'Chuck' gets a dad, the return of Holly and other NBC press tour notes
By Rick Porter January 16, 12:39 AM
A few more notes from NBC's day at the TCA press tour, including yet another guest star for Chuck and a couple of pieces of news on The Office:
Josh Schwartz says he and his fellow Chuck creator Chris Fedak are "huge Quantum Leap fans," and that's how they came to cast Scott Bakula in the role of Chuck's (Zachary Levi) estranged father.
"Quantum Leap -- it's not dissimilar to what we ask of Zach," Schwartz says, "to be able to do comedy, drama, romance and action," sometimes all in the same episode. "It was a show we loved, and at this point it's going to require a lot of the same colors that Scott showed on Quantum Leap and Star Trek. So we're thrilled."
Bakula's guest arc will coincide with that of Chevy Chase, whose three-episode stint NBC announced earlier on Thursday. Schwartz says the elder Bartowski and Chase's software genius Ted Roark will be rivals, with Chuck caught in the middle, and that we'll see a somewhat different side of Chase in the role.
"[Ted Roark] is definitely in that Steve Jobs, John Lasseter, Bill Gates mold, a real visionary in the software game. But he's going to be a very different character than the kind you've seen him play," Schwartz says. "He gets to have a little more edge, more darkness."
