As a new year dawns, let’s take a look back at 2011 in our annual Chuck year in review!

January

The year kicked off with Zachary Levi presenting at the People’s Choice Awards, then several cast members partied on Golden Globes night. We learned that Lauren Cohen and Robin Givens would be joining the cast as guest stars in season 4. Chuck returned midway through the month with shenanigans on a balcony and a few attempts at a proposal. Sarah went undercover to infiltrate Volkoff Industries, Casey faked his own death, and Chuck went to prison where he confronted the Gobbler. The Oscar nominations sent a thrill through the Chuckverse when a song from Tangled, sung by Zachary Levi, received a nod. We finished out the month with a birth, a JEFFSTER! performance, and, at last, a proposal.

February

The month for romance brought news that Chuck star Sarah Lancaster married her boyfriend and was expecting her first child. John Laroquette reprised his role as Roan Montgomery, and revealed a bit of General Beckman’s romantic past. More of Sarah’s past was revealed when we met her previous team, The C.A.T. Squad, and settled an old score. We met Volkoff’s daughter, Vivian, at a masquerade, setting off the final arc of the season, and Morgan moved out. Matt Barber took us behind the scenes to show us how he edits an episode of Chuck in a timelapse video. The Sleep Sheep made a guest appearance on the show, modified with JEFFSTER’s version of “Send Me On My Way”, which of course we leveraged into a renewal campaign. We closed the month with Zac singing alongside Mandy Moore at the Oscars, and Chuck and Sarah robbed a bank.

March

Casey’s secrets were revealed, and the mystery of the Gretas was explained, as Ellie began working on Intersect research. ChuckTV.net was nominated for an SFX blog award, which tickled us pink. Chris Fedak, Joshua Gomez, Ryan McPartlin, Vik Sahay, and Scott Krinsky attended C2E2 and gave some clues about the rest of the season. A murder mystery in Castle kept the team guessing, Yvonne attended the Genesis awards, and Zac was a guest on The Tonight Show. Chuck season 4 premiered in the UK, and we won TVLine’s renewal poll.

April

Chuck won Hulu’s Best Show of 2011, thanks to diligent voting from fans. Those troublesome Volkoffs returned to make life difficult for our heroes, and revealed more of Mama Bartowski’s mission. Chuck took home three TV Guide fan favorite awards, and Yvonne released a somewhat controversial parody video with College Humor. Gary Busey interview bombed Zac, Yvonne and Joshua in one of those so awkward it’s hilarious moments. As the Walker-Bartowski wedding neared, Sarah’s Dad returned to help the couple recover their money from a wedding planner/con artist. We Give a Chuck launched the #NotANielsenFamily campaign targeting advertisers to encourage a season 5 renewal, which Josh Schwartz said was working.

May

Heading into the final run of new episodes, we discovered the identity of Agent X and met the very cool Mrs. Winterbottom. With Chuck & Sarah’s wedding just around the corner, it was time for bachelor and bachelorette parties, which naturally didn’t go as planned. Chuck fans cheered when NBC announced that the show was renewed for a fifth season, but the news was bittersweet as NBC also confirmed that it would be the final season. When the new primetime lineup was announced, we were surprised to hear that Chuck was moving to Fridays. And then, at long last and not without some drama courtesy of Vivian Volkoff, Chuck and Sarah were married. We wrapped up the season with an interview with producer & director Robert Duncan McNeill answering questions about the finale.

June

Summer hiatus is always a slow time for Chuck fans, but we kept ourselves busy with our annual summer rewatch. We released the results of our third annual Chuck fan survey, conducted after the conclusion of season 4, which gave us an idea of what fans thought of the season. Our “You know you’re a Chuck fan if…” list generated a lot of discussion as fans pitched in with their telltale signs of fandom.

July

Chuck graced the cover of SciFiNow magazine, and ChuckTV.net was featured along with the executive producers and Zachary Levi. July is really all about Comic Con, though, this time with the added bonus of Zac’s Nerd HQ, and our coverage was extensive. With the writers back at work, clues about the new season started to leak, starting with guest starring news like Mark Hamill and Craig Kilburn in the season premiere, plus Carrie-Anne Moss signing on for multiple episodes.

August

Joshua Gomez was nominated for an ALMA award to get this month started, and we got more scoop on season 5 from the cast’s appearance at the TCA’s. Zac and Josh geeked out on set with Mark Hamill, then Zac put on his best short shorts for a ping pong game on the Teen Choice Awards. Fans had more chances to interact with the cast this month: Yvonne Strahovski took fan questions live online as she promoted her feature film Killer Elite; Mark Christopher Lawrence, Ryan McPartlin and Julia Ling attended the T3 convention in the UK; and Adam Baldwin shared a set video from season 3. Vik Sahay kept busy during hiatus filming a web series pilot and the new American Pie movie, while Ryan appeared on Friends with Benefits and the NBC movie Game Time.

September

With a few weeks until the season 5 premiere, NBC released the keyart and the new cast photos for the season. Yvonne attended the Toronto International Film Festival for the world premiere of Killer Elite, and Vik attended in support of his indie film Afghan Luke. Word came down that Zac would be in the director’s chair again for the season’s fifth episode, which would include a cameo by Community‘s Danny Pudi. Although Chuck didn’t receive any nominations, Zac was part of the chorus at the Emmys while several other cast members attended related events. Yvonne visited with soldiers at Edwards Air Force Base, and we found out that we would finally meet Sarah’s mom in the final season. Zac was honored as an ambassador for Operation Smile at their annual gala, supported by members of the cast. The season 4 blooper reel and Operation Gomez special features from the DVD set were leaked, giving us something to laugh about.

October

Casting news picked up with the announcement that Cheryl Ladd would be playing Sarah’s mom, and White Collar star Tim DeKay would play her former handler. We got our first look at the new season with the promo stills from the premiere, and we got a flashback to season 1 with this video of Zac and Josh leading a tour on the WB lot. Mel got an advance look at the first three episodes of the season, Zap2It listed their top 25 Chuck moments, and Mo Ryan shared her advance review of the season. At the end of the month Chuck finally returned, as did Chuck vs. the Podcast.

November

Chris Fedak talked with us about the new season, and Morgan went vigilante. We Give a Chuck put together a thank you video for the cast and crew with photos and greetings from fans around the world. The Morgansect went haywire (and affected Morgan’s hair), and Joshua talked with reporters about his experience playing Intersected Morgan. NBC set the date for the Chuck series finale, but Chuck and Sarah’s business trip took priority for viewers.

December

Filming on Chuck ended early this month, prompting a lot of Tweets, videos, and photos from the set as the cast and crew tried to include fans as much as possible. Zac received good news when Tangled was nominated for a pair of Grammys, including his vocals. We saw Zac’s directorial debut as Chuck’s hacker past was revealed, and Zac continued an awesome year by hosting the Video Game Awards. Chuck had to battle through his belief in the Bartowski Curse as Ellie & Awesome dabbled in the spy life and Rebecca Romijn made everyone’s lives miserable. Perhaps the most hated character ever returned in the Christmas episode, leaving behind a mighty tantalizing tease about Sarah’s past. We released our special holiday podcast, with greetings from 18 members of the cast and crew, and we announced your choices for the baddest villains from seasons 1-4.  We closed out the year with a Sarah flashback episode that answered a lot of questions about her past and introduced us to her mom and “the baby”.

Some milestones for us include:

• ChuckTV.net received 2.1 million visits and 6.3 million pageviews in 2011. (Note: these numbers do not include forum visits.) The most popular sections of the site this year were the season 4 music list, information about where to watch full episodes, and the season 5 category. More than 10,200 comments were left on the main site and about 13,000 comments were posted on the forum.
• Chuck vs. the Podcast released episode 98 to finish out the year, our special holiday podcast with greetings from 18 members of the Chuck cast and crew. We ended the year as the #1 TV podcast on Podcast Alley for the third year in a row, and ranked #1 in the TV & Film category.

Thanks to all of you for joining us in 2011. We look forward to being with you in 2012, as Chuck comes to an end and beyond. Although the show will sign off once and for all on January 27, ChuckTV.net will remain as an archive for a phenomenal TV series and its fandom.  We plan to continue updating the site with any Chuck-related news, including future projects for the cast and crew, and providing information for those who discover the show on DVD.