Chuck Versus The Sandworm - References To Popular Culture

References To Popular Culture

• When Chuck cuts the wire on the Herder's self-destruct, the timer stops at 7 seconds. This echoes the scene in Goldfinger when Bond disarms a bomb set to explode inside Fort Knox, which also stops at 7 seconds. However the Herder's timer has an extra digit, making the time read 00:07 rather than 0:07 (Double-Oh 7). The film Goldfinger was discussed on several occasions leading up to this scene.
• The end credits of A View to a Kill featured in this episode are not the real end credits to the film. Instead of footage of the Golden Gate Bridge and Duran Duran's title song playing as the credits roll, a black screen with standard rolling credits accompanied by generic spy music is featured.
• The end scene when Chuck runs back home in slow-motion while Finlay Quaye's song "Dice" plays, is a copy of the end sequence from The O.C. episode "The Countdown." The O.C. was the debut series of Chuck producer Josh Schwartz.
• Greg Baine is credited as Special Agent Ben Katz. Benjamin Katz is the titular character of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.
• After Sarah gives Chuck a photo of them together at Comic-Con, Chuck mentions that they never actually went to Comic-Con together. However Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski actually attended San Diego Comic Con International in July 2007 as part of the promotion for the show.
• When Laszlo reveals the Home Theater room can access Air Force command channels, he asks Chuck "How about a game of Thermonuclear War?" The film WarGames centered on a computer system that mistook a game for a real order to launch its missiles. The name of the "game," actually a military simulation, was Global Thermonuclear War.
• The game Morgan is playing at the pier is called Guitar Shredder, a reference to the Guitar Hero series of games.
• Chuck and Morgan's Halloween costume is a sandworm from Frank Herbert's Dune franchise, and several posters for the 1984 film adaptation of the 1965 novel Dune can be seen throughout the episode.
• Harry Tang's middle name, Tiberius, is the same as Star Trek's James T. Kirk.
• The music played in Chuck's room when Sarah gives him the picture is "The Weight of the World" by the Editors, from the album An End has a Start not Arcade Fire as Chuck decides Sarah is "not really ready" for Arcade Fire.
• When Beckman briefs the team on Laszlo, Casey remarks, "What, is he gonna hurt me with his mind?" In the eleventh episode of the science fiction series Firefly (episode name "Trash"), River Tam tells Jayne (played by Adam Baldwin) "Also, I can kill you with my brain."