Ellen Gray: A double dose of 'Chuck'

CHUCK. 9 and 10 p.m. Sunday, 8 p.m. Monday, Channel 10.

BIG LOVE. 9 p.m. Sunday, HBO.

CHUCK BARTOWSKI gets the full Jack Bauer treatment Sunday, as NBC launches the third season of "Chuck" with the kind of two-night extravaganza that's been sucking viewers into the jet engines of Fox's "24" for years now.

Please tell me it's going to work for "Chuck," too.

And not because I worry that the nation's TV critics don't have another save-"Chuck" campaign in them. I promise you, we can whine forever.

It's more that this hourlong comedy about an underachiever who accidentally becomes a spy has taken the silliest of premises and grown it into something that's actually worth the fuss its most fervent fans make about it.

I love that Chuck (Zachary Levi) has grown, too, and that thanks to the unexpected upgrade that occurred in last season's finale, he suddenly knows kung fu.

Kind of. When he remembers he knows it.

Over the holidays, I watched the five new episodes NBC sent and couldn't wait to see more, but if you haven't been watching "Chuck" - and I've also seen the Nielsens, so let's not even pretend everyone has - here's all you'd need to know to get up to speed for Sunday's two-hour premiere and Monday's episode, which will air in the show's usual 8 p.m. time slot:

Chuck Bartowski was just another tech geek at the Buy More, a Best Buy-like emporium staffed by some of the funniest layabouts you'd ever want to meet, and living with his sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and her boyfriend, Devon (Ryan McPartlin), when he opened an e-mail from his former college roommate and accidentally downloaded the entire contents of a government supercomputer - the Intersect - into his own somewhat underused brain.

The original Intersect database having been destroyed, Chuck's brain became suddenly more valuable than his ability to hook up surround-sound systems, and agents from rival government agencies were dispatched to find him. He became the responsibility of CIA operative Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and the NSA's John Casey (Adam Baldin), and he fell in love with one of them.

(Hint: It's the blonde.)

At the end of last season, Chuck was briefly freed from the burden of the Intersect, only to be reinfected with an even more powerful database, one that's able to turn him into a sort of Jack Bauer on steroids, but only sporadically.

Yes, there are some in-jokes, and, yes, there's plenty of back story I'm not telling you, but since "Chuck" has never been one of those shows that's only interested in amusing itself, you won't need a supercomputer to figure out where the funny lies.

The following Sunday, you're free to watch Jack Bauer try to save the world one more time.

For now, though, let's just focus on saving "Chuck," OK?

Sunday also brings the fourth-season premiere of HBO's "Big Love," which happens to be my very favorite show ever about upper-middle-class polygamists in Utah.

Which I recognize as a category that's an acquired taste.

I get it that some people find the idea that Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) is married to three women at the same time a little creepy. (Though I'm still surprised that those most creeped-out tend to be male.) So I'm not twisting any arms here.

But one of the things I love most about "Big Love" is what a showcase it's been for women.

Not just Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin, the dynamic trio who play Bill's "sister wives" and who have all been overlooked by Emmy voters for far too long (though Sevigny's nominated for a Golden Globe this year).

There's also Ellen Burstyn, who did win an Emmy for playing one of Bill's mothers-in-law. Yes, he's had three of them, too, including one portrayed by the at least equally wonderful Mary Kay Place (whose "prophet" husband, played by Harry Dean Stanton, gets a memorable sendoff Sunday).

Grace Zabriskie, who's Bill's scrappy mother, one of his remaining ties to the rural compound from which he was expelled as a teenager, goes toe to toe with his insane father (Bruce Dern) just often enough to make you glad the two aging polygamists haven't yet succeeded in killing each other.

Recurring roles also belong to Anne Dudek ("House," "Mad Men") and Tina Majorino ("Veronica Mars"), two of the best younger character actresses working today.

Allentown native Amanda Seyfried ("Mamma Mia"), who plays Bill's oldest daughter, Sarah, has developed a busy enough movie career that she'll be moving on at some point in the season.

With any luck, she'll have a long and fruitful career. But unless the entertainment industry changes radically in the next decade or two, sooner or later she's bound to realize just how special a thing it was that she left behind. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.