuse for the magic photo plot device.

Jake 2.0 and John Doe were two similar and short-lived shows, where the main characters had abundant knowledge through nanobots and some mystery cause that didn’t have time to play out in 21 episodes, respectively. And I believe Chuck will be similarly short-lived.

NBC’s sixth-grade writers have completely disregarded any logic in choosing a method to insert Chuck into the role of hapless but super intelligent spy. NBC executives will have only themselves to blame when the $3 million they spent per episode is flushed down the toilet along with any copies of the magic encrypted photos.

My point is that people might be more willing to stick with a show where the writers give viewers credit for possessing at least half of a normal human brain.

I understand that things like American Idol and people who still watch Fox News are a discredit to the intelligence of Americans, but I would like to assure NBC that intelligent Americans do exist. Furthermore, the “not as dumb as a stalk of asparagus” demographic tends to have more discretionary income than the average wresting/NASCAR fan with a fifth-grade reading level that NBC seems to be catering to.

- Sarah Letnes

Filed Under: Cursed Tongue, Guest Blog - Comments: Be the First to Comment

Tags: humor, television

top