Chuck is one of those shows that I DVR each week but don’t actually watch. In fact, it wasn’t until I saw the headline on Marc Bernardin’s post yesterday about Monday night’s Chuck-Die Hard crossover that I actually pressed ‘play’ on an episode this season. Now, I’m back on-board for one simple reason: Buy More Assistant Manager Emmett Milbarge (Arrested Development’s Tony Hale) insisting that he should be freed from a hostage situation because his mother is dying of a very rare disease–Leukoplakia. Perhaps the joke was that Leukoplakia, a real condition, isn’t exactly deadly (though it can show early signs of cancer in the mouth). But in my mind, it was that Emmett is a fan of the movie Lucas and remembered what "disease" the mean kids used to call Corey Haim. That’s all it took for me to plan on watching every episode of Chuck on my DVR.
Has a specific moment–big or Leukoplakia small–ever wooed you back to a show that you’d abandoned? You never can tell what will connect with people….
More on Chuck:
Ausiello’s Chuck scoop
Chuck hottie Yvonne Strahovski is actually TV’s most underrated actress
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While I hadn’t actually stopped watching it, I was very disenchanted with Lost during mid-season 3, and it was slowly becoming a non-priority show. Then, I watched “Par Avion,” an episode that focused on my favorite character, Claire, and it was awesome. This started a string of episodes that finally redeemed the series, and by the time I got to “One of Us,” a Juliet-centric episode, I was hooked again. Today, it’s one of my absolute favorite shows.
I had stopped watching Gilmore Girls until the finale of the fourth season when they had Luke and Lorelai finally get together.
Of course, I stopped watching it again during sixth season, but they did manage to pull me back again for awhile there.
I stopped watching Dawson’s Creek during the 5th season…but was pulled back when I saw the preview for Castaways, Joey and Pacey were maybe getting back together, I had to be there!!!
As embarrassing as this is to admit, I was sure I was done with One Tree Hill until they actually had Dan kill Keith. I thought that was a really ballsy move and made things so interesting. Then they pulled me back in again with the whole fast forward through the college years bit.
Damn guilty pleasures.
Mandi, you totally read my mind! Just yesterday I was hoping a blog would be posted about shows you gave up on but came back to. My show, believe it or not, is Private Practice. When I saw Tim Daly on that oh so hot motorcycle in last week’s ep, I nearly passed out. (Kudos to the writers on that one!!!) I don’t care how bad the show gets, that man and his ever-growing hotness is enough to keep me coming back. Even though they hooked him up with Violet. (Why, God, WHY????????)
Lost- I gave up on it during the third season until the finale in which Jack said “We have to go back, Kate.” The minute I realized it was a jump to the FUTURE rather than a tired flashback, I was intrigued again.
Smallville. Seasons 3-5 had pretty much lost me. I still watched just with no enthusiasm for the story or characters. Season 6’s episode “Promise” completely pulled me back in. Lana finally hearing the truth, Clark willing to toss things aside for her, the look on his face when Lana and Lex ride away. It felt like an episode from season one or two. Plenty of action, emotion, mystery . . . The seventh season may have stumbled, but season six held me thru to the present great season eight.
I gave up on “True Blood” when I got bored after three episodes. Then a couple of weeks before the season finale, I ran across a marathon on HBO and came in at the moment Sookie sits down at the table to eat her dead grandmother’s last pecan pie. What a beautiful portrait of mourning that was. I was hooked.
I have to go with “Lost” as well. I watched it religiously during the first season, but wavered during the second and skipped all of the third. Came back about a third into season 4 and am so glad I stayed. I can’t wait for the new season!!!
That time on the “Mentalist” when Simon Baker wore that vest. Oh yeah.
I gave up on ER a few seasons ago but I did turn back in for Abby Lockhart leaving. Tina Fey brought me back to SNL
Was the vest see-thru?
Once I quit watching something I almost never go back. However, I quit watching Prison Break when (and because) they killed Sara Tancredi, and I started watching again when she returned.
I remember a time when watching Lost was the highlight of my TV-watching week. Then that third, and even the fourth season, kind of pissed me off. I didn’t care anymore. But “The Constant” was incredible, and I actually cared about the show again…until the months-long hiatus they insist on doing. I always manage to forget about the show, and now I’m just supremely annoyed it seems to be taking Pushing Daisies’ place on the docket.
My roommate DVR’d Desperate Housewives for years. I would watch it with her sometimes, but it never really held my interest – until this year. Fast-forward five years? Awesome. I now have my butt parked on the couch every Sunday night.
You have been sorely wasting your time not watching Chuck! It’s so fun and entertaining; it’s like (for lack of a better term) a breath of fresh air, compared to most of the crap on tv nowadays. Anyway, I never gave up on it, but I contemplated every week giving up on Lost during the 3rd season (or was it the 2nd…I forget). But, in my opinion, the show totally redemmed itself last season, and I’m happy that I never gave up on it. Pushing Daisies, however, I have given up on. And I only watched 4 episodes of Fringe before I couldn’t stand it anymore. It only took 2 episodes of Lipstick Jungle for me to decide that it wasn’t worth my DVR’s time. Unless Heroes gets it’s act together, I’ll be giving up on that. But Chuck….I actually look forward to that every week.
I’d nearly given up on Grey’s Anatomy when Owen Hunt showed up. Now I’m hooked again!
I’m with you, Katie. Kevin McKidd is SMOKIN’!!!!!
I am supremely surprised that no one’s said Heroes yet. Loved first season, and I managed to enjoy the second. I plugged my way through about 5 episodes of this season…but all subsequent episodes have been piling up on the DVR since then. And I really can’t bring myself to watch them.
So I guess I’m still waiting for the “wooing back” moment on that show…
I totally agree about Dawson’s Creek. I hated it after high school, but I saw a commerical hinting at a Joey/Pacey possible reunion and it dragged me back in.
It was still awful but God I love those 2.
It boggles my mind that there are people dumb enough to have possibly given up on Lost. Anyway, I gave up on Heroes after the first episode, but after the big buzz around that first season, I came back to watch the rest, and it was pretty fun for a while.
Lost season 1 was great, a fresh new interesting show, season two started going downhill and i was done shortly into season 3. last season they had wooed me back and then blew it in the last 10 minutes of the finale so im out again.
The whole fourth episode of Fringe, although I’ve since waned off of that show again.
Chuck is awesome. Don’t ever give up on it again. It is my must watch TV show each week.
I agree with those who talked about Lost. Season 3 had me waivering a little, but by the season finale I was hooked back in! “We have to go back, Kate” I watched it before my boyfriend had a chance and I was like freaking out because I wanted to talk to him about it. I made him sit down and watch it the first chance I got.
I had given up on Gossip Girl but it looks like they might be heading towards a Serena Dan reunion so I have definitely been tuning in recently.
Dirty Sexy Money had such promise when it started….then the strike happened- and this season was AWFUL. It deserved to get cancelled, I feel like they gave up a long time ago.
I never got into Desperate Housewives, and then I saw that Nathan Fillion and Dana Delaney were joining the cast last season and I was interested. I never really loved it but was into it enough to keep watching. And then this season, I suddenly find it totally addictive.
Kevin McKidd is on Grey’s? Damn, now I have to watch that show.
Oh, hands down it was a single episode of CSI that got me watching again: “You Kill Me.” The fact that they let Hodges “kill” just about every lab tech on the show had me howling. And with that episode I reconnected with characters I’d missed, so it was definitely the moment where I decided to give CSI another chance (actually, these days I watch CSI live, tape Supernatural, and then watch Supernatural immediately after CSI is over…I hated having to choose between them).