Chapel Hill native Phil Klemmer Jr., a writer and co-executive producer for NBC's excellent spy dramedy "Chuck," has left the show to work on one of NBC's new fall offerings, "The Undercovers."

Klemmer has worked on "Chuck" since the show launched in 2007, and before that, was a writer for the brilliant-but-cancelled CW cult hit, "Veronica Mars." (Read our Q&A with Klemmer from last year).

Klemmer told us he took the job with "Undercovers" because he was uncertain about "Chuck" getting picked up for a fourth season. Even though it's one of the most creative and most entertaining shows on television, NBC usually makes "Chuck" (and its Subway sandwich-eating fans) grovel at the end of each season to get picked up, so work with the show is never a guarantee. NBC didn't announce until a little over a week ago that "Chuck" was coming back, and they promised the show 13 episodes for Season 4.

By the end of last season's outstanding "Chuck" finale, our favorite nerdy-hot sorta-spy Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) had learned that his own father was the elusive Intersect creator Orion, survived an amazing "Mr. Roboto" shoot-out sequence at his sister Ellie's botched wedding, won over his dream girl Sarah, and acquired an Intersect upgrade that turned him into a dynamic Kung Fu master.

All this with the threat of cancellation hanging over his head.

Lucky for us, NBC showed some rare good judgment and gave the show a much deserved third season. Tonight we can see if Chuck's jaw-dropping Intersect upgrade will convert him from the timid -- no, I'll say it -- cowardly government pawn we all knew and loved, into a supremely capable super spy.

Happiness was thrilled to get a chance recently to quiz Chapel Hill native Phil Klemmer, Jr. on his NBC hit show CHUCK. Klemmer is a supervising producer on CHUCK , and was also a writer for The CW's brilliant-but-cancelled VERONICA MARS. Here's the unabridged version of our Q&A:

Q. What exactly is the path from Chapel Hill to Hollywood?

A. I actually moved from CH when I was in Kindergarten and grew up in Virginia. My parents moved back to NC once I was out of the house, so I was deprived of many years there. I went to college in Northern California and moved down to L.A. with the notion of getting a job in Hollywood because that's what my roommate (who wrote IRON MAN last year... sorry, it's L.A and I'm obliged to name drop) was planning on doing. He took a job as a production assistant on TITANTIC and I took the internship job at Propaganda Films that was offered to him because I was too lazy to find an internship of my own. . . .