Aged like a first-class bottle of milk.
First season or two was alright. Not great, but alright. Early on, it felt more like a show made for nerds. There were lots of niche references to nerd culture that the casual viewer wouldn’t catch. They intentionally kept them niche and vague, because they knew that’s the kind of shit nerds love.
But as the series progressed and they began aiming at a wider audience, the references were aimed more at the casual viewer. It shifted from a show that was for nerds, to a show that was making fun of nerds. The viewership shifted away from former nerds, and suddenly it was the former bullies watching it instead.
It truly lost itself when it became a relationship drama. At that point it was just a bland milquetoast sitcom with one-liners and “will they won’t they” types of writing. Name a sitcom and you can probably think of a few solid jokes from it… But that isn’t really true for BBT. It didn’t really have any solid memorable scenes, because they all eventually blurred together.
Usual Chuck Lorre series lifecycle. Many are pretty good, for their 1st, 2nd, seasons. Then they should die gracefully.
I watched two episodes before bouncing off hard. No idea how it got as popular as it did, because the jokes were just low effort and lazy.
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.
Laugh track bullshit that basically tracks as “you-know-of-star-trek-then-you-know-nerd”
Call them all nerdy!… then give them miracle careers, a girlfriend with porn doll voice and no real heartache and yea…
hey penny! i´m a nerd without social skills. here´s a niche pop-culture reference you won´t understand. BOTSWANA
It’s for nerds that hate themselves.
In my opinion, it’s not as bad as people claim it to be, but It’s far from being great as well.
I think it was easier to watch when it came out, but from memory I enjoyed it. I remember thinking the show was kinda accurate regarding nerdy references (compared to other movies and series of the time) and I thought it was cool.
The big bang theory killed my parents.
I thought it was funny when it came out, but it hasn’t aged well at all. Very cringey and stereotypical, with a slight tinge of homophobia.
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.
Yeah, that’s what I told my grandmother when she wanted me to watch it. It was like the show was portraying nerds as other people see them when we start gushing about a niche interest.
“Nerdface” I have called it.
Wow, that’s incredibly succinct and accurate.
This is a great way to put it! Totally agree
Shallow and pedantic
Hmm, yes, shallow and pedantic.
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.
Comparing The IT Crowd to The Big Bang Theory is like comparing Pavarotti to a braying lamb.
BBT is the braying lamb, for the avoidance of doubt.
i agree, but why?
Well let’s start with the jokes. They are just subjectively funnier, with many tie-backs and connections (Seinfeld/CYE long running set ups).
TITC is laughing at the normies and celebrating the geeks. TITC isn’t afraid to be really funny, which means recognising the human condition and laughing with it. The characters aren’t “good people who fail”, they are “humans who fail”, which mean we recognise them and empathise with them. Who hasn’t wanted to give a really impressive speech and said some bullshit.
BBT is bland. The characters are bland, with only external failures. The jokes dare not really poke fun at anyone and the jokes are sentence-long. Finally the actors and the script just aren’t as out there, so it all just feels dull as dishwater.
the one scene that really got me to pause was when moss laughs at a circuit board. i’ve been that guy. i’ve laughed with colleagues about bad hardware design. but… the audience is not consisting solely of electronics engineers. they’re laughing at him. more exactly, they identify with jen in that scene, and joins her in thinking moss is weird.
Yes, I agree.
But I think you need to see it in the larger context. Episode 1, and much of season 1 (series 1 as we would call it here in the UK), is about moving into their world so we get to known them and appreciate them. Jen is the viewers’ guide into this world and her journey towards becoming one of them is the viewer’s journey. So what starts as a laugh at geeks ends up sympathising with the geeks (“but we did all the work!!”) and becoming the geeks (observe how Jen’s office starts as a managers office but slowly ends up with Manga artwork).
So her laughing at the geeks, and her inability to understand them (white noise), is crucial because it takes the viewer’s hand and leads them into the basement.
The most powerful example of this journey is when Jen becomes entertainment manager (“It’s not for you!”) and we have one of the show’s genuinely touching moments , whwn Roy grapples with his breakup and finds release in a session of tabletop RPG. This moment works so well because of the strength of the actors, the script and the fact that it has brought the viewer into the circle; the normies are now loud, obnoxious “business men” who are set free by adopting geekiness.
idk man. s3e2 (the “ludicrous display” ep) has an extended bit about moss being anal about staples. it’s still laughing at him. and there’s no foil for him there, the gag is just that he wants to know how many staples have been used.
Yes I actually agree. Moss is definitely the butt of some jokes, but he gets so much love in other places that I can stomach it, despite feeling like the show isn’t always completely kind to him.
The IT Crowd is a show about a group of fools getting into ridiculous situations at work. It’s a good laugh and has some classic moments. My partner doesn’t make or get tv/movie references, but even she can drop references from it into casual conversation.
Big Bang Theory is a bland comedy that wants to be much more than it is - relationship drama, social exploratory, situational comedy. But it tends to fail 90% of the time, and the closer it gets to ‘relationship drama’ the more grating it gets.
Something I realized while reading this is that I can’t think of any quotes from it. Besides “Bazinga”, but that was designed to be intentionally annoying and then was used to mock the show.
I can think of references to basically every other sitcom I’ve seen, and I can vaguely remember some scenes from BBT, but nothing quotable. My spouse liked it, so I’ve seen every episode at least once, but it was honestly pretty forgettable.
My verdict was originally “not bad”. But maybe being forgettable was it’s best quality.
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)
interestingly it crowd was apparently filmed with an audience.
All episodes had live audience. Doesn’t mean all the laughter is real laughter, though, but there was definitely a live audience.
There was something about it I found obnoxious. It was just kind of lazy and, although the cast did a decent job, the writing was meh.
I loved the nerdiness of the show but it was more like they were making fun of them instead of laughing with them.
I totally related to almost all of the culture since I’m a giant nerd
