NBC Renews Chuck For A Third Season

NBC has reportedly picked up 13 episodes of Chuck from Warner Brothers, which made some budget concessions to secure the show a third season. Fans pushed NBC very hard for a pickup, launching a Save Chuck campaign that included buying sandwiches at series sponsor Subway.

The 13-episode pickup came after Warner Brothers agreed to make significant budget concessions, including scaling back the number of episodes several members of the show’s supporting cast will appear in and possibly eliminating one actor altogether. The show is also expected to cut two of its staff writers. Chuck, which had already trimmed its production budget going into Season 2, may now be in a situation similar to the one seen on ABC’s Scrubs this spring, where certain cast members “went missing” for a week at a time.

Chuck joins Southland, Heroes, Medium, L&O: SVU, Friday Night Lights and Parks & Recreation among shows NBC has renewed for fall. Given that 10 pm will be off the board due to Jay Leno’s talk show, the network has considerably fewer slots than usual to fill.

NBC is not confirming any new pick-ups until its upfront “comedy showcase” event on May 19.