Does Daniel Shaw Deserve a Fresh Start?

Over on our sister site, NiceGirlsTV.com, we running a poll to see who deserves a fresh start in 2012. It’s our way of celebrating the new year and we know how much you love a good poll!

As Mel and I were mulling over some of our favorite characters in television, it seemed to us that many of the bad guys from some of our favorite shows just got a bad rap. If things could have been handled better or at least differently, perhaps these characters would have stood a better chance at being more like-able. Perhaps if Daniel Shaw could have received the proper therapy after his wife’s death, he may not have gone psycho.

There are other characters that are included in this poll, so why not go on over and throw in your vote!

POLL: Who Deserves a Fresh Start?

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Cay's family thinks that her obsession with pop culture is "not normal". Yeah, well, normal is boring!

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14 comments

  1. Personally, I enjoy Daniel Shaw they way he is. Awesome bad guy. So glad they didn’t pull off a ‘volkoff’ with him.

    • I Sooo agree. Excellent villian. Some people just can’t let go, and Dan’s character was written to be one of them.

  2. There’s no redemption for Shaw.

    Or guess I should say… the character was redeemed when he turned bad. Before that he was the lamest character on Chuck, and made the first half of Season 3 near unwatchable.

    Combine the character of Shaw with the mistakes made in “Pink Slip” and you have the reason why I almost stopped watching the show back then… things didn’t get better until “The Other Guy”.

    All my opinion, of course, though from what I’ve seen many share my views on early S3.

    • I could not have said it better myself. All through the beginning of third season I kept asking myself, “Why is Sarah with a guy like this?” From her character developement I thought she would be over spys like Shaw. I think Chris F. reasoning was that Sarah was so hurt by Chuck’s rejection that she went for a guy or type of spy she used to date. Notice though in the “American Hero” when Chuck put it on the line that he wanted to be with her, it was no contest, she went for Chuck even before she knew about Eve.

  3. I pretty much echo the thoughts of others here, Daniel Shaw became a better character when he flipped out on the CIA over the murder of his wife on their orders. Going after Chuck, Sarah and everyone else was just icing on the cake. I could understand that, I could respect that and in a way enjoyed his vendetta against those he held responsible. All of a sudden… the character now “worked” for me.

    Nope, no fresh start for Daniel Shaw. He just got interesting.

  4. I enjoyed him as the uber professional spy during the first half of season 3; to me he was very sexy and cool, and I enjoyed his relationship and scenes with Sarah. LOVED it when he threw ‘Sam’ to her face in VS the Subway and when he kissed her in VS the Santa Suit, great payoff for this fan!! 😀 So yes, he became an even more interesting character when he turned bad. They say villains have the most fan, and I agree with that!

  5. If Anyone deserves a fresh start it’s Dr. Jill Roberts! Alexei Volkoff Got A Fresh Start and He was evil as they get! He got his old identity back. Hartly Winterbottom!

    • i agree with you bob. Jill deserves a 2nd chance. Shaw decided to take revenge instead of forgiving Sarah for something she has no control over.
      Shaw has completely turned to the dark side. (brandon Routh is a great villain)

  6. You know, people would have been more into Shaw as a character if the showrunners had explained what they were doing with Season 3: Creating a brand new iteration of the Chuck show. The intiial Chuck we all loved ENDED, definitively, with Chuck vs. the Colonel. A whole new dynamic (Chuck as the willing spy, Sarah as a declared, but spurned, love interest for Chuck) began with Season 3. In THAT context, a spuned Sarah turning to Shaw makes TOTAL sense.

    But since the showrunners didn’t tell us what they were doing at the time and we had to figure this all out LATER, the venom was turned on Shaw. Which is too bad because Chuck winning Sarah back after spurning her in Pink Slip would have been so much more dramatic if we understood that Sarah had been so badly hurt. We were so busy hating Shaw, we didn’t see what had actually happened.

    Of course, if things were diffferent (i.e. Bomer being availabe to reprise Bryce rather than getting White Collar), there wouldn’t have been a Shaw character at all. And wouldn’t Season 3 be interesting had Bryce been the character Sarah turned to when Chuck dumped her in Prague?

  7. I consider the first part of season 3 unwatchable (personal taste) and will never watch it on my dvd’s–Shaw killed Chuck’s Dad in cold blood and tried to kill Sarah and Chuck (Sarah did not have her body paint on to protect her)–all Shaw deserves is a needle in the arm and a furnace to get rid of the body.(or a hog lot)

  8. I hope you are all voting because so far, Shaw is running away with this poll. 😀

  9. East Coast Captain

    I would have said yes but he killed Orion that´s unforgivable right there. He´s too far gone to be reedemed that´s where Jill and Shaw draw the line, Jill apparently got her second chance, Shaw was too far gone and concerned with revenge and that was his downfall.