A couple of things made my heart leap with joy recently. First, it was Rufus Sewell’s first official photo from his upcoming BBC show Aurelio Zen and second, NBC finally released a photo of Timothy Dalton in Chuck! Both of whom are the only reason I’m interested in seeing The Tourist, alas both are disappointingly absent from its trailer!!

I’ve blogged about the detective series here, Aurelio Zen is a fictional Italian detective created by Irish crime-writer Michael Dibdin. Per its Wikipedia page, here’s a description of his character: …in his late forties and already somewhat jaded when we first meet him, he has had a longish career in the State Police and is relatively senior. Unafraid to employ radical and even decidedly underhand methods when he feels them appropriate, Zen struggles to manage the competing demands of his aged mother, his girlfriend and his job, sometimes accepting an assignment simply to escape from domestic pressures. Heart mostly in the right place, he does his best to make sense of whatever confronts him.

There are glimpses of the dashing Brit interspersed in this BBC promo video below. The lucky lady in the sexy elevator scene may look familiar to some of you. She’s the other Bond girl before Daniel Craig met Eva Green in Casino Royale, Italian actress Caterina Murino.

I find myself watching this promo vid over and over again (not just the Rufus part, mind you) as it’s so well-done and the music is just wonderful. Looks like a pretty impressive Autumn/Winter lineup there, I definitely will try to catch some of those other BBC shows when they’re out on Netflix.

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Now, you’ve probably already known I’m excited for Dalton joining Chuck, well, thanks to EW Ausiello Files Blog, we finally got a first look of him on the upcoming show!

Here are the details from that site:

Chuck boss Josh Schwartz wants to make one thing very clear about Timothy Dalton’s upcoming arc on the show: He’s not playing James Bond. Far from it, in fact. “It’s not the kind of character you’d [expect] him to play,” Schwartz teases of the actor, who premieres in the Nov. 1 episode. “There’s nothing suave or debonair about him.” Dalton’s alter ego shares a past with Chuck’s mom (Linda Hamilton), but Schwartz is reluctant to reveal the nature of their connection. “We want it to be a surprise,” he says.

Dalton is on board for a handful of episodes—a run that could be extended should NBC greenlight additional episodes of Chuck beyond the initial order of 13. Is Schwartz optimistic his underdog spy comedy will carry on? “NBC is really happy with it creatively,” he says. “This is Chuck. We never say die.”

Man, November can’t come soon enough! Anybody else out there besides me excited for either one of these shows?