After a pretty disappointing first part of this TV season (at least if you’re me) there’s finally some good news for a change. According to Sci-Fi Wire, not only is Chuck coming back in January instead of March, as previous reported, but it’s also getting six addtional episodes, on top of the 13 NBC initially ordered. I have no idea why, after it looked like the show might not even make it into this season’s lineup, they suddenly decided it needed more episodes, but I’m jazzed.

The show’s writers found out so late they already had the whole season mapped out, so they’ve decided to do a six-episode mini-arc, after the 13 episode arc. Zachary Levi (Chuck) was happy about this, echoing a lot of what I’m always saying about 22-episode seasons– there’s often a lot of filler episodes and you have to wait around for the ones that are actually important and do something to push the narrative forward. Sadly, I feel like Heroes has had a couple episodes like that this year, and it only got 13 episodes.

I hope it gets renewed again. Chuck had a tough season for ratings this year and I’m still pretty sure it won’t be able to keep enough viewers for a season 4, but I’ll try to remain optimistic, especially with this good news. Chuck is my favorite geek on television, his stories are fun, escapist, and inventive, and he makes the rest of us geeks look better. Can’t wait for the season to start.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

More results are finally in about which shows have been saved or canned– Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, as expected, is sadly done. But Fox, perhaps surprisingly, has ordered another 13 episode season of Dollhouse. It made it through just barely, so who knows if there will be a season 3, but we’ll get more questions answered and more great performances from actors who, at first, I thought were mediocre, and have constantly come to bring bigger and better things every episode.

I have yet to finish the season so I won’t have any comments on the final episodes of this season until later, but I’m glad Fox realized that a Whedon property was worth keeping around. They’ve made lots of money on the Firefly DVD sets and merchandizing, and it looks like, ultimately, that’s why they’ve decided to keep Dollhouse around. Just Press Play put up a good article today speculating that smarter fan campaigns might help save shows like this– rather than being annoying, fans should prove there’s a lot of people willing to spend money on a show’s merchandizing, because money is obviously what networks respond to.

Chuck is also back, but NBC is scaling down its budget so far and the ratings weren’t great this season, so I’m afraid 13 more episodes may be all we get there. All in all, there’s a lot to look forward to this fall– stay tuned!

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan