'Chuck' finally coming to an end

'Chuck Versus the Series finale": How long has this beloved-by-a-very-small-crowd series avoided this fate that at long last arrives Friday night with a pair of episodes titled "Chuck Versus Sarah" and "Chuck Versus the Goodbye?" (NBC/4 at 8 and 9 p.m., respectively).

Five long years is your answer. Nearly offed after the first season, "Chuck" was saved by critics and fans, only to face mortality again the next year. A new network strategy that consigned the future to Jay Leno nearly killed it off after that. Then, with Jay back at "Tonight," NBC grasped at any drama remaining on the schedule with a pulse. "Chuck" was saved again.

Nevertheless, shows don't stick around on schedules for five years because they're lucky or because their network is incompetent. "Chuck" endured because it was good -- a small-screen fantasy for a geeky clientele that demanded a certain level of sophistication in its escapism. Box stores, and secret agents who use them as fronts, and the entire database of the CIA downloaded into one human brain -- Chuck Bartowski's -- may not seem sophisticated only to the uninitiated.

"Chuck" and co-creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak poured an enormous amount of detail into this genial tale of the slacker who finally gets the girl and the store. That was of necessity, because the show faced cancellation so often. "We always were ready to throw the kitchen sink or whatever the new kitchen sink was into the story, because we didn't know if we were going to be coming back," Fedak explained the other day in a conference call.

Yet, "Chuck" just wasn't about the gadgets, twisted back-stories, rogue spies and "Intersects." It was mostly about a cast that gelled into a family unit, with Chuck (Zachary Levi) and CIA-agent-girl-of-his-dreams Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) at the core. NBC hadn't wrapped the finale in time for review, but you can bet it will end happily for both.