I have been rambling on about Chuck since October of 2007. My initial couple of posts were about how Chuck might be affected by the writer’s strike at the time. The strike caused some down time for the show, splitting the first season up. That was the first of many struggles for Chuck. Mondays at 8EST was a tough time slot for the show, facing things like Monday Night Football, Dancing With The Stars, and eventually House when it was moved to the time slot. Also, while very original, Chuck definitely fits a viewer niche. The show is part romantic comedy, part science fiction, and all wrapped up in action. While many would argue that it’s got something for everyone, others might acknowledge that aspects of the show may put some people off. Considering it’s competition, Chuck has done reasonably well. The viewer numbers, while down in the second season, aren’t as low as many shows that the network has kept. More over, the ever-important demographic for ages 18-49 continues to stay strong at 2.3 million viewers.

Debuting with solid shows like Pushing Daisies and Eli Stone, Chuck has watched both series officially die. Now it sits on the edge, awaiting NBC’s press release on May 5TH. But with an incredibly hyped finale tonight, Chuck has more than just network politics going for it. It has amazing viewer campaigns which may rival even Jericho’s nutty fans.

ChuckTV.Net was an early supporter of the show. Featuring cast & crew interviews in podcast segments and teasing upcoming episode media, it was one of the first to launch it’s own Save Chuck campaign called the Watch/Buy/Share campaign. The idea is to get as many people to watch, buy seasons or episodes of, and even just share seasons or episodes of the show in an attempt to snag viewers. Chuck is a great show, but part of it’s low viewer numbers stems from the fact that people haven’t given it a chance because other stable shows in it’s time slot already have them pulled away. While the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, & LA Times rave about the show it faces a target demographic that is less influenced by media and more influenced from their friends and social networks. ChuckTV.Net was all about spreading the word of the show through user created youtube highlights and just getting people interested enough to watch and episode. They also initialized writing NBC Universal, with claims that individual personal letters raving about the show means significantly more than online petitions and emails. Head over to their campaign headquarters for more Chuck ideas.

Zachary Levi’s unofficial fan site began encouraging people to buy a $5 dollar footlong at Subway today and dropping off a comment card indicating your support for the show. This all stemmed from very obvious product placement in a few Chuck episodes this season. You can get the full details on that campaign here or check out the facebook event page.

These are just two examples of what many sites like www.pleasesavechuck.com and Give Me My Remote are promoting, and that’s not counting the groups on Facebook and twitter buzz. You can search for #chuck & #savechuck at Twitter’s search page for more information on that.

And on that note, I’m going to have to excuse myself to dive into this chicken teriyaki sub. I’ll leave you with my reason for watching Chuck. Chuck airs at 8EST, 7 CST on NBC. Tonight is the season finale. Don’t freak out.

Yvonne Strahovski As Sarah Walker in Chuck