The Big Bang Theory Genre: Sit-Com
Theme: Nerds, Physicists, Hot girl next door
TBBT come from the creative minds of Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady I've only watched a few episodes of Chuck Lorre's Two and a Half Men and a few episodes of Bill Prady's Gilmore Girls, and neither from their beginning. I know both shows have huge fan bases, but I've never got around to catch any of them. Lorre and Prady co-operated earlier at Dharma & Greg back in the days, but when I learned these guys started working together again to create The Big Bang Theory about a group of geeky physicists and the hot girl moving in next door, I didn't think more of it at the time. Of course chatter about its qualities soon enough reached me, and I had to check it out. The rest is sit-com history, or something along those lines.
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| Just like when they were kids |
I haven't seen more than a couple of various episodes of 8 Simple Rules either, and that's all I'd seen from Kaley Cuoco (Penny) until TBBT. Not enough to be impressed by her acting or taken by her beauty. I'd seen Simon Helberg (Howard) in his supporting role at Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but his role was far from big enough to really establish him in my memory (despite some quite memorable impressions). I also barely knew Johnny Galecki (Leonard) from his guest appearances at My Boys the year before. I'd never seen Kunal Nayyar (Raj) at all prior to TBBT and most noteworthy is the fact I hadn't seen Jim Parsons (Sheldon) before either.
The on-screen story of The Big Bang Theory
Anyway. TBBT is the story of the two highly intelligent physicists, Sheldon and Leonard, sharing an apartment and additionally two other smart friends, Howard and Raj, all working at Caltech, an university in Pasadena (Los Angeles County). When the transvestite across the hall moves out, a beautiful blond girl moves in there and that's it for life as they knew it. They just don't know it yet.
It's also about a lot of geek allusions to everything from comic book superheroes to Star Trek characters and scientists and physicists who has changed the way we look at everything around. Add video games, lack of exercise, lab work and every other nerdy aspect to the mix, and you've got the world Penny is colliding with.
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| One of the lovable Penny traits |
One of the reasons Kaley Cuoco's Penny works so well as the hot girl next door is seen left. She doesn't always look like a million bucks on the show, but rather quite often when one of our nerds knocks at her door; she really looks like she's coming straight from bed with her tired look, comfy clothes and fluffy hair. If she'd always looked like the Maxim-babe Kaley also can appear as, the show would miss out on an entire layer. Penny is in my opinion the second most important character of the show, but without her to attract our physicists out of their usual orbits in the first place there wouldn't been as much of a story.
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| Sheldon, mind blowing in so many ways... |
The comedic genius
The most important character is Sheldon Cooper, and in my opinion Jim Parson should have won Emmy for that character a long time ago. His comedic talent and timing is so incredible, his acting stands lonely at the top of sit-com standards and he's of course also got the most interesting character to work with. Sheldon doesn't get social norms, he doesn't care for wasting energy learning something as trivial as driving, but he's got few problems spending time learning Finnish or Mandarin in-between other research, his strict routines and hobbies. Without the polarized mind and knowledge of Sheldon Cooper, TBBT wouldn't have been half the show it' today.
Raj and Howard have important balancing roles, but there is no doubt they are the supporting characters of the group. Howard is the Jewish engineer still living home and the only one of the boys without a doctorate, but he holds a master's degree in Engineering from MIT. He's the kind of guy hitting at every girl, but with less success than most who rarely hits on girls at all. Raj is from New Delhi, India, and is extremely shy when it comes to women. He can't speak to them at all, a pathology much to Penny's amusement when she first get to know them.
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| Coffee and make-up does wonders |
TBBT is funny because of the allusions towards geeky pop culture, because of the science discussions even if you don't understand more than bits and pieces of them, because of how little Penny understands of both the work and hobbies of the boys and because of all those small quirky habits of Sheldon combined with his lack of social skills and lacking knowledge of everything about human interaction. It's funny because of a well written script with simple one-liners as well as layered jokes within one of the many fields one or more of our friends are familiar with. And TBBT got a big heart, always remembering to develop their characters according to their interactions with each other as well as foreign elements.
I'm far from convinced smart is the new sexy, but The Big Bang Theory is no doubt my favorite TV-show of those currently airing and Jim Parson's Sheldon Cooper is by far my favorite character of those hanging around TV-sets these days.
This review is based on the first three seasons and it's content and rating is subject to change based on new season(s), a possible drop in quality, replaced actors/actress, writer(s) leaving or running out of ideas, or just about anything else likely to influence the quality of a beloved TV-show.
