Tagged: Kristin Kruek

Stars lining up for Chuck

The stars are lining up to appear on NBC’s highly appealing, but ratings-struggling, dramady, Chuck. The show, gearing up now for what could be a critical third season when it comes to the long-term survival of the show, has pulled out the stops when it comes to guest stars. What are they doing, offering affordable health insurance to guest stars, now?

Anyway, first up is the motion picture Superman, Brandon Routh. Keeping with its Superman theme, the show has also signed former Smallville star Kristin Kruek to appear for “several episodes” as a new love interest for secret superspy Chuck. And finally, Law and Order’s Angie Harmon as been confirmed for the show’s fourth episode of the season.

While stunt casting can be the sign of a show in trouble, that’s no secret for Chuck, which faced the very real possibility of cancellation last spring. If some stunt-casting is required to keep this show alive and introduce more people to its quirky appeal, so be it!

Lana, Lex to exit Smallville?

Two of the most central characters to the TV show Smallville – Kristin Kruek’s Lana Lang and Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex Luthor – won’t be returning next year, the show’s eighth season, according to TV Guide’s online edition. While they are negotiating how many episodes they will actually appear in, in season eight, neither will be weekly regulars after this strike-shortened season comes to an end.

Since TV Guide’s Michael Ausseillo is generally more reliable than life insurance quotes, the question now remains whether the show can maintain its popularity without two of the show’s “core four” returning.

The “core four” for Smallville have been Clark, Lana, Lex and Chloe for the past seven seasons; that list used to include a fifth, Pete Ross played by Sam Jones III, who exited after the third season. While the show can theorhetically survive without Kruek’s Lana – who, after all, is not Superman’s bride in the comics, and the show already has her replacement, Erica Durance’s Lois Lane, in place for the past several seasons – but replacing Rosenbaum’s Luthor could be the real problem.

From the debut episode, the emotional core of the show has been the almost brother-like friendship between Clark and Lex, and the devolution of that friendship into a bitter enmity that sets them up as future rivals. There is no established replacement who can play the foil to Clark at the same level that Rosenbaum’s Luthor is able to, setting up the potential for the show to become, once more, a “villain of the week” melodrama, much as it was in the first season.

Of course, the show has survived multiple exits; John Schneider’s Johnathon Kent was written out via a character death in season five, while Annette O’Toole’s Martha Kent has been largely absent throughout the current season, the show’s seventh. Yet with only Chloe Steel and Clark Kent surviving from the first season to next fall’s eighth season, it appear more likely than ever that next season could be the show’s final bow.