Chuck and the Rogue “Hard Drives”

Can you just stand having so much good TV to watch?  Chuck continues to rock.  It’s wonderfully over the top.

There was one major writing goof, though, and it was repeated so it’s not just a mistake.  I always privately laugh when someone uses “hard drive” to refer to an entire computer.  That is, the case; the metal and/or other materials box that contains a motherboard, power supply, CPU, RAM, drives, and whatever other components are in there to give it the desired features or make it all work.  The hard drive is a component.

Where I’m from, there are three acceptable names for the box that is the computer sans peripherals: Computer, CPU, or Case.  CPU, while not technically what the entire contents of the case is, at least sums up its function; it does the processing, not a peripheral for input or output.  That it just happens to incorporate storage and certain input and/or output hardware could be considered incidental.  Crazy as it might seem, calling it “CPU” is probably less confusing to the audience, because most people would point at their monitor when speaking of their computer, equating the two.  Simply calling it the computer is the most correct.  Calling it a hard drive isn’t like calling it a CPU, because too many ordinary computer users know exactly what a hard drive is.  I’m surprised calling a computer a hard drive is as common as it is, but that’s another story I could get into.

Calling it a case is, to me, almost as bad as calling it a hard drive, but at least acknowledges what the visible portion of the hardware set is, and causes less dissonance to someone like me.

Seriously.  The writers of Chuck can call computers hard drives all they want, but if they persist, I expect to have some really great gas tank chases.  Though Chuck’s Nerd Herd gas tank has already been used for that, and how much could he get away with before being found out?  Maybe some chases in Sarah’s much cooler gas tank instead, but with Chuck somehow nervously stuck driving.  Or Chuck can ride in the back, frantically trying to create a virus on an Apple laptop hard drive so he can destroy the mothership.

Other than that, which obviously did some serious damage to the episode for me, Chuck was great.  I keep trying to figure out who his sister looks like.  Not quite a younger Valerie Bertinelli, but I could swear there’s someone else she resembles more.

Since I devoted far more than passing mention to Chuck, not the plan, I will save Heroes for another post.  Journeyman has grown on me a little, and Dr. Phlox was in it last night, which helps.  He just rocks.  Deb hasn’t warmed to it so much, and I still see it as flawed and likely not to last.  Though they really might as well let it run a season and not try to replace it until next fall.  Too big of an arc; too much backstory to know, to the extent we do know backstory.  Some of the bigger mysteries intrigue me, but if it weren’t after Heroes, being watched almost by default, I’d probably not make a point.

Posted by on 10/09 at 09:16 AM

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