But those of us who did love the story of nerdy big box electronics store computer geek turned CIA superspy Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi), loved it fervently and unconditionally. So much so that when it looked like the show would be canceled after its second season, the fans launched a successful “save our show’’ campaign targeted at sponsor Subway.
The show’s writers and producers, led by co-creators Josh Schwartz (“The O.C.,’’ “Gossip Girl’’) and Chris Fedak, consistently rewarded that loyalty with a series that impressively walked a tonal tightrope between emotional drama, fast-paced action, and laugh-out-loud humor, rarely tipping into the maudlin or the pitch black, and only occasionally getting too shticky.
Schwartz and Fedak’s first stroke of luck was casting Levi in the title role. A self-confessed geek, Levi played Chuck’s growth from bumbling, neurotic, socially awkward IT genius to slightly less bumbling, neurotic, socially awkward covert operative with a pitch-perfect sense of angst and fake-it-till-you-make-it bravado.
Even as he was enticed by the life of a spy - which he was able to enter thanks to a supercomputer accidentally embedded in his brain - Chuck wrestled with the idea of home and family throughout the series. The creators grounded him in a world that he, and thus the viewers, could care about, and root for him to return to safety from his missions.
There was his actual family of sister Ellie (the luminous Sarah Lancaster) and brother-in-law Devon, a.k.a. “Captain Awesome’’ (the hunky and hilarious Ryan McPartlin). There was his “work’’ family, including misfit colleagues in the “Nerd Herd’’ at the Buy More, best bud Morgan (the irresistibly puppy dog eager Joshua Gomez) and the outlandishly lascivious, sometimes creepy, yet somehow likable Jeff (Scott Krinsky) and Lester (Vik Sahay). And then there was his family of necessity, spy handler-turned-wife Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) and relentless cranky, monosyllabic agent Casey (Adam Baldwin).
