I watched Chuck and Heroes last night. I was surprised how much I enjoyed Chuck, because I'd heard some bad reviews of it. Bitt, you were right on with your assessment of the geek humor, which is probably calculated on their part, so they don't alienate their target audience.

I only had three problems with the episode, all more suspension of disbelief-related.
- "this computer has a DOS override"
- the CIA woman steals his computer, but discards it when it falls on the floor? She really thought the data was lost? And apparently a three foot fall is utterly disastrous for computers: in the next shot you can clearly see a hard drive with its platters exposed. That's some fall!
- nobody in that club saw the woman throwing sharp objects at guys in suits? It was pretty obvious.

I guess it's funny how suspension of disbelief is easier for more outlandish plot points (like a guy seeing a bunch of images and now remembering state secrets), than it is to let slip little things like the CIA not being able to recover data off a hard drive that isn't even damaged

Now...about Heroes... I'm excited for the second season. Hopefully they'll have a better sophomore season than Lost, and I have every confidence that they will, but unlike a lot of people, I simply like The 4400 better. It's lower budget, and it might not be quite as fun, but for me it delivers on more than Heroes does. The message is a lot more interesting and thought-provoking to me, and hell, it even delivers more on the powers, as far as I've seen. I think the main difference though is in the characters themselves, in that the characters on The 4400 deal with their new-found powers and with each-other, and aren't nearly as insular and self-absorbed as the characters on Heroes.

At the very least, I can say that this past season finale for The 4400 has left me with a lot to think about, and dying to see what happens next, unlike the first season finale of Heroes, which just left me feeling cheated and underwhelmed...a lot like most episodes of the show.

Sorry to go off on such a tangent...