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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.
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...
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.
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..)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Or the ability to tell the difference between "Cue" and "Que"(sic). Sheesh!!
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.
Yes. Thanks for making us safe from the Vietnamese(?). At least it stopped China from taking over! I wonder what happened to them?
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
> 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.
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
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:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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.
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.
ibid God bless your dad
And he formed a company in Mountain View?
I am doubly impressed!
So, the answer to the question, "What does he watch?" would be Whatever he wants!!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
(Wisphers while looking down)
Eevvveeerrr
Whooop!
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).
Zoom.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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.
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.
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.
?? 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.
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.
If you don't like it, don't watch it. Works for me. No need to get all melodramatic.
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.
They don't have to understand the jokes. For them, the joke is the characters themselves.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Not a bad summary!
Mod +1 interesting
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
That show is garbage.
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!
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
Let both of these asses be set to grinding corn.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The main protagonist turned from likeably oblivious into selfish ubergeek. And Penny cut her hair.
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
...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.
You seriously don't know anyone with whiteboards in their houses with equations / etc. on them?
I will admit that as I get older the whiteboards are fading out from my friends houses... but we all had them (including me) for a time. When we would have mad "hackathons" at each others houses we would fill the whiteboards up with ideas / diagrams / equations and hack into the early morning. For many years I had an entire wall that was basically just a giant whiteboard with stuff like that on it in my office.
Like I said: as I get older they are fading out. Mostly this is a function of better work / life balance with kids / wives coming into the mix we generally only get our whiteboard on at work (where we still have many big ones full of equations / diagrams / etc. that get use daily).
There are definitely many different kinds of geeks and different pockets of geek culture out there. Don't assume that because you didn't witness it that the types of geeks on TBBT don't exist. They DEFINITELY do. Of course it's over the top on TBBT... but the characters are definitely rooted in real-life believability.
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".
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.
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
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.
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.
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 :-)