Chuck vs. the Comic-Con

As I discussed here several times over the last week, I was asked to moderate the "Chuck" panel at the New York Comic-Con, featuring co-creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak and co-star Yvonne Strahovski (pictured above, in a vaguely competent snap from my digital camera), and it was a blast. Originally, I was going to save my panel recap for my review of the next episode. But since there won't be a new episode this week due to President Obama's primetime address (and we'll discuss both that and the possibility of future Obama-related disruptions in the recap), I'm just gonna do it tonight.

Highlights coming up just as soon as I reassure myself that I shouldn't have titled this post "Chuck vs. the Sepinwall"...

• Though "Chuck" didn't get one of the Con's bigger panel rooms, the room they did get was packed (I'd estimate the crowd at around 1,000 people) with very enthusiastic fans of various ages, genders and life philosophies. The panel opened with a special five-minute trailer for the second half of season two. It featured many of the guest stars you've heard about -- Scott Bakula, Chevy Chase, Tricia Helfer, Arnold Vosloo, Jenny McCarthy and Jonathan Cake -- lots of action, lots of skin from both genders (including Sarah having a fight in her underwear), lots of laughs (including what looks to be the high point of the Emmitt Millbarge era to date), and the usual heartfelt moments. In short, it looked great, and even my usual spoiler-phobic tendencies couldn't overcome my delight at the sheer awesomeness of it.

• Schwartz is very good at staying on message, so if you've read some of the recent interviews he did in promoting the 3-D episode (like with Fienberg and with Mo Ryan), a lot of the answers would sound familiar, so I won't reproduce them verbatim. But without Zachary Levi -- who's usually the live-wire crowd-pleaser at big events like this -- Schwartz and Fedak did a very good job of keeping the crowd amused, while Yvonne... well, we'll get to her ordeal in a bit.

• In discussing the show's elevation from fun in season one to mega-awesome in season two, the guys talked about how they felt they were close to hitting their stride when the strike happened, and that they had a lot of time on the picket line to figure out what was working and what wasn't. And Josh said, "And we told Yvonne we would not have to serve any more wieners in season two."

• This, of course, led me to protest, once again, the elimination of the wonderful Wienerlicious uniform, which everybody liked. "This is Sepinwall's own fetish," Josh tried to spin back on me. "He's going to pretend that a lot of people feel the same way." (I feel confident that I made my feelings on the uniform clear and un-pervy in my review of the season premiere, so we'll leave it at that.) They said they felt the joke had run its course, especially after the Casey/Sarah fight in episode two where she used the hot dog sticks as weapons, and that it was also difficult for Yvonne to do certain fighting moves in a skirt without flashing America.

• Along similar lines, we talked about how Yvonne reacts when she discovers the latest skimpy outfit she's going to have to wear. "I thumb through the script and then schedule my workout regime accordingly," she said. For the most part, she has no problem with the wardrobe, except to point out when, again, she'd wind up showing too much of her goodies in a fight scene. An attempt to have her fight in a towel was nixed for this reason, though she acknowledged some people would probably enjoy seeing her towel fall off. (If she only knew what was coming during the audience Q&A...)

• I brought up my question from "Chuck vs. Santa Claus": Once Michael Rooker disappeared on a mission to figure out if something important was happening at the Buy More, surely Fulcrum would realize something was up, and at what point does the store stop being a viable cover for Chuck? Fedak said the Arnold Vosloo episode will address that at length, as we find out what it is that the rest of Fulcrum believes is going on there, which is very different from what's actually happening. It'll also give us our first look at Fulcrum HQ, in what Chris called "A very cool, '80s, 'Tron'-type sequence of what it's like at Fulcrum."

• I asked when Casey and Sarah were going to get around to teaching Chuck a bit of self-defense, because as much fun as it is to watch Zachary Levi squeal like a girl, you would think he would have learned judo or how to shoot a gun by now. They said that's coming up, and they promised that Chuck will have "his own cool spy move."

• At this point, I opened it up to audience Q&A and the weirdness with poor Yvonne started. At various points, the webmaster of Strahotski.com declared that he had a personalized Strahotski teddy bear to give to her. A representative of a local Polish-American society tried to invite Yvonne to be grand marshal at their annual parade. A woman whose 63-year-old father is a huge fan of "Chuck" in general and Yvonne in particular said her dad begged her for an autograph, and how could Yvonne say no to that? She signed something, to applause from the crowd, and that set off a tidal wave of autograph requests (several girls got their phones signed, one kid got Yvonne's Comic-Con nameplate, etc.), one guy asking if the panelists would mind hanging out with ham after for some photos (Josh: "I would mind. I don't know if Yvonne's game."), one guy who gave a monlogue about how he watches the show with his wife and then told Yvonne how gorgeous she was (Josh: "Is he here with his wife?"), and, finally, a guy seriously elevating the creep factor by asking Yvonne if this was her first time in New York and how much time she planned on spending here. (As soon as the crowd started loudly snickering, he protested that he didn't mean spending it with him.) Towards the end, another fan asked who was the craziest fan she'd ever encountered. Having been given a lot of possible choices in the last hour alone, Yvonne thought about it, then pointed to the Strahotski webmaster and said, "Maybe the guy that made this website." (As Yvonne tried to say she was joking, Fedak warned that "Strahotski just became Stranotski." To his credit, Strahotski guy laughed.) Something tells me this will be the last fan convention she agrees to appear at without her co-stars.

• Someone asked Yvonne if she misses the original spelling of her name. She said she doesn't, since Strzechowski is still legally her name. She just changed it at Schwartz's behest for the sake of easier pronunciation. Josh was actually pushing her to change it to Yvonne Striker, and when a kid in the audience later protested that Striker is the name of an X-Men villain, Josh said that only made the name awesomer.

• A fan asked about the show's future. Josh and Chris noted how much they were promoted during the Super Bowl, and Josh said, "It's feeling as positive as it can without saying it's actually coming back." Then we got into the unfortunate timing of the Obama press conference tomorrow, and the rumors that Obama may do yet another primetime address a week from Monday. "Clearly, Obama's first plan as president was to destroy 'Chuck,'" Josh said, before noting that he hears the President may only speak for five minutes, which would allow "Chuck" to air more or less on time.

• A fan complimented Yvonne on how well she does the American accent. She said in her acting classes in Australia, they were required to learn other dialects, and she can also do (to varying levels of success) British and Scottish accents and a few others. (A few fanboys called out for her to demonstrate, but either she didn't hear them or pretended she didn't.) I asked about the scene in "Chuck vs. the Ex" where she got to use her native accent, and she admitted she was uncomfortable with it, because she's so used to being American on this show.

• Fedak promised that the question of whether Chuck is paid by the government for his services will be addressed, and when someone asked how Chuck has avoided getting fired from the Buy More despite spending very little time there, Josh said, "Luckily, the Buy More is not run by the greatest brains. It's not hard to get one past Big Mike."

• The following exchange between a very solemn pre-adolescent kid and Schwartz and Fedak was probably the best moment of the morning. I give it to you, verbatim:

Kid: "In the Christmas episode, when Casey's toe got shot off, did he get a robotic toe?"
Schwartz: "He does now, as of today."
Fedak: "It's actually a toe and a missile."
Kid: "Does that mean he's like Darth Vader?"

What can you say to that?

• The producers originally wanted to set the show at Best Buy for the product integration money, but it didn't work out. I asked if they would incorporate the Circuit City bankruptcy into the show's business world. "That's what America wants to see," Josh said, "clearance sale for sweeps." They think that the Burbank Buy More isn't supposed to be a thriving location for the franchise, and an upcoming episode will feature a visit to the far glitzier Beverly Hills store.

• There's been a lot of discussion about either Chuck moving out of Ellie's apartment, or else Ellie and Awesome moving out post-marriage, and possibly making the cover romance even more awkward by having Sarah then move in with Chuck. I asked how long they felt they could draw out the will-they-or-won't-they dynamic without pissing off the Chuck/Sarah 'shippers; Josh said he felt there are enough natural obstacles in their working relationship that he can plausibly keep them apart a while longer. (Again, in being good at staying on message, he didn't say more than that.)

• Josh: "You're going to see in a couple of weeks that Jeff and Lester have a band, called Jeffster."