Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang theory is a very popular TV sitcom that follows the daily lives of four friends -- Sheldon, his best friend Leonard, Raj and Howard. Those are the main characters of the show and are all scientist at a university. Other main characters of the show are the girlfriends of Leonard, Sheldon and Howard, namely, Penny, Amy and Bernadette.

The comedy this TV show offers was planned by the producers to be clever and making jabs at popular culture. The main characters are supposed to be real-life nerds that are living real nerdy lives. The anti-character here is Penny, who is the only main character that is not a scientist. Unfortunately, the comedy in this TV show often falls back on Penny’s stupidity and ignorance by letting main characters like Sheldon constantly make fun and / or harass her lack of knowledge.

Sheldon, which the show puts a lot of emphasis on, is a theoretical physicist and seems to have a very high IQ but is entirely socially inept and has no social skills whatsoever. But he is not the only character in this sitcom with failed social integration. For example Raj cannot talk when there are women nearby listening, unless he is drunk.

The problem with this forced ineptness is that this makes the TV show full of totally unbelievable characters. Everybody knows at least one nerd or geek and I’m sure most of those are quite unlike the ones portrait in this show. Actually, the most believable character in the whole show is Penny, which should be a comedic relief.

The show totally misses that geeks are not geeks because of their super intelligence and because they are socially inept.

All this means not that this show is bad, but it sure isn’t the best what could be made out of such versatile theme. The fact that the show always relies on the same patterns for comedy (which are not very smart by themselves anyway) shows that the writing is lacking what comedy is all about, the comedic factor.

Regardless, the Big Bang Theory is a quite popular show with many fans, but it could’ve been much better with a little bit more twist in comedy and overall a little more believable characters. Unfortunately the show is not going to change what it is and therefore will be quite forgotten in couple of years.  Just like the popcorn you ate the last time you watched a movie, nothing special.