Big news for fans of NBC’s Chuck came on Saturday at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con as the actress set to play Chuck’s mom in season 4 was revealed, and it’s none other than Linda Hamilton (The Terminator). In a show that has prided itself on having a lot of popular guest stars may have topped itself with this casting. Creators Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz spoke about the upcoming season and how the main plot running through the season will be Chuck’s (Zachary Levi) search for his mother.

If you ever get a chance to come to SDCC, I highly recommend checking out the Chuck panel, as it’s always a good time. This year’s panel opened with the Hamilton announcement and then cut into a performance by series band Jeffster dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. Then the cast was introduced and discussed the upcoming season as well as their yearly “Thank You” to the fans. If you’re a fan of the show, you always feel very appreciated after seeing one of their panels, and you can tell that this is a show with a very passionate fan base.

Positive emotions were high among attendees at Sunday’s WonderCon 2010 Chuck panel featuring Zachary Levi, Josh Gomez, and Adam Baldwin, along with show creator/producers Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz. This was no doubt caused by the Con’s surprise screening of the latest episode a day earlier than its regular prime time air date.

That episode, “Chuck vs. The Other Guy” was originally written as the show’s Season 3 finale, but after the network ordered more than its initial 13-episode run, the team had an option to amend it for the new finale but decided against it after reading the script.

“Essentially we had designed the whole season to get to that point… Chuck and Sarah in Paris,” Fedak said.

“It actually works out great for fans because you get what was designed to be a season finale in the middle of the season and then it’s on us to ramp it back up again, Schwartz said. “So you get twice as much excitement. It’s a win-win.”

The 2-hour Chuck Season 3 premiere last night did astoundingly well for NBC — bringing in preliminary numbers of 7.7 million viewers, according to reports confirmed by show creator Josh Schwartz.

These numbers don’t actually include TiVo viewers since (if I’m not mistaken) those are delayed about a week. And of course the numbers on Hulu are notable, but I’m not sure how they factor into the prime time decision making. The point is, Chuck put eyeballs on the screen that the show hasn’t done since the first season.

“Thank you for all you have done to help get us to this moment. This season is for you!” said Schwartz on his Twitter feed moments before the episode hit the air.

From what I can tell, everyone involved seems willing to go the distance to make this show stick around. First, it was stars Zachary Levi and Adam Baldwin making sandwiches for hardcore fans. This push apparently worked as Subway agreed to some nontraditional advertising that got the show a third season. [Read: NBC’s Chuck Saved By Sandwiches, Not Fans] Then, just months ago NBC announced it was ordering an additional six episodes — bringing the total to 19.

Chuck: The Complete First Season
Blu-ray edition
Starring Zachary Levi, Adam Baldwin, Yvonne Strahovski
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Release Date: November 11, 2008

Chuck is the classic Boy meets Girl, Boy falls for Girl, Girl turns out to be a secret agent who is coveting the super government computer stuck in Boy’s head type of story. Interested yet?

Co-created by Josh Schwartz, a former executive producer of the show The OC, the story follows the life of one Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi), a computer technician for the large electronic retailer Buy More. On Chuck’s birthday, he receives an e-mail from an old college friend, Bryce, that uploaded million seemingly random pictures into his brain. Turns out Bryce is a government agent on the run and the pictures in question are actually encoded with highly classified government secrets. Along with a drop dead gorgeous CIA agent (Yvonne Strahovski) and a NSA killing machine (Adam Baldwin) by his side, Chuck is thrusted into the life of a secret agent,whether he likes it or not.

A while back, it was reported that Gossip Girl writer Josh Schwartz would be writing a Young X-Men movie for Fox being called X-Men: First Class.

It’s also now being reported that Schwartz — who I repeat, is a writer on Gossip Girl — turned down the offer to direct the movie.

Now, I don’t know this guy and he may be some untapped genius director/writer, but it was scary enough thinking that the dude who writes Gossip Girl was writing an X-Men movie… so am I the only one really scared that they actually tried to get him to direct!?

What happens now? From Brett Ratner to the guy who writes Gossip Girl to _______? Are they intentionally moving down the ladder or do they know something that we do not know?