Chuck

What’s the Story?

A secret agent breaks into a top-secret government facility to steal an enormous trove of data gathered by all of the U.S. intelligence agencies, but is shot making his getaway. As his dying act, the spy emails the entire file to an old friend, now a tech-support worker at an electronics store. When Chuck (Zachary Levi) opens the message, every seemingly unrelated scrap of data about global espionage is subliminally implanted into his brain. The CIA and the NSA track the email to him, but they can't decide whether to take advantage of his newfound knowledge or try to scrub his mind clean. But as he slowly starts to connect the dots, Chuck's ability to spot dangerous plots as they unfold makes him an invaluable asset, and they recruit him to join the war on terror.

Is It Any Good?

Believable? Absolutely not. Fun? Most definitely. CHUCK is a completely improbable but highly entertaining romp through two worlds that rarely meet in the media: secret agents and high-tech nerds. And there's good reason to keep the worlds separate. Chuck's biggest concerns are playing video games and finding a date, preferably with his new CIA handler, Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski). But Sarah has other things on her mind, including protecting the world and mourning her late boyfriend, the same spy who emailed the secret data to Chuck in the first place.

It's the contradictions between these agendas that make the show fun, as Chuck pursues his extracurricular activities while maintaining his cover as a tech-support nerd. His geek skills also prove useful in his new job, such as when he intentionally accesses a virus-infected porn Web site to disable a laptop that is controlling a ticking time bomb. Though Chuck's spy life is obviously a farce, the interactions between Chuck and his tech-support pals ring true and are often quite funny, especially his relationship with best friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez), who is, if anything, a bigger nerd than Chuck.