Lately, in an effort to try and see if it truly deserves it's scorn, I started watching the first season of The Big Bang Theory. I'm sure you've at least heard of the show, if not watched it, and it always had its polarizing opinion. People either think it's great,or they despise it with unyielding hatred
A lot of people like it because it's a sitcom. That seems relly generalised, but it's true. Sitcoms generally go over well - its content isn't edgy, it's formulaic and as such the familiarity helps people settle into the show without much effort, it has a central cast of characters and anyone outside of the main ones aren't in it enough to cause much confusion at their presence
Sitcoms are the safety net of TV. There's no real way for them to go wrong. The only way to screw one up is before the show is even started - if you can't get a semi-believable scenario and put in some semi-believable characters into it then you probably shouldn't be writing a sitcom and instead should put your safety helmet back on in case you fall over and become even more brain damaged
After Friends though, a sitcom needs a hook. Why bother having a bunch of people living their lives when Friends did that far more succesfully then you ever will? Here is where most of the dislike towards The Big Bang Theory stems - four of the five main characters in the show are nerds
Now, I'm a nerd. A pretty big one, if I'm honest. If you are reading this the chances are you are either a nerd yourself on some level or my Mother (Hi Mom, thanks for reading!) so the nerdiness is implied. This isn't the problem. The problem stems from the portrayal of nerds within the show
This isn't some "Yeah, I'm a nerd and we aren't like that!" bullshit. As a nerd, I completely understand that most of us are completely insufferable shitheads. This is why I get that a show that is full of nerds will be shit, since statistically at least three of the nerd characters will be fucking annoying bastards. Guess what!? It averages out that three of the nerd characters are fucking annoying bastards!
We have Leonard, the "main" character. He is a nerd. He works as some sciency nerdy job I can barely remember. He's very smart, loves sci-fi, video games, and so on. You can pretty much fill in the blanks yourself. He is half a fucking annoying bastard, since he's whiny because his life choices means when the pretty girl turns up in the first episode he can't court her as well as he wants. He is the least annoying one of the four though, since he at least has the social awareness to be a normal person, or at least try his best to be one
Next we have his roomate, Sheldon. He is the most annoying person in the entire show. He's the autistic one with a high IQ. He's egotistical one who believes and acts like he's better than everyone else, not understanding basic human concepts, correcting everyone's slight mistakes with long winded speechs about whatever, and completely self centered. I actually know someone like this IRL and it's the most annoying shit in the fucking world - I don't want to watch an even worse version of him for entertainment
Next is their friend, Howard. He is the creepy one. The mouth breather who always drops the pick up lines on women thinking it will get him somewhere. Most of the time it won't work because it's creepy, but once in a while it does because that is funny too! He's also Jewish, but because we have to get a;; these top notch Jewish jokes into the show! Haha, talking about circumcision as a chat up line!? How crazy!
The last nerd is Rajesh, the black one from India. Probably dragged in so the show can't be described as racist (there literally has not been one other black person in the show who has got a line) he is Leonard lite, apart from the fact he can't talk to women. That is 90% of his jokes right there - when there are women around he literally cannot speak. Because he's a nerd and he's shy. When women aren't around he isn't so bad, but goddamn son that is some anime shit right there
Lastly is Penny, the cute girl Leonard likes. She is esentially a blank slate. She is pretty, "normal" and gets frustrated with the guys nerdiness but seems to like them anyways. Her personality is set to "love interest" and is essentially non existant beyond that. She may as well be a blow up doll, although the actor playing her does her best with how little she actually gets to work with
Now, I'm sure you can guess where the show is going. Have Leonard fall for her and try to woo her, have the other nerds slowly exit their shells and learn to be better people and at the end Leonard gets the girl. That is exactly what happens, except all the character progression bits. You may notice that watching the characters change and evolve is the most interesting part of any show is the most interesting part of it - you'd be right. There is literally none in here
In the first episode the scene is set. You meet the characters, their situations, and the set up for the entire first season - Leonard likes Penny but is unable to make a move due to nerdiness. In the last episode of the season he makes a move and they get together. Everything in between is mostly Leonard's failed attempts of making a move or some kind of nerdy event with his other nerds. Every episode is stand alone, which is helpful to let people dip in and out, not so helpful when you want to build things like narrative
Things like continuity is important in sitcoms. If something happens to a character in an earlier episode, do you know how easy it is to reference it later? There's no real timeline to it, it's just a bunch of arbitrary events that happen to the people in the show for no rhyme or reason. Nothing they do goes anywhere or has any meaning, so why even bother watching it?
The humour is also pretty bad. It references a lot of nerd culture, but it goes one of two ways. Either it exaggerates it to such an extent that it's borderline ridiculous and thus the humour is formed. Haha, the four nerds are trying to build a shelf from Ikea but they argue about wasted space so they are altering the plans with all these intricate science terms to make it better, then leaving to set this up while the woman struggles to build it! Isn't that just silly!?
The other way is just straight up quoting from nerd culture. In one episode, the autistic guy gets a rival who is younger and smarter than he is. He literally says "There is a disturbance in the force" after the rival leaves, with Leonard then doing a Yoda impression. You see, they were quoting Star Wars! Do you get it!? Haha, boy these nerds are just crazy!
And that's where the show fails - it has no subtelty and it has no faith in its own audience. The exagerations usually stem from the nerds making rereference to an obscure scientific theory that most people won'tknow or understand, so by overexplaining it it becomes borderline ridiculous and that is funny. It's really not. The straight up quotations, not even little references or nods, is just insulting to the intelligence of it's viewer
Which begs the question - just who is the target audience for the show? As much as it is about a bunch of nerds, it's not aimed at nerds, for reasons I've mentioned here in long, pretty boring detail. So it's aimed at a more "casual" audience (NOTE: I hate the term casual when referring to things like this because it's fucking dumb, but I'm using it anyways. Fuck all y'all) the kind of person who loved Friends but hasn't filled the hole after it finished. The people who might get the quotes, even though they may as well follow it up with the writer walking on screen and saying "IT'S A QUOTE FROM THIS MOVIE. WE ARE MAKING A REFERENCE TO IT. WE ARE DOING THIS TO MAKE YOU REALISE THEY ARE NERDS!" although they won'tfollow the exagerations at all. They are just there to be ridiculous, and would work so much better if they didn'tdo this several times an episode
Now, where can the show go from here? The main guy and the girl have got together after season one. Either the relationship will be rocky and they break up leading to awkward break up friends scenario before they probably get back together, or they'll struggle at first but eventually get along and live happily ever after. I'm guessing the latter, since it has very little conflict and chances for personal growth of the characters involved. which is apparently the MO of the show
If you want to watch a sitcom, go with How I Met Your Mother, a sitcom that has good actors playing some good characters, a very tight script and is actually funny. If you want to watch 4 horrible people and an attractive woman do nothing for 22 episodes then watch the first season of The Big Bang Theory. I'm going to watch Season 2 and will probably type more words about it later, but again at least it's not me spending weeks on twitter saying "UUURRRRGGGH THIS SHOW IS SO BAD IT MAKES ME WANT TO KILL MYSELF" over and over, because the only thing more boring than this fucking blog post is me shitting up an actual funny place
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