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'The Big Bang Theory' Is Finally Ending (theguardian.com)
"The Big Bang Theory is dead. If you need me, I'll be dancing on its grave," writes a TV columnist for the Guardian:
The inexplicably popular geek sitcom has announced that its 12th season will be its last. Its demise should come as a relief to everybody... Producers have promised an "epic creative close" when the series ends in May. After that, The Big Bang Theory will be dead, and nobody will be sad. Except, of course, they will. Because, inexplicably, The Big Bang Theory is still one of the most-watched shows on U.S. television. It regularly gets more than 15 million viewers an episode, and, statistically, not all of them can be incapacitated to the point of being unable to change channels whenever it comes on.
Nothing confuses me more than The Big Bang Theory's success. It has always been markedly less smart than it thought it was; the TV version of someone wearing a "GEEK" T-shirt because they liked a Facebook post about the moon once.... Watch any recent episode of The Big Bang Theory and you'll see that it is barely even a sitcom at this point. It has been going on for so long that the writing, presentation and performances are more or less autonomous. Everyone is just glumly going through the motions, stuck in the tracks they've carved out for themselves over the years. It's like watching a museum exhibit of a sitcom made with mannequins and miserable circus bears.
The actor who plays Sheldon will be 46 when the show ends, the columnist points out, adding that for 12 years he's been playing "a weirdly ageless man-boy trapped in a developmentally arrested closed-loop flatshare scenario more suited to somebody half his age." The Guardian titled their piece "Our Long Nightmare is Finally Over" -- but leave your own thoughts in the comments.
How do you feel about the ending of The Big Bang Theory?
Update from msmash: Two suggested readings, one from The Guardian itself, Critics be damned -- here's why The Big Bang Theory is an unstoppable force with fans, and this four-year-old article from Vulture, Why Are 23.4 Million People Watching The Big Bang Theory?
Nothing confuses me more than The Big Bang Theory's success. It has always been markedly less smart than it thought it was; the TV version of someone wearing a "GEEK" T-shirt because they liked a Facebook post about the moon once.... Watch any recent episode of The Big Bang Theory and you'll see that it is barely even a sitcom at this point. It has been going on for so long that the writing, presentation and performances are more or less autonomous. Everyone is just glumly going through the motions, stuck in the tracks they've carved out for themselves over the years. It's like watching a museum exhibit of a sitcom made with mannequins and miserable circus bears.
The actor who plays Sheldon will be 46 when the show ends, the columnist points out, adding that for 12 years he's been playing "a weirdly ageless man-boy trapped in a developmentally arrested closed-loop flatshare scenario more suited to somebody half his age." The Guardian titled their piece "Our Long Nightmare is Finally Over" -- but leave your own thoughts in the comments.
How do you feel about the ending of The Big Bang Theory?
Update from msmash: Two suggested readings, one from The Guardian itself, Critics be damned -- here's why The Big Bang Theory is an unstoppable force with fans, and this four-year-old article from Vulture, Why Are 23.4 Million People Watching The Big Bang Theory?
EOM
That show was never laughing *WITH* us. It was laughing *AT* us.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I enjoyed the first two seasons, thought the third was already too much, and dropped out after a couple of episodes of the fourth. I found that as they piled more and more geek stereotypes onto the same four characters it eventually broke my suspension of disbelief.
Or the caricatures of geeks presented by the sitcom do not resonate with actual geeks because they are fake.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Laughing at yourself is great when one of your own is doing the joking, not when some smug outsider asshole is making fun of you. One is fun self-reflection. The other is just being a dick.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How do you feel about the ending of The Big Bang Theory?
I may have seen half an episode once.
-Indifferent.
It was as if the writers of that show got all their understanding of nerds from watching shitty 80's movies.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
My father, Once a head research chemist with too many patents to count, thought that show was amazing and watched every episode he could see!
I on the other hand have hated that show from the first episode I watched with him. I never watch another. Good bye, good riddance, thank GOD its FINALLY OVER!
I liked this show for the first few seasons. Then it turned into Friends...and I didn't like it so much.
The Big Bang Theory took a nosedive in quality around season 5, and has been gliding in for a landing ever since. The cast did not seem to have their hearts in the characters they portrayed, and the Sheldon character has become most annoying. The show should have ended four seasons or so ago...
"Que"? That's not a word.
From the article: How do you feel about the ending of The Big Bang Theory?
Sad.
Say whatever else you want about the show, it showed an oddball coolness to geekdom.
Howard gets jerked off by a robot arm... and gets stuck. This would be lame lonely geek turf, but who owned that arm? NASA.
Raj can't talk to women until he's drunk... hmmm... maybe why that's my workplace sells several million dollars of beer every year.
Penny is the struggling waitress wanna-be actress turned pharmaceutical rep - sales is sales, and sometimes you just have to move onto what you're good at.
Sheldon makes semi-functional Aspergers cool in its own infuriating way.
And Leonard somehow is the leader (despite the Roommate Agreement) and keeps the place from falling apart.
Chuck Lorre is a genius.
I suspect that geeks generally lack the part of the brain that allows them to laugh at themselves. Kinda like reptiles lack that area of the brain that would allow them to experience emotional attachment.
And that's precisely the problem, and what made Chuck Lorre's show such a hit for so many years.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I never got this show. At the urging of co-workers i made it through about 2.5 random episodes and just could not get into it. All the characters felt whiney and neurotic but not in a funny way (or even in a way I sympathize with) as I've seen other shows pull off, just pathetic and incredibly stupid. Really, I didn't find a single character likeable and the show didn't seem to be structured for "fun to hate".
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
I used to like it, partly because it didn't take itself seriously - the characters were caricatures, but I could see aspects of myself and geek friends in the caricatures and laugh at them. Somewhere around season 5 all the characters started getting girlfriends and having semi-normal relationships and it wasn't funny anymore.
s/great/easier/
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
Queue or Cue, not Que.
(Hint: you wanted "Cue").
When people learn that I have a degree in Physics, they almost instantly assume that I am a fan of The Big Bang Theory". Alas, it is painful to watch, it never was very written, and the obviously fake laugh track makes me cringe.
Yes, I tried to get into it, but even early on, it was, well, awful. As in unwatchable for me. I am surprised (or perhaps I should be surprised) that it lasted as long as it has.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
Its obvious theres a LOT of people who like it, I, being one of them.. If it wasn't so well-liked it wouldn't have lasted 12 years, I, for one, will be sad to see it go...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
My 85 year old father watches it.
I can't explain it, it's incongruous with the rest of him. Naval Aviator, two tours in Vietnam, combat veteran, farm boy, born in Iowa to an illiterate Kentucky bootlegger on the run from the Feds in the middle of the Great Depression. I know everyone says this about their dad, but he's the toughest, hardest MF'er I've ever met- still works three days a week for the biomed company he formed in Mountain View in the 70s.
And he never misses a freaking episode. I don't understand anything anymore.
It stopped being about celebrating geek quirks long ago. Now it's just a mixture of pity, condescension, ridicule and insults. Oh, and a heaping helping of "who pairs up with whom". That seems to be the end phase of every American sitcom. The actors don't even manage to stay in character anymore.
Considering each cast member makes a million per episode, and it already has made a billion plus in syndication is a good reason to end it. They have plenty of seasons to sell for the syndication gold mine and not have to pay the current huge cast member salaries. Makes perfect sense, and the series has basically run out of ideals.
How fitting: The first on topic comment insults geeks.
Need more proof?
-- inexplicably, The Big Bang Theory is still one of the most-watched shows.
Ive always enoyed the show and felt the multiple levels of jokes was cool as it can reach all audiences.
Haters will hate, keep in mind its a sitcom not for everyone
I suspect that geeks generally lack the part of the brain that allows them to laugh at themselves. Kinda like reptiles lack that area of the brain that would allow them to experience emotional attachment.
Elementary school probably wasn't fun for most of us who wear the geek label with pride.
We grew up having to be defensive. Defensive of our interests, our property, our lunch money.
Why would I learn emotional attachment when I'm being called a freak by people who are more interested in kicking a ball around than doing something intelligent like reading a book?
I'm a nerd. I'm a four-eyes. I'm smarter than you, I'm tougher than you, and I'm proud to be who I am.
But what we experienced on the playground must never be forgotten. It has, I believe, damaged the social skills of a lot of us.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
stale laughtrack plays
The show was moderately amusing for a season, then the "socially awkward nerd," "dumb hot chick," and "racist stereotype" jokes got really repetitive.
laughtrack repeats
Sheldon enters room
"I just realized I'm an autistic savant, so fuck you!"
laughtrack
Penny and Howard enter room
"Hey, Sheldon's being autistic again, LOOK AT MY BOOBS!"
laughtrack plays for 30 seconds
Cut to commercial
Show resumes, laughtrack cycles
Penny's Jock stereotype ex fuck toy enters
Laughtrack plays
"You guys are nerds"
laughtrack, commercial break, credits roll
No. This show was designed for others to laugh at them, not for them to laugh at themselves. This is why it is so popular. Far be it for me to agree with the guardian on anything, but they're right. It's not smart. It was actually stupid from the get-go.
It's a Roseanne reboot with "geeks" who have minimal likeability. The jokes suck. The lines suck. The plot sucks. Every now and then a clever gem appears and is stomped on until it smashes. You decide if this is worthy...
The rest of the world thinks you're a FUCKING MORON if you like retarded shit like that though.
I am a pretty scientific geek with a Ph. D. in chemistry, a chemistry professor at a major university and took a look at the show early on. I was hoping that maybe the show would present some real science or computer literacy and enhance viewers' understanding and appreciation for these subjects. My guess is the show did just the opposite. How many geeks have white boards with arcane equations posted in their apartments or home living rooms? I didn't see anyone writing or explaining the math or science behind this material. Maybe things changed later on.
I won't miss the show because I didn't watch it after my initial short viewing introduction.
Bernadette becomes morbidly obese and bedridden like her deceased mother-in-law, screaming cringingly embarrassing things at an elderly Howard.
Sheldon finally wins a Nobel Prize for his work in string theory.
Rajesh is the first person in California to legally marry his dog.
Leonard uses a complex setup of lasers, high temperature superconductors, and Bose-Einstein condensates to commit suicide after Penny runs off with a hunky doctor she met at work.
Ah Chuck Lorrie, you've done it again!
As a geek and a nerd, I love that show. It always makes me laugh.
So, yeah, I'm sad that's it's ending. I think the use of the term "is finally ending" is harsh. Makes be dislike the Guardian's writer. If he didn't like the site, he didn't have to watch it. But lots of us love the show.
Now can we also kill off the fucking spin-off too?
Just die already.
It was even hard for the laugh track to laugh. Btw, have you ever seen an episode with the laugh track removed, like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKS3MGriZcs
There's a leaked pilot for BBT floating out there. The setup was somehow way better relationship wise and not as much a caricature as the final product.
The actual series had up until season 4 or so a few things going for classic nerddoms: you could spot cool stuff in their cupboards (an idea taken from the IT Guys), the running gag often was nerdy (sheldon not getting over the girl beating him at halo) and such. Also, they had regular visits from different nerddoms (Summer Glau, Geaorge Black, that star trek kid and so on). This took more and more a backseat to relationship-soap opera stuff which made me quit.
Silicon Valley might not be very precise with its technical details, but it feels way more nerd-relateable than BBT to me.
Que pasa?
Problem is, geeks would be incapable of making a comedy about themselves. They'd be so wrapped up in minor technical points in the script that they'd never get any filming done.
Now, a sitcom about geeks trying to make a sitcom -- that could be funny.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Hell man, the guy is barely old enough to get out of High School and be drafted for the still on-going Conflict in Korea. So I guess he can meet Hawkeye, Dylan, and be rewarded with a trip to Cypress Gardens for his baking soda volcano not opening a pit to the Hellmouth.
I tried to watch the show several times but couldn't last beyond what had to be the worst automated laugh track on TV.
Give me a show like The Middle, with clever, often hilarious scenarios and writing, and not a single laugh track, ever.
There were some actually funny scenes in it, but overall I just felt it was a programme about OCD and autistic spectrum disorder.
My impression is that the show depicts what dumb people think smart people are like (a cliche, I know. But it seems to fit). And it makes the audience of "ordinary" people feel good about themselves by showing that smart people are worse than them in most of the ways that are important.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I suspect you are totally wrong. I know plenty of geeks that have a perfectly fine sense of humor, about themselves or anything else.
You could probably find lawyers that don't find jokes about lawyers funny. Similarly for doctors, philosophers, anyone else.
Geeks are many and varied, just like lesser technically skilled people.
I liked this show for the first few seasons. Then it turned into Friends...and I didn't like it so much.
I was also trying to identify why I liked the first few seasons so much, then drifted away, only to occasionally tune in when interesting or notable guests appeared.
Saying it became like "Friends" (or other long-running sitcom) is really saying it found it's formula, then stuck with it. Which isn't a bad thing if you can be entertained by repeated visits to a well-defined thematic box. In essence, the show became it's own trope.
I think that's why I've come to like series with relatively short and well-defined arcs, from the 3-6 episode mini-series, to the 1-3 year series. Beyond 3 years seems to be where my interest fades: Even Amazon's "The Americans" had some weaker seasons during its recently concluded 5-year run.
For a 12-year run, I think I'd prefer to see four separate 3-year projects that connect together.
The jokes have become boring and sadly stale. Theyve made being a geek cliche and stereotyped. :-/
Or the ability to tell the difference between "Cue" and "Que"(sic). Sheesh!!
Not to mention the fact that there are no geeks in the big bang. Only poorly done sterotype.
Really, the Simpsons is more geeky. At least it has some real maths and math/science jokes in it from time to time.
Impersonating me again I see: Poor imitation & yet sincerest form of flattery proving you WISH you were ME but an offtopic "ne'er-do-well" in yourself can NEVER ever be since you waste your time producing the outcome of your WASTED LIFE we all see now from you.
APK
P.S.=> Grow up, get on topic & be normal... ok? Thanks... apk
For me it was OK even when Penny and Leonard got married, but as soon as EVERYONE started having stable relationships and getting married? No. I think you nailed it - it turned in to something like Friends, I never could watch that show. I missed last season and most of the previous as we cancelled our DirecTV and lost access to CBS, and I really didn't miss it, which is sad as one of the astronomy programs that my wife runs was the inspiration for the lunar laser experiment early in the show's run.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
I can't remember anything about it, other than the set seemed to be an unusually large living room.
I suspect that you are taking this idiots claim that he is a geek seriously despite him explicitly proving he does not qualify as one by writing such a ridiculously off base and incompetent review, then falsely assuming he speaks for us real ones. Real geeks at least like TBBT even if they don't love it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Found the journalist.
> How do you feel about the ending of The Big Bang Theory? Silicon Valley is funny, well written, accurate, and well acted. Big Bang Theory was none of those things.
I'm a 2000 man.
Funny because I always thought geeks are very good at laughing at themselves. We just don't usually appreciate twerps like you stereotyping us or making jokes because you always get it wrong. Get it right and we might think you're funny, but with that attitude I doubt you're capable.
Which is kind of the problem with The Big Bang Theory. Awesome concept, memorable characters. Ok, Sheldon has pretty much every negative geek trait all in one person and that's pretty much unheard of, but it's TV.
I had to stop watching new episodes a while back though. With any show that starts out about singles, once you get multiple characters in relationships it just ceases being funny. If you don't get them into relationships then it just seems like it goes on too long.
Maybe now people will stop telling me “you HAVE to watch this!”
A couple years ago we had a higher-up at work who based what she thought of IT people on what she’d seen in Big Bang Theory and Silicon Valley. But, based on that second-hand experience, the shows seemed to be mostly based on tired geek stereotypes than anything else. I have known IT folks who do fit those stereotypes to a “T”... but they’ve been the exception rather than the rule.
If you’re someone who liked Big Bang - sorry your show ended. Different strokes for different folks.
#DeleteChrome
You clearly have a serious case of Dunning Krugers
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
It's a shitty sitcom. Yes, that is redundant.
You either like it or you don't. I don't so I don't watch it. Other than that, who the fuck cares.
This is plainly wrong. Too many little jokes require at least some scientific background, and the show tries to be scientificially correct. The formulae at the whiteboards actually make sense and really belong to quantum physics or astronomical problems. Yes, non-science people get their fair share of the usual sitcom jokes for laughing at, but there is a second layer which is not for them, but for us nerds and geeks.
It seams like its only reruns because it's one of CBS' most popular shows. So rather than releasing new episodes on multiple streaming services, it's an exclusive to CBS's streaming service. Oh, you didn't know CBS had its own streaming service? Yeah, that's the problem. So the only time you'll see new episodes on TV is during live broadcasts. Everything else is reruns.
I ran across clips of the show on YouTube and found it amusing enough that I searched for a way to stream it legally. Aside from the early seasons and reruns available for a short time on services like Sling and Playstation Vue with a DVR feature, there's no way to stream it without subscribing to CSB All Access. Thus ended my interest in the show.
You could say the same thing about Futurama. The difference is Futurama is funny, whereas Big Bang Theory has never made me laugh.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
I suspect that geeks generally lack the part of the brain that allows them to laugh at themselves. Kinda like reptiles lack that area of the brain that would allow them to experience emotional attachment.
Please explain the popularity of the IT Crowd, then.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
But only when the show is *actually* funny. Look there are many shows where they make funs of geek in a certain way, see some episode of ti crowds, heck I would dare say futurama or many episode of the simpson, and I pass many many other. But TBBT is really poor in joke, it is a sitcom like people like them, but not geeky. Look, take some of the geek stuff, remove the laugh band and often you see there is nothing there. I can remember one with sheldon reciting names of games "mario kart etc..." if you remove the laugh band you realize there is ntohing tehre. TBBT is filled of those.
You see there is a difference also between laughing AT geek, and laughing WITH geek. TBBT the the sort of "AT" point at geek like ape and laugh. Look at their studio antics ! Other shows present funny geek situation but laugh WITH geek on those situation.
IMO TBBT was a show about geek charicature as viewed by non geek put into situation the non-geek view as funny. It was not funny. Want to show something utterly funny making fun WITH geek (and not AT) ? Watch the gamers. Watch brad Vader. You will immediately see what I mean with the difference between AT/WITH. And PS: sheldon is not funny. He look like somebody with a terrible mental problem which is not helped by its entourage. And that's unfunny unless you like laughing AT people with mental problems. I can nearly hear the producer whispering "why are you hitting yourself" while using your own punch to hit you in the face.
TL;DR TBBT is not a geek show. And yes we can laugh at ourselves but only when it is REALLY funny.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
You missed the point. The Big Bang Theory is about science. To make it completely and totally about science we employ AI's to write the show. You must admit for the current level of AI the show is very good. :)
It is a word, it's just not the word I meant.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Ah, the No True Geek fallacy rears its ugly head yet again.
Echoing across our solar system (and beyond) are reverberations of every BBT episode... never to die, just to fade and fade into the background noise. Shows like BBT will never go away, they just fade into syndication. The A-Team is still being broadcast by DirecTV! I wish I could find the old Gumbys.
Claiming a sitcom isn't high brow is hardly a case of superiority complex.
Big Bang Theory is extremely weak comedy involving some nerds.
If you thought Big Bang Theory was for nerds then you aren't one. Simple as that.
I am as geeky as they get. And the caricatures resonate with me, and I fused to find the shoe funny, though I haven't watched it in a couple of years.
Maybe you shouldn't paint everyone with the same brush.
On the other hand, my 75 year-old mother loves this show. She is basically confined to a wheel-chair at this point, but, she still has her mind. She thinks this show is hilarious for some inexplicable reason. Personally, I believe it is because my Mom is a much more intelligent person than her life and health has allowed her to live and so she is attracted to the "idea" of a bunch of science-types sitting around, goofing off, and enjoying themselves (no matter how unrealistic or inaccurate). So, for that alone, I appreciate the cast, crew, and writers of this show for giving my mother a number of years of joy. So long, and thanks for all the laughs (on my mother's behalf).
s/laughtrack/live audience/g
The difference being, with a live audience, the jokes have to actually be funny to someone.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
That's exactly it. The show is 100% a stereotype of anyone interested in "nerdy" fields. It's offensive to us nerds but guess what? Probably 70% of people aren't nerds. Get over it snowflakes.
As geeks, we may be incapable of noticing this, but NON-GEEKS WOULDN'T GET MANY OF THE JOKES. In some cases, Lorre explains a joke in the closing vanity card.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What does that have to do with what I wrote? Also you didn't just say you didn't like it ...you quite falsely claimed it "wasn't smart." If you actually we're as smart as you think you are you would already understand this.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
This is plainly wrong. Too many little jokes require at least some scientific background, and the show tries to be scientificially correct. The formulae at the whiteboards actually make sense and really belong to quantum physics or astronomical problems. Yes, non-science people get their fair share of the usual sitcom jokes for laughing at, but there is a second layer which is not for them, but for us nerds and geeks.
Exactly. I'm from an engineering background, and loved how Howard's mishaps related to real news items. Like when he and his date tried to drive a Mars rover after a night of drinking and got Spirit stuck in the sand.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It may be a word in French or Spanish (and likely some other languages), but it isn't one in English.
I suspect that geeks generally lack the part of the brain that allows them to laugh at themselves. Kinda like reptiles lack that area of the brain that would allow them to experience emotional attachment.
huh huh . . . you idiots can't laugh at yourselves . . . huh huh
The Americans was an FX show.
You're right. I freely admit I'm a geek. Even as an older adult I'm still socially awkward. (I tell people I'm better in print than in real life.) And yes, I've learned to laugh at myself. I have geek friends who have learned to laugh at themselves. It's a natural growth for geeks, but sadly one that a significant percentage of geeks never experience.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yep, I certainly did.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I suspect that geeks generally lack the part of the brain that allows them to laugh at themselves.
Seriously? I've never seen much of this show but from what I know of it your analogy is terrible. This seems to be a show for people who struggled to read the first three chapters of Brief History of Time before they laid it down in frustration yet make boasts to being "physics geeks." This isn't a real geeks show, this is a wanna-be fantasy land where they envision what their life may have been had they not flunked out of the second semester of junior college and ended up being an entry level manager of a call center at their midlife point. Trust me, I know these people. Plenty of them. None of them can talk real science but they can quote stats from the AD&D Monster Manual like a priest can quote the bible.
This is why this show has millions of viewers but your local science and builders clubs struggle to keep afloat. Real applications of STEM outside of a very small circle of career minded folks are as rare as are icebergs in the Caribbean.
Problem is, geeks would be incapable of making a comedy about themselves.
Facts say otherwise.
?? Both shows are popular.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Especially stopping at ~24 episodes before it exhausted its premise.
TBBT is its shite American ripoff, missing the point entirely, just selling nerdface with a laugh track.
it was the best show around that took basic 10th grade science, dumbed it down for an american audience, and added a laugh track just in case you still didn't get the science jokes.
what television needs is more science shows like this, and more laugh tracks.
I've caught the show on occasion, whilst switching between channels, and I never found it engaging enough that I should watch an entire episode. I found its reference-based presentation of nerd culture and its characters to be uninspired and puerile. The IT Crowd, on the other hand, could at least present the (at times) childish nature and situations of its characters in a more intelligent and endearing way, IMO.
There were glimmers of humour and much potential in Sheldon's character, I thought, but for the most part, he came across as annoying, and not in a way that I could sympathise with. I would say that Dustin Hoffman does a better job of this as Raymond in Rain Man (albeit a more extreme example).
How do I feel about the ending of The Big Bang Theory? I feel nothing.
So much irony.
that show was a grossly inaccurate caricature.
If you don't like it, don't watch it. Works for me. No need to get all melodramatic.
You clearly have a serious case of Dunning Krugers
What strange, reflexive projection that is. It's not "Dunning Krugers." It's difficult to understand what a "serious case" of that would be. I think you completely misunderstand Dunning-Kruger as haughtiness instead of inflated sense of ability. And to epy T-R's point, it's a sitcom, ffs!
You should learn how words and ideas work before invoking them.
no, big bang went south after a couple seasons. the hate is well deserved because the humor and fresh ideas were no longer there. you must be easily entertained....
About as much as dunning kruger has to do with having a negative opinion about a TV show. Big bang theory is unfunny, predictable, and boring to sit though, and the look-at-the-nerds-and-laugh plot device was hardly meant as reflective humor (humor that was unfunny enough to keep the laugh track around no less). I'm sure the creators knew the vast majority of the audience was laughing at them, not with them. Then it got even worse when they turned it into emasculated geek 90210. None of this is 'smart' by any definition of the term.
No, the difference being a producer holds a sign up telling people WHEN to laugh.
They don't have to understand the jokes. For them, the joke is the characters themselves.
Que? Cue? Balls!!!!
Yea that a riot. Getting stuck in sand. Using a mars rover he would never have access to. What a fucking joke. I almost pissed my pants.
Nerds are too easily amused.
Well, by definition, caricatures exaggerate -sometimes extremely- characteristics of the subject being caricatured in order to highlight those characteristics for comedic effect. Calling it fake is as useless as complaining about any other sitcom that exists. Hell, that would go for most anything on TV. It's all fake and contrived, even the so-called "reality" shows.
LOL. I am as geeky as they come, and the show is complete ass. It isn't funny. At all.
Yet TBBT is still immensely popular, and The IT Crowd (which I personally really enjoyed) petered out after four years.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Looking at some of the comments here, I'd say that nerds are not easily amused at all. Probably all that pent up rage from being picked on early in life.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Never found it to be particularly interesting, me being an anime fan and all, but...
TFA>_ "The actor who plays Sheldon will be 46 when the show ends, the columnist points out, adding that for 12 years he's been playing "a weirdly ageless man-boy trapped in a developmentally arrested closed-loop flatshare scenario more suited to somebody half his age."
You know, people will read this here at /. and won't understand the "weirdly" qualification...
I myself am way older than 46, so there.
This.
It's just not a word in English.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, the difference being a producer holds a sign up telling people WHEN to laugh.
I know from personal experience that they used to do that in the seventies. I don't have evidence either way whether they still do this. Also, I'd expect it to be a monitor. A sign is so... last century.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
>Problem is, geeks would be incapable of making a comedy about themselves.
Not really. The following is from the show's co-creator wikipedia page:
[Bill] Prady was a Z80 programmer at The Small Computer Company.[10]
In 2010, Prady was given honorary membership in the Royal Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Science.[11] In 2013, Prady was awarded NASA's Exceptional Public Achievement Medal.[12] In 2015, asteroid 8630 (1981 EY35) was designated 8630 Billprady in his honor.[13]
Sounds like a geek to me. And looking up a few of the writers of the show reveals some have advanced degrees (one being a Ph.D in Philosophy), so I don't think statement that geeks can't create a comedy about themselves is true.
I was on a cruise back in March, and one of the in-stateroom TV channels showed random TV shows and their actual runtime, minus commercials. Most 30 minute shows had about 22 minutes of runtime. Big Bang Theory was at about 17 minutes. Literally half of the show's scheduled runtime is taken up by commercials.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Reading through the comments, I get the impression that a significant number of Slashdot readers had pretty crappy childhoods that they still haven't gotten over as adults. I'm genuinely sorry to see that.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The BB theory fans are all just a bunch of whiny sociopaths who should be shot with a thousand BB's each.
just for the fun of it.
that would make an excellent follow-up show
CAP === forego
Both the show, and its intended audience, apparently.
It just goes to show that Idiocracy and the show 'Ow!, My Balls!' isnt that fucking far away now.
popular with whom? not with actual geeks
Most especially the "reality" shows.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Thank you.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
They're not entirely fake. Everyone knows a Sheldon (the one that is a bad Autisim-spectrum-disporder characture), and the show took a very slow route to making him not completely unbearable (He basically starts as "Comicbook guy", except not fat.) Everyone knows a Howard, they're every man with a twitch.tv or youtube channel, dumbed down to be less creepy, but redeemably creepy. Raj, everyone who lives in a city knows a Raj, the guy from outside the country who has money because of rich parents. Raj probably is the most "offensive" in terms of nerdcred combined with racist characture which is only somewhat improved over The Simpsons Apu, at least Raj is a scientist who hits rockbottom and sometimes sticks up for himself.
While Big Bang theory may star Leonard, the main character is really Penny/Leonard. Penny is the non-nerd's audience surrigate, and absolutely every nerd knows a dozen Penny's. "Why do I put up with these losers" types that hangs out with them because they're a mooch at worst, and they lack any social life at best. Leonard is the proverbial "nerd who moved out because of uncaring mother who treats him as a science experiment", only highlighted by the episode where he wrote a novel and the lead female character was Penny, Bernadette and later his mom, because that's how his ideal woman is... someone who is a bit of a sexy jerk.
Speaking of sexy Jerk. Burnadette is also just as mean as Penny is, but she does it with a smile. In my travels, these people are generally HR/Management people at work, and blowing off steam at home/with friends, and they will do nothing but talk about how incompetent their staff is (my mom is one of these types.)
That leaves Amy who is the only main cast actor on the show who is an actual nerd, she has a PhD. She is basically a version Sheldon who actually knows what their shortcomings are, and thus is the only person capable of putting up with him in a relationship. In any other Sitcom she would have been the main character, and it would have been creepy. This is because, she says a lot of blunt things that she is just observing to be true, much like Sheldon, but they reflect creepy interests of how she put up with being alone.
The show also features Stuart, the comicbook shop owner. Basically Grade A Loser who at least is not "comicbook guy" from the Simpsons. This is where several other occasional nerds show up. It's completely overplayed that Stuart is just as creepy as Raj and Howard are, but unlike them, he just wants attention because he feels like nobody notices him. He's wallpaper in a empty room kind of thing.
Is the show good representation for nerds? No, barely at all. But this is the problem with all Chuck Lorre productions. They are all embellishments of people "you know" and offer the audience a sitcom that lets you watch those people suffer. That is what those shows all do. Every show he's done has run for at least 3 seasons except BBT and Mom. My mom likes Mom, my mom likes BBT, and has in fact watched all the Chuck Lorre productions (Dharma and Greg, Grace under fire, Two and a Half Men, Mike and Molly.) My mom is an "average tv watcher" . So I've watched all these shows with her, and they're all basically the same formula:
Roseanne - A blue-collar family, with rebellious kids, yeah haven't seen that before. The main characters are jerks.
Grace Under Fire - Single mother who raises three children, recovering alcolholic. Also blue-collar appeal.
Cybill - Divorced Mother of two, struggling actress, and the jerks in her life.
Dharma & Greg (5 seasons) - Dharma is a flower child. Greg is the audience surrogate, Dharma's husband. Like if you thought BBT was offensive, Dharma was equal parts Sheldon except "flower child". Point of note, Marlene, a recurring cast member is played by the same voice of Lisa from the Simpsons, and is a rude jerk on this series.
Two and a Half Men (12 seasons) - Ugh this show. The two main characters are brothers, and the "half" is the less-jerk'ish brother's son. The main character,
we cancelled our DirecTV and lost access to CBS
Where do you live that a CBS affiliate's ATSC broadcast does not reach?
How dare others like something I dislike!
A lot that was good ... we still make the whole Sheldon and his spot where he has to sit reference at work ... that's kinda me with my preferred seat in the conference rooms.
But yeah, got old pretty quick.
You are dismissing people who dislike it without actually understanding WHY they dislike it.
1. Wisecrack recently did an analysis of WHY the humor in TBBT is so bland:
* The Big Bang Theory: What Went Wrong? - Wisecrack Edition
My bold emphasis added.
@2:33
@3:24
2. TBBT without the laugh track shows just how bland and boring the show really is:
* The Big Bang Theory - No Laugh Track 1 (Avoiding the Shamy)
Does that mean I "hate" TBBT ? No. I just find it over-rated.
But please keep:
* placing people into a False Dilemma / dichotomy fallacy -- "You don't like the show so you MUST hate it.", and
* using Ad Hominem fallacy -- "Haters going to hate"; whining about how people hate X without taking the time to LEARN _what_ and _why_ specifically it is they dislike about it.
---
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. -- Josh Billings
the shark jumped years ago ....
Claiming a sitcom isn't high brow is hardly a case of superiority complex.
What's a good example of a recent high brow sit com? Yes, minister is obvious (Example 1, example 2 and example 3, Jeeves & Wooster might be another ... but they're all old and British.
So... tell me more about that shoe you found funny. Was it a man's shoe of a woman's shoe?
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Certainly not with *some* geeks.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Never watched the show. Got better things to do than keep current on sitcoms. Don't even bother with broadcast tv anymore. Worst part was how I had a dunce of a boss who couldn't understand why his resident techie didn't watch the show.
I forced myself to sit through half an episode once, too. It was not clever or funny at all, despite trying really hard to be. Just goes to show how bad most other TV programming sucks these days that it lasted even a single season.
Not a bad summary!
Mod +1 interesting
I remember hearing about this show maybe 8 or 9 years ago. Somehow (piracy or Netflix) I watched the first season. It wasn't so terrible that I stopped watching after one episode. I'm not sure exactly why I watched the whole season... it's not a good show, and the characters are all one dimensional, and have no depth beyond their little stereotype. The hot dumb girl, the dorky genius, etc. Maybe because it had some scientific accuracy to it? I might have kept thinking it'd get better... it didn't so I never watched another episode.
I guess I'm just a little shocked the show lasted for so long, and had such popularity. It wasn't a good show, and I have to agree with the article that it's about as geeky as someone who once liked a post about the moon. (It's rather odd that this level of geekiness is now chic. Maybe that's good? I honestly don't know.) But I never had the level of animosity towards the show that the Guardian author did. I can sort of understand it though. The show presented this sort of one dimensional stereotype that you might see on.
On the other hand, anyone that's paid attention to what's on TV regularly shouldn't really be surprised this show was popular. How long did Friends go on for? 10 seasons? Friends was about as vacuous as The Big Bang Theory is. So why is it surprising these shows went on for so long? They don't challenge anyone, nothing much ever changes in the show, and you barely have to pay attention to it to understand what's going on. That's perfect for a sitcom. The vast majority of the population doesn't want challenge, they just want to sit down and understand everything without much thought.
If you want an actual geeky show that's actually quite good, go watch Mr. Robot. Which is the first show I've seen that portrays computer hacking accurately. Not the weird underworld stuff, which isn't really accurate, but the actual planning, dedication, and hours of study involved. The portrayal of corporate america as a series of mindless drones is largely real. Also the real world implications of suddenly "setting everyones debt to zero" are also quite accurate of what likely would happen.
Reading through the comments, I get the impression that a significant number of Slashdot readers had pretty crappy childhoods that they still haven't gotten over as adults. I'm genuinely sorry to see that.
No. Your ignoring the fact that TBBT was created for normal people, not smart people. As a show for normal people it succeeded brilliantly by making smart people the butt of all jokes.
Tip: if you find it funny, you're not among the smart people. Sorry.
Imagine our surprise that you aren't smart enough to capitalize Dunning Kruger.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You clearly have a case of Ad Hominem.
And now let me have a small case of tu quoque and state that resorting to such a low blow attack really speaks of your own sophistication. You're probably exactly in the target audience of The Big Bang Theory. People who think they're smarter than they actually are, which ironically is what the Dunning Kruger effect is about.
The Big Bang Theory was for people who like geeks.
> you must be easily entertained...
Well, I do hang out here on Slashdot reading and posting with you idiots, so I guess that's a fair cop.
Holy shit that's hilarious. Thanks for the laugh, but I assure you my high intellect has been confirmed in numerous quantitative ways, and subjectively on a regular basis. Off you go now little mind ...
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
TBBT was a solid sitcom. That was its appeal. It was not a clever reflection on post-docs, scientists vs engineers, Aspergers, or any of the geek culture aspects it had bolted on.
I did 'only' a masters in physics. I shared a flat with 4 other physics students. One of us had diagnosed aspergers. One of us had to drink heavily to quell his social anxiety before his parents put him on a train and we picked him up at the other end. We all poured scorn on engineers. So i wanted to love TBBT. I really did.
The fact is I never saw myself or my friends in TBBT. 2 examples:
I never understood their finances. Students / post-docs / junior lectureres never have any money. I remember eating pickle out of a jar with a spoon a couple of times because we had no money. We never did take away. We rarely ate out apart from at the university. Much of the comedy in our house came from the terrifying experiments in cooking. Raj had rich parents, but where was the financial turmoil for everyone else?
I never understood how "broadly" geeky they were. We all had our own "geeky interests" and would pour hours of our free time into them. (The warhammer geek, the coding geek, the role-play geek, the video editing geek, etc). And we had interests in common (physics, computers, girls). But TBBT group all seem to have a vague interest in all things geeky. They have a general liking of geek culture, the conventions, the sci-fi, the memorabilia. Sheldon was perhaps the exception to this with his love of trains, but even that seemed to be something that was presented only opportunistically rather being a constant visible presence in his life.
So I enjoyed TBBT for its characterization and the characters responses to the awkward situations that the writers came up with. But it will always feel like any opportunity missed to me.
A good sit com, but hardly irreplacable.
I'm not a big TV guy, but I kept reading/hearing about the series, and finally started watching. I didn't particularly like the early episodes, where the characters were extreme and one dimensional (Raj couldn't talk around women, Howard was such a complete jerk), but, later on, as they matured, I found it more palatable. They did try to get the science right, and some serious scientists (not just Steve Hawking) made cameo appearances. They addressed some social issues too, like Bernadette's initial resistance to having children, which, from what I understand, rings true for a lot of women even though they are reluctant to admit it.
I didn't fall in love with the show, but I didn't hate it either. Maybe I'm part of the mostly silent majority who thought of it as an interesting, somewhat different, pretty good TV show, and nothing more.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
says the guy who resorts to passive aggressive ad hominem.
Yes it is a word, used right after barby, usually.
Where that theory falls apart is all the jokes that normal people wouldn't get.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
But TFA is just asinine. Does the Guardian have any writers who aren't whiny little bitches?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Won't be missed. Never really was able to get past the foolishness of people who were supposedly really smart. Real smart folks just don't roll that way.
I suspect that people like you generally lack the part of the brain that allows them to form a coherent argument without resorting to in informal fallacy like an ad hominem.
No, I don't really suspect it nor believe it, because I know that I just used an ad hominem myself. And I don't want to play armchair psychologist, a role that is apparently very popular on the internet, and damage the image of real psychologists even more.
But don't you think that it is kind of odd how people react in defence to these shows with irrationality instead of trying to talk about the merits of the arguments that have been made?
this says it all about money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqi8hQVkrhk
I suspect that geeks generally lack the part of the brain that allows them to laugh at themselves.
No they laught, through the first season when the show was still funny and had some clever writing.
Like so many shows TBBT overstayed its welcome by a large margin.
They had material for two seasons, maybe three.
I guess this is a given thing for those kind of show.
As long as they get the viewers no-one will stop the show and start something new, so instead the shows gets a new season after another until enough viewers have realized that it won't get back to the good episodes early on.
Every good show will run on until it is utter garbage.
In a way I think that is why Firefly have such a strong fanbase, it never got to the point around third season when a show starts to run out of content and needs to end before it turns to crap.
Says the guy who is too stupid to get that he is commiting the same ad hominem attack approach ... ROTFLMAO. You are too precious. ;-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Where that theory falls apart is all the jokes that normal people wouldn't get.
You're missing the point that the show survives on the jokes that people *do* get. The smart jokes are few and far between.
If most of the jokes were smart and the show deep, it wouldn't have been the success with non-smart people that it is.
It's more popular amongst the non-smart folks than the smart folk.
Then Sheldon was changed from a loveable Asperger sufferer to a total narcissistic bastard and I stopped watching.
Mrs Little: (into the phone) Hello, I'm sorry to keep you waiting, It's just that... (she takes her shoe off and looks inside) size three, yes it's just - we've lost a dear one and my son was ... yes, that's right, size eight, yes and... Oh I see... yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I see, yes, yes, I, I ... Yes, yes. No ... no... yes, I see ..... ; They can't get the fire brigade Mervyn, will the Boys' Brigade do?
I get the impression that a significant number of Slashdot readers had pretty crappy childhoods that they still haven't gotten over as adults.
It is the formative years.
No-one really gets over their childhood, it's just that in some cases the childhood had more favorable conditions.
A textbook case of Poe's Law.
Either a very convincing impression of a person severely overestimating their own abilities, and therefore a pretty good troll, or a genuinely stupid person.
I disagree with that. You're correct that there are also non-smart jokes, but I think they maintain a good balance between the jokes we would get and the jokes regular people would get. As someone pointed out, there are scientists and engineers among the writing staff for the show.
I'd even go so far as to say there are smart jokes that aren't engineering or physics jokes. Sheldon exhibits symptoms that a psychiatrist could have interesting conversations about. Amy's casual references to her experiments on animals, and Bernedette's references to her rather dangerous work with pathogens, would be things neither a normal person *or* a physicist would necessarily get.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Same here—weird thing is, I do like Friends.
I think there's a similarity to when a gospel singer sells out and goes mainstream (see: Amy Grant). There's a sense of betrayal that you can never wash away.
I seem to be in the minority here.
I had a great time binge watching most of the first three seasons, despite recognizing all its faults right away. Sure, the original Penny was a vaguely slutty, nondescript door matt, and Howard was creep, and Raj was a head case, and Sheldon was a vegetarian Jeffery Dahmer, and Leonard—what the fuck was Leonard, anyway?
Extreme Doormat
Heterosexual Life-Partners
Butt-Monkey
Translator Buddy
With Friends Like These...
—but there was plenty of meta-humour and the delivery was lively and offbeat.
Before the series started shipping glue, it was Leonard that finally the series unwatchable for me.
Shipping
After my happy binge, I've never watched another episode, since (though I do know the modern characters, mainly from YouTube outtake reels).
Before Leonard, it was mainly Raj that made me frequently avert my gaze. But I knew that stupid premise (mutism) simply couldn't last much longer. (First they invented alcohol as a clumsy, but temporary off switch, in a truly kill-me-now "it was all a dream" micro reversal.)
Maybe you can argue that Leonard stayed for the girl. But it was played without the oppressive bars of captivity confining Leonard inside a crazy-making zoo full of insecure-yet-egocentric middle-schoolers with PhDs.
I managed to ignore these problems long enough to really enjoy many moments from the first three seasons, especially as Penny became less nondescript, and actually managed to worm her way inside Sheldon's grill.
All in all, it was not so different than watching The West Wing, which is not that much closer to reality than TBBT, though you have to dig further under the surface to see this.
But Leonard ... he became harder to comprehend as a real person than Trump-loving Manafort juror Paula Duncan.
Manafort Jury Holdout Blocked Guilty Verdicts on 10 of 18 Charges, Juror Says
Do not pardon Paul Manafort, says Trump-supporting juror who convicted him
'I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was,' says juror who supports Trump
I can almost understand Paula, but ultimately not Leonard.
Speaking as a geek, the most offensive thing about "The Big Bang Theory" is that they try to pass it off as representing (or appealing to) geeks.
As a non-geek what I find most offensive is everything else. The acting is bad, and it's still light years ahead of the writing and direction. It is and has always been a shit sitcom, where even the guy pressing the "canned laugh" button gave up on trying to figure out where it should go after the first three episodes.
Going from Seinfeld to Friends was a drop in quality that I thought could never be matched, but Friends is bloody Oscar Wilde compared to this crap.
I suspect that geeks generally lack the part of the brain that allows them to laugh at themselves.
Office space is funny, it is geeks laughing at themselves. Big bang is not funny, and it is not for geeks. It is for vapid, clueless people who like to pretend they understand what it is like to be smart. Laugh track, omigod.
Self respecting geeks do not watch sitcoms.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It was kinda funny at times when it was realistic.
But once they got girlfriends... sorry, at some point suspension of disbelief just doesn't work anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
LOL. So much vituperative shit-slinging going on about a fucking sitcom. It's too much. LOL.
Hey, Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch were cultural masterpieces that have yet to be rivaled by any modern day sitcom. FIGHT ME!
geeks would be incapable of making a comedy about themselves
You don't know who Mike Judge is, do you.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Whoever wrote this show is not only not a geek, but has never met one. This is just a series of nonsensical stereotypes held together by canned laughs at random points.
If you want to see geek humour, try watching Parker Lewis or The IT Crowd (original UK version).
Every single fictional character exhibits certain idiosyncrasies that a psychiatrist or psychologist could analyse and form either a prognosis or even diagnosis on. That is just the nature of characters, fictional or non fictional. You can read The Writer's Guide to Psychology from Carolyn Kaufman about the topic. There she uses the character Blade as an example for a typical narcissistic personality disorder and also states that this probably was not intended by the writers, but the character still exhibits the classic hallmarks.
This in itself would not be evidence for sophisticated jokes. It just means that their characters aren't utterly non credible. Whether that is intentional or not can also not be established in itself without know what the intentions of the writers were. But let's just assume here that the writers intended them to exhibit exactly those characteristics. They did their job.
I admit that I only saw one episode about ten years ago, but what I saw was just plain awful. Canned laughter and tired geek stereotypes. What about this show was funny?
------- Mark
Que? That's Spanish, you know. Normally followed by 'sera sera'
Maybe you should ask yourself why you stopped watching it.
I'm not so sure, xkcd makes pretty good job with the details: https://xkcd.com/530/
I find it ironic given the frequent backlash here for SJWs and PC types being too thin-skinned and not being able to lighten up, and then a show that jovially pokes fun at nerds is suddenly "blackface for nerds" and must be taken off the air. *Everyone* needs to lighten up.
That show is garbage.
Sequel... Heat death? Or Big Crunch followed by a whole new Big Bang series (one of an already infinite number, presumably).
This was a shitty show, they actors were little more than mean caricatures of nerds and geeks. They were doing the equivalent of wearing 'geek blackface'. If the show was focusing its humor on black people instead of nerds, the studio would be firebombed the day the first episode aired. It was a shitty show, and it belongs in the same category as 'Song of the South' - if not actually truly offensive, pretty tasteless none the less.
But, it is hugely popular in America, because for the past 20 years, we have been going through a profound cultural and economic shift. The nerd has gone from the mocked and outcast spaz of the 80's comedies (Revenge of the Nerds, various John Hughes movies) to ruling every aspect of modern life. (The founders of Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, etc.) The common blue collar worker has been utterly crushed by nerds and geeks, his work is being threatened by automation and disruptive startups, and he is slowly being gentrified out of house and home as the middle class is crushed by the new class of tech workers made up of these strange spastic twerps that he picked on in high school. This is no less than a dimly veiled mocking of geek culture, and emasculation of their threat to middle class America.
"Oh look, they aren't going to create a new start-up that shuts down the plant and puts me out of work, they are just a bunch of stupid gits that are scared of girls"
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
lololol
Sure, they obviously listen to their science advisor and make their science mostly correct.
But is that in itself funny?
Do you really need to understand the science they are using to get it?
I don't think so.
The joke lies in the fact that the characters will use a complicated sounding science explanations for various things here and there. Because they're nerds and that is what nerds do. And that is the joke.
The writers may as well tell people complete and utter gibberish, like Star Trek does, and it will trick the majority of their target audience into thinking that the characters know what they are doing.
In very few cases there are might be some laughs for the scientifically inclined individual. For example I remember an episode where one character made a joke about 'spherical chicken' during a presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Now let's assume that they really use live studio audience. Pay attention to when the laughter starts to set in. It starts when the other 'nerds' start laughing. Because you know, they get the joke. And then the non nerd character makes a comment about why they didn't laugh, which is a pretty obvious deflection. And again laughter. That is where the main humour is in this show, not in the science or how science works, but how the characters apply it in various situations that often cause awkwardness.
Barbecue is not spelled with a "q".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Granted, I set the bar lower for television shows than I do movies or books (I watch Salvation, for cryin' out loud, but in my defense it's mainly to seethe and laugh over how much they ignore and/or screw up the science, and to drool over Jennifer Finnigan, not because it's such ground-breaking entertainment) so Big Bang Theory was never something I took too seriously, but it's had it's good moments, and in my opinion if you're going to go on and on and on ad infinitum about how bad it was and why would anyone watch it, then I've got to question why you're so angry about a half-hour TV show that, ostenisibly, you're not even watching because it's so bad as far as you're concerned. I say, if you want ground-breaking, highly intelligent, thought-provocking entertainment for the Mensa crowd, then just leave your TV set to PBS and never change it, or maybe just toss the TV in the e-waste bin and read books instead.
I don't get the nerd/geek hate I see lately. It was a fabulous show with wonderful references to science and geek culture. But people get used to something and then expect more.
I watched it about 9 seasons. But it got overly focused on Sheldon who was better as a spice than a main course.
I find nothing implausible about geeks living together and sharing a place. I have two nerdy friends who share a house at 50. If you don't marry, it becomes a decent option if today's irregular and insecure job market . People shared houses until the 70s quite often. It's *EXPENSIVE* to live on your own. I can only do it because I was successful and also got lucky in the timing of the housing market.
Anyway, it was a good show. It focused a bit too much on sheldon so I stopped watching it. I guess some other folks don't like it because the characters grew up into adults, got married, had kids, etc.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
As an actual geek, they "caricatures" of geeks presented ring extremely true with geeks as of when the show started. Perhaps geek culture has changed.
There were so many moments in the show where I and my friends would laugh at with self recognition. Geeky arguments, arrogance combined with shyness, and so on.
It's also possible culture has changed. Folks are a lot less easy going than 12 years ago. They find offense in everything. Not just geeks either.
And it's possible the growth of the women into full characters divided the screen time below that of the main audience. I don't know the demographics of BBT but if it was 90% geeky males, they might have drifted off as their favorites lost screen time. I like Leonard the most. I don't think he gets as much screen time as he used to.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
BBT hasn't been funny for at least nine years. Just watch one of those YouTube videos of BBT with the laugh track removed. It comes across as pathetic and creepy, not funny.
That TBBT is "A dumb show about smart people, vs something like Arrested Development which is a smart show about dumb people". I'll take the latter any day.
Thank goodness a show about a group of 40 year old socially inept losers is finally gone. Now we can have another group of angry women talk about their emotional problems and discuss their anger management issues.
Sheldon walks out of the room and turns off the light. The screen goes black, and then slowly dissolves into a fuzzy pattern, then a dimly-lit ceiling. The camera reframes, and you see Wernher von Braun in bed with his wife.
He wakes her up and says, "Honey, wake up, you won't believe the nightmare I just had." Link
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
I though it was cancelled years ago. Well back to what really matters news for nerds.
Let alone nerdy.
A complete waste of space that was popular, or protected. Not sure which.
Any show with a laugh track is a non-starter for me. So I won't miss this show in the slightest.
It's a show for wannabe geeks to make them feel like they're smart. Fortunately I have never watched a full episode nor ever will.
Real geeks at least like TBBT even if they don't love it.
For someone who prides themselves for being a genius, you say some stupid shit.
Why would I take pride in it? It isn't something I worked hard for and acheived. I was born with it, and it is a curse as well as a blessing.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Amy started out as the ultimate stereotypical nerd with zero social skills. But now she's the most normal one on the show.
... funny at all. Hyped-up, 'canned' laughter, concepts that just aren't funny.
A waste of electrons on every level...
Finally. That is all.
Not soon enough. Every episode I've seen has been just awful, painting everyone in tech/science as an asshole. I haven't seen a funny episode, so obviously i am in the minority here.
-In space, it is very hard to rig lights.
I started watching in year 6, then went back to watch the first 5, which I thought were funnier. As with any LONG running series, the writers run out of ideas, the actors of the show probably get in a rut, and if it wasn't for the insane salaries they are getting, probably would have booked a few years ago. The "big 3" actors, will probably have a harder time finding meaningful work in the tv industry as they are typecast. The "new girlfriends" probably won't have a hard time, as will the other minor characters. The show lost it's edge & appeal when the nerds all got girlfriends/wives. A series is usually doomed, when you start introducing babies into it. Time to end the series and wrap it up. I just hope, the producers, on the last scene, hopefully have them moving out of the building and, as they get ready to walk out the door, they hear a DING from the elevator and it opens up.
When I first saw the show, I found it amusing and refreshing that "nerd culture" was being hilighted. There were definitely some really hilarious plots and dialogue.
But then Sheldon became the focus of everything. Clearly suffering from a pronounced case of narcissistic personality disorder, and he became the focal point of the series. Each week, he treated people horribly, was incredibly insensitive and sociopathic -- sometimes even psychopathic, and *cue the laugh track*.. ha ha ha ha
Watching the show's success spiral upwards was to me, a sad testimony on how sociopathic our society has become. How it's amusing to watch a horrible, horrible person treat his Stockhom-syndromed friends.
Sheldon wasn't autistic.
Sheldon was a textbook narcissist.
The show in effect glamourized extreme narcissism.
Oh look how incredibly selfish and self-absorbed that dude is, but he's smart and occasionally, if only temporarily, recgonizes he's a douchebag, that's soooo cute!
Where I live, most personal relationships are not inter-racial. Maybe workplaces are like that, but people tend to socialize with their own kind.
What he's portraying is not racist - just realism. It would be racist to gratuitously introduce characters from other races "just because".
any ?'s
Geeks and math nerds made Futurama and a whole bunch of other shows, Just because someone is a nerd doesn't mean they can't write.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I find it ironic given the frequent backlash here for SJWs and PC types being too thin-skinned and not being able to lighten up, and then a show that jovially pokes fun at nerds is suddenly "blackface for nerds" and must be taken off the air. *Everyone* needs to lighten up.
What he said.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Finally! Bazinga!
*Insert laughter*
Let both of these asses be set to grinding corn.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I don't give a fuck about it because I never watched a single episode.
I never watched a singe episode of Sienfeld either.
Why? Because U.S. sitcoms stopped being funny decades ago.
If Sheldon cussed like a sailor while constantly insulting everyone, he'd be ZK.
Sure it is!
The signs all over the South, the home of that food, say "BAR-B-Q".
Socializing is learned behaviour. Many tend to unlearn it in later years.
When you accept the characters have no resemblance to reality it's easier to sit back and enjoy the acting and writing. I worked in various aerospace R&D areas, the latest with 70% PhDs, including some occasional FEL and space station work. Literally nobody was interested in anything close to comic books, old (or new) video games, sci-fi TV series, Comic_Cons, trains or whatever other trivia that formed the teen-aged grist for their humor mill. One reason you never saw Howard's mother was that she was a comic caricature from the Milton Berle era. The show started to jump the shark early on with an unnecessary drop in the absurdism brought on by the girlfriend(s). Some clever writing and good acting gave it enough momentum to keep going.
The aspies can't, the rest of us are fine and can actually get shit done. Stop confusing us.
The main protagonist turned from likeably oblivious into selfish ubergeek. And Penny cut her hair.
For Me To Poop On
Korean war vets lapped it up and offered anecdotes of their experiences to the show.
Dude, I have no doubt you have a huge ass, but no need to put yourself down referring to it as two asses.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I think a big part of the success of TBBT is that this one show does not follow the standard Hollyweird treatment of trying to tell you that you have to worship LGBT, hate gun rights, hate conservative values, and it doesn't constantly make fun of all men. Get off the political bulls&x#1 and try to entertain people. It will work.
...The difference being, with a live audience, the jokes have to actually be funny to someone.
The one about the spherical chickens in a vacuum made me laugh (it was the first time I'd heard it).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
You two should have been writers on TBBT.
Thanks! I liked the show for the first 2-3 seasons, then I didn't. The Friends comparison is apt. I never understood the appeal of Friends. It struck me as so boring.
I make a reasonable middle-class wage by going to work and not spamming blogs with scams.
>Where that theory falls apart is all the jokes that normal people wouldn't get.
Look at Dennis Miller.
*Nobody* got his jokes, at all. And people still laughed.
"I mean, like this thread is about as insightful as Che Guevera and Maya Angelo doing the Cha Cha in a Mey Laigh Bistro with Earl Palmer."
It's just Friends 2.0. I don't have any evidence for that, even anecdotal, except myself, but I'd be willing to bet there's a large overlap between the two fanbases. Likewise, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is basically Seinfeld 2.0, or Seinfeld with indecent language. As a Seinfeld fan I think Curb is one of the few comedies worth watching. I hated Friends and I hate Big Bang even more, along with 2 1/2 Men and every other Chuck Lorre show. The guy is a cash machine and yes his shows have a lot of jokes, the problem is they just aren't funny. But hey humor is subjective and I'm not going to judge someone based on their taste in it. I just won't be caught dead watching those shows because they make me want to hang myself.
Definitely a good summary.
My thoughts on the BBT haters is that they tend to be people who aren't "quite" geeks. They are people who have a bit of geeky-ness to them but aren't truly geeky enough to see the stereotypes portrayed on the show as really being possible in real life.
I consider myself truly geeky - and have, at various times, over the years maintained friendship circles that look almost exactly like the set of people on BBT.
While the show is not _always_ funny - it had more to like than most. Enough so that people in my circles will jokingly call each other (and themselves) "Sheldon", "Leanard" or "Howard" and have a good laugh about it. The characters are over the top - but of course they are, it wouldn't be funny without it!
Now - I haven't watched the last few seasons of BBT (been busy) so maybe its gone downhill - but BBT has stood the test of time and will continue to do so in syndication.
I agree with this.
Many of those who deride TBBT aren't geeky enough to get the geeky jokes - but are geeky enough to be indignant about a show that pokes fun at geeks. This same set of people also has a hard time seeing the stereotypes on the show as being at all realistic because they don't know enough true geeks that fit the stereotypes.
For me the thing was that they _weren't_ using gibberish. So "non-science" people can laugh without caring what those terms mean... but "sciency" people can laugh _because_ of the actual words / equations / theorems used. It did well with both crowds (I truly think it's the people that are in-between that didn't appreciate TBBT).
There were _many_ episodes where I would watch with my "non-science" wife and she would laugh at a joke as would I. Then I would pause it and ask what she was laughing about and she would explain that it was the way Penny looked at Leonard or the ridiculousness of the situation... and I would explain that I was laughing because of some physics engineering thing (and explain a bit about it) and I always thought it was interesting that we could both enjoy a show in that way.
TBBT had a lot more going for it than people give it credit for. Good characters, decent writing, funny "science" all thrown together and made just enough over the top to be interesting but not unbelievable.
"Because, inexplicably, The Big Bang Theory is still one of the most-watched shows on U.S. television. It regularly gets more than 15 million viewers an episode, and, statistically, not all of them can be incapacitated to the point of being unable to change channels whenever it comes on."
The reason the people watch the show is because it's a great show with great characters played by hysterically funny actors, one of whom is an actual biologist in real time.
The TRUTH is that many geeks are uncomfortable seeing themselves accurately portrayed.
I think of it like the way people from Kansas regard the Wizard of Oz. Everytime they reveal to someone they're from Kansas, they're met with "oh you must like Wizard of Oz! Kansas must be black and white and boring. Say hi to Dorothy and Toto for me".
It's not that they hate the Wizard of Oz, it's that it's unnecessary to bring it up constantly.
I feel like many in the "geek community" received the same treatment regarding Big Bang Theory. While we could identify with many parts of it, others would bring it up too many times, "Oh you must be like Howard around girls, huh".
Good thing it was enforcing disparaging stereotypes about geeks and jews, and not about radical feminists.
Thanks for a great overview. No mod points but seriously good shit.
Do actual family's resonate with "Modern Family"? The fact that they're fake geeks is not important because it's a sitcom not quarterly code drop! Lighten up
That show was fucking atrocious.
I was sort of like that myself and have two adult children who are now. My 44 year old son and 46 year old daughter are professionals with advanced degrees. Both of them are going together to Dragon Con. My son has organized his own cons twice. There are reasons for stereotypes.
They didn't even get sustained nuclear fusion reaction working!
Finally. Kaley CooCoo may've looked nice, but what a stupid show.
If my patreon gets to $6,000/mo, I will arrange a boxing match in New York City with you!
I enjoyed your summary. I liked the series because someone very close to me is an extremely irritating narcissist on the spectrum, and it was nice to be shown a perspective that enabled me to laugh about something that had been bugging me for years.
Thanks for being a voice of sanity. In a world where purported "geeks" think that spewing unthought out thoughts like ... "Oh, it's a "No true Scotsman fallacy" or "OMFG ... You are automagically wrong and have no justifiable position because ... 'ad hominem', which is a phrase I often see used here so I'm going to use it, and clearly spewing it must make me a card carrying geek" it is good to know that it isn't true that there are no (other) intelligent people here.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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I have been a fan of this show, along with some other very intelligent friends, from the first. Yes, it can be a bit silly at times, but I have known people like the characters. I grew up as the neighborhood geek girl. I had the chemistry sets, a microscope, a weather station, and I wanted to build a lab in the back yard where I could do serious experiments. One summer was spent exhuming what I thought, at first, was the skeleton of a small dinosaur. It turned out to be the skeleton of a dog. Later, I would take apart radios, and such, and wire things up to see if I could get them to work. One of the neighborhood's less bright boys asked me what science was good for. I proceeded to point out everything that he had that was made through science. He never asked a dumb question like that again. Now, I am older, but I still keep up with a lot of things, like physics, programming, and such. This show has been very entertaining, and I am rather bemused by those who have decided to hate on it, mainly because someone has told them they should.
You could say the same thing about Futurama. The difference is Futurama is funny, whereas Big Bang Theory has never made me laugh.
I love Futurama as much as the next geek; but it gets repetitious, too.
I love how those dumbasses at the Guardian whoâ(TM)s degrees in art, womenâ(TM)s studies and the like donâ(TM)t permit them to understand even basic Physics, therefore hate on shows like Big Bang. Wankers.
BBT is the funniest thing that's ever been on tv, period.
I am extremely difficult to entertain, so if BBT entertains me, I don't give a rat's ass what anyone else says, especially columnists of any type.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
There were _many_ episodes where I would watch with my "non-science" wife and she would laugh at a joke as would I. Then I would pause it and ask what she was laughing about ...
I bet she just *loved* that.
I socialize with and work with a pretty diverse crowd. It probably depends on where you live.
Love it when the BBT lovers throw out the "no true scotsman". Certainly it couldn't be you who are the less geeky one.
Chuck Lorre is also famous for one other thing. The After Show Vanity cards.
You can read them all here, also in a book.
http://www.chucklorre.com/inde...
All good things must come to an end. And that end should have been around season 4 or 5.
Not all entertainment should be high-brow. This stuff was somewhere in the middle. Entertaining, and I'm glad it was in small chunks of 22 minutes a piece.
after somewhere around after season 2 and season 4, most geeks dropped it. The material got stale. After that it was just another sitcom. I know a LOT of geeks, work with a building full of them....
The nerdface on this show was outright offensive, they made Sheldon's blatant autism the punch line of every gag where the punchline wasn't about just participating in nerd culture and if you watch it with the laugh track edited out everyone sounds like an unfunny psychopath, which only makes the nerdface more offensive. At the least, it's condescending to everything geeky and at worst, a hateful show made by people who should have known better but didn't. F*** this show.
Hah - if you're going to live with a geek - you have to get used to that. Can't completely turn that off :-)
Your UID suggests you're an older guy. This divide you are noticing is the difference between nerds and geeks. They are not the same. Geeks are just weirdos. They were literal circus side shows back when the term was coined. Nowaday geeks watch anime and play video games. They couldn't fix shit if thier life depended on it. As always, nerds are tearing thier fancy cellphones and computers apart to understand and improve them, and though both groups can intersect, the two typically don't get along. The autism and OCD within both groups kind of sees to that. The other 2 groups lumped in with us nerds are the dorks and dweebs. Dorks are poser geeks and dweebs are poser nerds. Both want to be in that respective group but are too dumb to actually perform the role. BBT consists only of autistic dweebs and dorks. AKA nerd blackface.
Couldn't disagree more. You have shitty social interactions because you have deplorable and shitty ideas about the world. Don't forget, we can read your posts. If you talk to people's faces the way you type at people on here, I don't think it was the jocks who were the problem. I mean read what you typed about yourself. You think you're a borderline-autistiuc genius? You're brilliant and savvy? You're a harassing womanizer but we all have faults amirite? You have no idea how big of a shithead you look to the rest of the world. YOU are the reason no one wants to interact with you.
That show was never funny, and I'm glad to see it go.