For my series finale review, click here!

Against all odds, a show you probably haven't heard of is ending its five season run tomorrow night on NBC. Chuck has aired on the wounded peacock network since September of 2007, and not a day has gone by this last month or two where it hasn't hit me just how fortunate I am to have had this show in my life for as long as it has been. Despite year-to-year drops in Nielsen ratings (season one averaged 8.6 million viewers, season five is averaging somewhere around 3.5 million viewers), this little show that could is bidding farewell to its remaining (and most loyal) viewers tomorrow night with a proper series finale, a finale that no fan could have ever predicted would have seen the light of day! While the thought of never having a new episode of Chuck to watch is truly a sad thought to have, a part of me knows that this series has the potential to join shows like Freaks and Geeks and Arrested Development in the "why didn't I watch this show when it was on?!" category within the next decade or so, and that puts a fairly large smile on my face!

Writing about the end isn't easy. I have spent the last week trying to figure out how I wanted to address my feelings about its arrival, but I have come to the conclusion that I'll never be happy with how I ultimately decide to do so because there's so much to discuss, and I know I'll surely forget a thing or two! Having said that, here goes nothing...

Chuck isn't a show about a nerd. It also isn't a show about how the nerd gets the girl. Sure, we spent two and a half seasons watching him try, but we've also had two and a half seasons where he had the girl, and he wound up marrying her last May! Chuck is a show about having enough faith in yourself to reach your full potential, and I believe that moral is one of the show's most attractive qualities, and it's one of the reasons why I have stuck with this series through thick and thin. Chuck is also a show that stresses the importance of family in any shape or form. He might not have the most traditional of families, but Chuck's is quite extended: Ellie is like the mother that he barely had, Devon and Morgan are like the brothers he never had, Jeff and Lester are the drunk, creepy cousins you were forced to invite to holiday get-togethers, and Casey and Big Mike are the stern, yet loveable uncles! As time went on, this family grew as Casey's daughter, Alex was brought into the picture, Chuck and Ellie's mother was introduced in the form of Terminator's Linda Hamilton, and Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap, Men of a Certain Age) was casted as their father, Stephen J. Bartowski (a.k.a. Orion... may he rest in peace). You could even make the case that General Beckman became a maternal figure for Team Bartowski! 

Chuck is also a show with exponential character growth. Because the writers have had to craft five to six potential series finales over the last two or three seasons, the story lines have always progressed at a much more rapid rate than on more popular shows where the fear of cancellation is not prominent. Overall, Sarah has grown the most. Once an emotionally tainted superspy with a troubled past, she's now one of the most emotionally stable characters in the Chuck universe. Season one Sarah would have never imagined that marriage, children, and a life outside of the spy world were all part of a life she would soon live. Even if her feelings for Chuck developed shortly after bringing her cell phone into the Buy More for repair, I doubt that she was imagining that this would be the man she would spend the rest of her life with! Well little did she know how Chuck would shape her life or how much value their relationship would add to it!

We should also take a look at just how much Casey (a.k.a. Alex Coburn) has grown as a character since the pilot episode. In the show's first season, he was the NSA agent hired to put a bullet in Chuck's head immediately following intersect removal, and now, he would take a bullet for Chuck. In season three's "Chuck Versus the Tic Tac," we learned a lot about the life he once lived years before he ever got involved with Team Bartowski, and that life included a fiancée, a pregnant fiancée who was carrying his daughter (little did he know). Since Alex's introduction in the show's third season, Casey has become a kinder, gentler individual, but that hasn't made the former Colonel any less kickass when it comes to taking down bad guys! Fortunately, the writers didn't make the man a total softy!

Speaking of bad guys, this show has had quite its share of them. Were they all great? No they weren't, but the casting of villains has always been superb! Chevy Chase, Timothy Dalton, and to a lesser extent, Brandon Routh and Angus Macfadyen were all great casting choices. Routh is probably my personal favorite as Daniel Shaw, but that doesn't mean that I thought that the character was always well written. Once he was made a villain, he was fantastic, but when he was a regular member of Team Bartowski and fighting along with them (with the exception of "Chuck Versus Operation Awesome," which he was, well, awesome in), the character was lacking! Macfadyen has done some great work thus far, but having yet to see the series finale, I'm not sure how I'll feel about him overall until I do. I know it sounds like I'm nitpicking, but my biggest problem with Macfadyen is his size. As great as his acting is, the man is far from in shape, and it's hard to envision him as the government's original choice for the intersect back before Bryce stole it and sent it to Chuck. We'll see how the final two episodes play out though, and I'll touch more upon the subject in my finale review on Saturday. Besides fantastic villains though, this show has always had its fair share of amazing guest stars. Just a couple of weeks ago, the show made amazing use of Bo Derek, and who can forget Matt Bomer as Bryce Larkin or Jordanna Brewster as Jill? My favorite guest star though came in the form of Tony Hale as Emmett Milbarge. I will never forget this scene...

Looking back on five years of Chuck, I can't conclude any final article without discussing the show's use of music. It's a show where the music really sets the tone of a scene, and acts as a character in and of itself! Through Chuck, I discovered Bon Iver, now one of my favorite artists. Bon Iver's songs have set the tone of some of the most memorable scenes of the series, such as the scene from "Chuck Versus the Colonel" in which Chuck and Sarah wake up in bed together and the will they/won't they tension is finally resolved, ya know, up until Chuck chooses the spy life over a life with her in "Chuck Versus the Pink Slip"... moron! [Play the scene] As we all know though, he discovers he can have both in "Chuck Versus the Other Guy," the second of five or six potential series finales that were crafted over the last five seasons. Speaking of great songs, "Other Guy" featured two of my favorite songs ever used on the series, 'Kettering' by The Antlers (jump to 2:00) and 'Bye Bye Bye' by Plants and Animals (jump to 1:05). A full list of every song ever used on Chuck can be found at ChuckTV.net.

And speaking of music, how about a hand for Jeffster, the best worst cover band of all-time! I'm telling you, as great as their 'Mr. Roboto' performance was in "Chuck Versus the Ring," nothing puts more of a smile on my face when I'm down than their performance of 'Push It' does from "Chuck Versus the Push Mix" [play the scene]. Who ever thought Sam Kinison and an Indian lesbian would make such a great duo?!

As much as I am going to miss Chuck, I'm also going to miss all of the spectacularly run fan sites and podcasts that came along as a result. I have yet to miss an installment of Chuck You or Chuck Versus the Podcast, and the sites associated with them, ChuckTV.net and ChuckGasmic.com, are two of the finest run websites I've ever had the pleasure of viewing. Without fans running websites and podcasts like these, we wouldn't be as united as a fan base, and I can't thank any of the people involved with the creation of these ventures enough. I also can't thank the critics enough who supported the series throughout its run, including Michael Ausiello, Mo Ryan, and Alan Sepinwall. 

Last but not least, I want to take a moment to thank the entire cast and crew of Chuck, a team of individuals who have been responsible for warming my heart, and the hearts of millions of others for ninety-one episodes. This includes Yvonne Strahovski, Joshua Gomez, Adam Baldwin, Ryan McPartlin, Sarah Lancaster, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Vik Sahay, Jeff Krinsky, Julia Ling, Bonita Friedericy, Mekenna Melvin, Josh Schwartz, Chris Fedak, and most importantly, Zachary Levi! Thank you all for being the kindest and most sincere people you can be when it comes to your fans. Never has a show's cast and crew been so open to interacting with the fan base. You all truly have the biggest hearts!

Tomorrow night is the series finale, and that means that this week, there has been a vast amount of media coverage! Best of all, there have been a ton of interviews with the cast and crew. I've compiled and embedded a Youtube playlist featuring a plethora of interviews with the cast, interviews with Schwartz and Fedak, and clips from tomorrow night's episodes below. Personally, I've leaned away from watching any of it myself, so I can't say just how spoiled you might get watching these, but you've been warned! If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading, and thank you for being the dedicated Chuckster that you are! Enjoy the series finale, tomorrow night at 8pm/7c on NBC! 

@Ryan_Schwartz No relation btw!But very thoughtful look back at the run of the show.

— Josh Schwartz (@JoshSchwartz76) January 27, 2012