Charles "Chuck" Bartowski

Chuck Bartowski works the Nerd Herd desk at Buy More, having dropped out of Stanford under a cloud years back and never quite relaunched himself since. He's likable, a little stuck, devoted to his sister and best friend, and utterly unprepared for the government secrets that suddenly download into his brain and upend his ordinary life.

Zachary Levi makes underachievement charming rather than pathetic, so when Chuck is thrust into spy work the joke and the thrill both land: an actual nice guy, out of his depth, trying to do right by everyone around him. The show trusts his decency instead of hardening him, and Levi plays that sincerity without ever making it corny.