It’s being reported by various sources that Chuck has cheated death (read: cancellation) once again. NBC has nearly closed a deal that will bring Chuck Bartowski and friends back for a fifth season. TV Line reports that the peacock network is making a deal with Warner Bros for at least 13 episodes.

Of course, cheating death is nothing new for the TV series. It’s been on the bubble each season and has narrowly escaped being cancelled each time. Fortunately for Chuck fans, the rest of NBC’s schedule has been such a disaster that Chuck’s numbers end up not looking so bad. Had the series been on one of the other three major networks, it would have surely been cancelled long ago.

This season, Chuck’s ratings have been the worst yet. The last two episodes have registered a meager 1.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 4.1 million total viewers. The season average is only a 1.7 rating and 5.19 million. Aside from Chase, whose remaining episodes are being burned off on Saturday nights, Chuck is the lowest-rated scripted program currently on the network.

With four seasons and 78 episodes already in the can, it seems very likely that Warner Bros. worked out a deal with NBC for a final season so there would be enough episodes for a syndication package. A sixth season seems highly unlikely but who would have guessed that Chuck would have gone this long?

Bookmark our NBC cancel/renew page to keep track of the status of the current NBC shows.

What do you think? Are you glad to hear that Chuck is being renewed? Do you think this will be the end?

Image courtesy NBC.