I loved it for the first 3 seasons. Then they turn it into the usual couples sitcom and lost all its appeal.
I liked the dynamic of having all main characters “fail” in life. Penny failed as an actress, Leonard failed in dating Penny, Howard failed as a playboy, Raj failed talking to women and Sheldon failed at social integration. They were all adorable losers that had fun while losing. For me it kinda was giving a lot of hope, like you don’t have to succeed in life to have a good time.
Then they made them all winners, they all became rich, and achieve all their goals. And all hope was lost. And the message was “you better succeed in life” which was depressing.
followup question: what’s your thoughts on The IT Crowd? because i have a friend who insists they are the same show, and i disagree but can’t form a coherent argument as to why.
I haven’t watched much BBT, so grain of salt, open to being called out for mistakes.
I’d say The IT Crowd was more centered about a workplace, even if many of the jokes are about their romances, hobbies and personal life, and even if BBT had workplace episodes. The central set of IT Crowd is their basement office, the central set of BBT is an apartment. And I don’t think that’s a trivial difference, it changes the kind of humor and how relatable much of it is.
Also, a big gripe about BBT was the laugh track. It’s normal for sitcoms to have canned laughter, IT Crowd had it too, but BBTs is uncomfortable. Like trk said in another reply, “If there was no laugh track you wouldn’t even know jokes are happening.” There are plenty of BBT No Laugh Track edits on YouTube and it highlights how much better it could be without the forced laughter.
Finally, BBT is a lot more US humor than British humor, not to say that as point in itself, but I feel like it makes the BBT feel to me a lot more like “laughing at nerds” despite that being a major factor in BBT. I also feel that Moss is played more wacky and exaggerated than (say) Sheldon, who certainly has strange peculiarities but is played more subtly or realistically, which I feel makes their character more mocking than absurd parody.
(also I just like the theme music much more)
I was there for the premiere… Season 1, Episode 1… I laughed because they referenced funny nerd things! It’s a sitcom that I’ll get inside jokes on! Oh boy this is going to be amazing!
By episode 3 I realised it was not going to be amazing. By episode 6 I was out.
I have no idea how many sessions they are up to now but if I happen to stumble upon it I legitimately can’t work out what’s meant to be funny. If there was no laugh track you wouldn’t even know jokes are happening.
I couldn’t even complete one episode. It was so dumb.
It fucking sucks. Also, i’m tired of being compared to Sheldon Cooper. I’m surprised there aren’t more fellow autists shit talking this show.
It made people with either mental or emotional or social dysfunction the butt of pretty much every joke.
Haha, he’s awkward.
Haha, he has a weird family dynamic.
Blegh.
It gave the audience the opportunity to laugh at ostensibly intelligent and educated people for enjoying nerd culture.
I honestly think it’s an abomination.
I like to describe it as lowest common denominator humour. It’s low brow at best
I watched it for a time because other friends and coworkers did and it gave us something to talk about. But, generally speaking, I found the characters to be kinda awful people and while on the surface seemed like my friends and myself, they were at best poor approximations. The show was very clearly making fun of them most of the time, filled with horrible laugh tracks that prompt the viewer… I eventually just couldn’t stand it anymore and left. Honestly, I had forgotten about this show.
Around that same era there was a show called Community that was full of weird people and great storrytelling and was damn near the opposite of the Big Bang. Community is a show I still rewatch from time to time.
The autism representation is what happens when a writer has never met another person before.
Fairly accurate sociopath representation though.
I refer to it as geek culture black face.
As a nerd I loathe that show, it’s vapid. You nailed it.
I’m a Nerodivergent geek, I had lots of people tell me “you will love this show” so I watched some and now I wonder how those people really see me. So that’s kinda fun.
“Nerdface” I have called it.
Wow, that’s incredibly succinct and accurate.
This is a great way to put it! Totally agree
If a show requires a laugh track to tell its viewers when to laugh, then it lacks substance enough to cause it without.
The “laughs” all felt from the outside. There was very little humor aimed at the people who would self identify as nerds and way more “haha look at these nerds and how quirky they are” set ups. Sure there are misogynist asshole nerds but usually they need to grow beyond that to find friends and partners. As far as I could tell none of them did. Sheldon and Howard were still super sexist, Leonard was still passive and whiny, but the story pushed forward foisting “perfect matches” on them.
Throughout the whole thing there was very little actual geek humor, and it felt denigrating to actual nerds.
The show isn’t for nerds. It’s for people who believe they are a nerd because they like sci-fi
I’ve always maintained it’s for non-nerds who want to laugh at cultures they’ll never understand. For convenience, all known nerd stuff is crammed into all characters.
It’s fun to watch clips where people removed the laugh track. The “jokes” really fall flat.
I like it a lot.
But I think they dragged it a bit too long.
In one word: Why?
I love it. Watched it when it aired and catch reruns once in a while. I don’t watch a lot of the reruns but do watch them from time to time.
Never seen it but parents did , it’s horrid !
