I hate to say it, man, but I have not been digging The Big Bang Theory at all lately. I remember when the show first started and it was intelligent, and fun, and different from everything else, and so what if it didn’t appeal to everyone, because it appealed to the people who “got” it. Now it’s insipid, unfunny, almost cartoonish. It’s turned into every other mediocre sitcom on TV, and I suspect the writers/producers aimed for that because the ratings are apparently sky-high. So now, instead of appealing to the people who “get” it, it appeals to everyone, and nobody “gets” it.
I’m tired of every episode turning into this awkward-fest of men vs. women, which I’ve noticed increasingly with sex-segregated scenes.
I’m tired of Sheldon having shifted from clueless to flat-out cruel, especially in the latest episode. The egg salad thing was beyond painful, and while his upbringing does account for why he said that to the HR woman, everything else in that scene was SO unnecessary.
I’m tired of Penny being given chances to go to school or whatnot and then the writers going “LOLJK” and copping out by having her purchase a pair of “nerd” glasses. She’s supposed to be the person the audience identifies with, yet her original friendship with the guys seems to have dissipated and now she’s back to her role of “hot girl surrounded by nerds.”
I’m tired of Raj having no character development and practically being the same pathetic, whining guy he’s been since the first season. I used to ship Raj/Howard like a mother, and then Raj/Stuart when Howard was still in space earlier this season. But the writers won’t suck it up and out-and-out make Raj gay, or give him a way to speak to women in a non-creepy fashion. Why? Because apparently it’s funnier to laugh at him than laugh with him.
That’s really what the gist of the show seems to be now: The audience laughs at the four main characters, instead of with them. It’s not accepting or embracing “nerd” culture—it’s satirizing it, by having “normals” dressed in nerd clothing. There was a Halloween episode a while back where Penny’s meathead ex-boyfriend was trying to get her back or something, and he was obviously a big dolt who didn’t “get” Leonard or the other guys. So we were clearly rooting for Leonard to get the girl instead.
But now it’s Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj who don’t “get” everyone else, and they’re seemingly written as stereotypically as possible, so that the “normals” don’t have to feel bad about not understanding them. The thing is, whatever sympathy we’re meant to have for the characters is fading fast, because the writers clearly aren’t in their corner anymore, and they don’t want us to be, either.
And if that’s the case…who is there left to root for?
