Save One Show: We Have a Winner!

Talk about a smackdown! (Or whatever the cool kids are calling it these days...Beatdown? Throwdown? Kerfluffle?)

The final results are in for E! Online's 2010 Save One Show—the campaign that lets you fans pick the TV series you want to save from possible cancellation—and the winning series triumphed by such a landslide, with more than 50 percent of the total votes, that the show's boss joked to me: "I've been sneaking in and hacking in to the E! computers!"

He kids, people.

So who's the big winner?

Drumroll, please…

"We are so thankful that our fans voted for Chuck in such a huge way," Chuck bosses Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak tell us today of their SOS win. "Though we are also a little frightened of their ability to control the Internet. Our fear aside, we are honored to have the greatest fans in the history of television."

(All "hacking" jokes from Josh aside, we can tell you we have technology firmly in place that prevents robo-voting and hacking…Even by "Intersect"-savvy fans.)

After starting off Save One Show with 20 contenders (all network series that have not yet received a pickup for the 2010-11 season), you fans narrowed the list down to six finalists. Nearly a million votes came in, and here are the final results:

1. Chuck 52%
2. One Tree Hill 20%
3. Life Unexpected 11%
4. Heroes 8%
5. Better Off Ted 5%
6. Parenthood 4%

The Save One Show battle also raged on Twitter, where thousands of you tweeted #SOS with the name of your favorite show. The series with the most tweets was yet another NBC series, which gets this honorable mention for having the most Twitterific fans: Heroes. Here is the breakdown of number of mentions on Twitter:

1. Heroes 36%
2. One Tree Hill 32%
3. Chuck 28%
4. Life Unexpected 2%
5. Parenthood 1%
6. Better Off Ted 1%

It deserves mentioning that the CW's One Tree Hill scored the runner-up spot in both races—not too shabby! The CW's Life Unexpected and NBC's Parenthood clearly already have much fan love even though they're brand-spanking new. And ABC's Better Off Ted should continue because "funny things should be allowed to go on living…that's how evolution works," according to show runner Victor Fresco. Our secret prayer? That all of these fan-favorite series make it to another season. But again, this campaign is all about championing one show.

So now that you fans have spoken, we are happy to hold up our end of the bargain. Tonight on E! News, Chuck will be crowned our Save One Show winner, and we're taking your message directly to the NBC execs (we're coming to you, Jeff Zucker) to make sure they know you fans want Chuck to stick around--and your passionate and active involvement makes the show that much more worth saving. The good news? Zachary Levi himself tells us he's feeling "optimistic" about another season, and as you can see from this video below, he is loving you fans for rallying. [Spoiler warning: Do not watch the video if you haven't watched last Monday's mind-blowingly good episode of Chuck! 'Cause Zach talks about what's next.]

If you're curious about the baby reference Zach makes in the video above, then you've missed out on yet another very good reason to love this show: The stars themselves care just as much as we do. After Zach joked that he would have Josh Gomez's (Morgan) baby if  they made it to round two of Save One Show, E! News made him stick to his word by donning a baby bump, alongside Josh (wearing a "Hot Papa" T-shirt) while appearing at WonderCon among the fans. And yes, Zach and Josh did it, and as you who watch E! News know, it was awesome. You gotta love actors who aren't above getting down and dirty with their costar fans!

This kind of charisma and likability—which goes for the rest of the Chuck cast—is just one of the reasons this action-comedy deserves to survive. It's funny, it's always a good time, and it has a lot of heart. And hello…where else can we get Jeffster?!