The Big Bang Theory (the show, not the theory)

Tonight is the season finale of The Big Bang Theory (on CBS at 7:00 in the best timezone), so today seemed as good a time as any to share my thoughts about the show.

When I read the opinions of "hip" people on the internet (mostly here and here), there seem to be two main reactions to The Big Bang Theory. The first and most common one is "When I heard about this show, I thought it would be stupid. But then I watched it, and it's actually pretty good!" This is the reaction that Neal and I had as well. It's from the guy that also brings us Two and a Half Men (which I find to be an insult to adult intelligence and, with its status as most popular comedy on TV, an embarrassment to the American public), and it's a standard (unhip) multi-camera, filmed-in-front-of-a-studio-audience affair. But on the other hand, it's about nerds. And the nerds talk about science and comic books and Star Wars/Trek and they never seem to be inaccurate. And the nerds (and their one lay friend) are endearing. And the acting is pretty good (compare the company Johnny Galecki keeps now with that he kept on Rosanne. Hoo dogies.) And it's just funny. It's a very pleasant and entertaining way to spend the half-hour before How I Met Your Mother comes on.

The second opinion I've seen (less frequently than the first one) is "This show is good--why doesn't it get the hipness cred of How I Met Your Mother?" But I think that's an easy question. To reach that next level of television awesomeness after "pleasant and entertaining," storytelling matters.

I like to compare The Big Bang Theory to Frasier. Everybody always talked about how "smart" that show was. But it wasn't--it was a show about smart people. They made jokes with big words and literary allusions, but the plots often went like this:

1. Frasier wants to attain something (status, professional recognition, a woman, ratings for his radio show, etc.)
2. Frasier encounters an obstacle
3. Frasier lies to get around said obstacle
4. The first lie leads to problems, which lead to ever increasing lies
5. Everything blows up in Frasier's face

That's not smart, that's hackneyed. The Big Bang Theory is similar in that it's about smart people who make jokes with big words and nerdy allusions and plots, though usually not hackneyed, are very very simple. I actually find it intriguing how stripped-down the plots are: the gang has to deal with one thing (maybe half the gang has to deal with something else in a B-plot, but not always), and that one thing is explored in what is almost a series of vignettes.

But that's not really what separates a show like The Big Bang Theory from a show like How I Met Your Mother. It's less the intra-episode storytelling than the inter-episode storytelling. Multi-episode storylines and continuity are how the people behind a TV show prove that they're paying attention--that they care about what they're doing--and that they trust their viewers to keep up and to care about the show.

The Big Bang Theory will do continuity in some ways--they introduced and then have re-used Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock, for instance. But sometimes they betray continuity in big ways: Johnny Galecki's character had a serious relationship with Sara Rue, but then she was just gone, never so much as mentioned again. That's lame. Similarly, Darlene used to be a semi-regular on the show. In her last episode, she started dating Howard (the Jewish nerd. Hey, it's not my stereotype, it's the show's). There was no break-up at the end of the episode. Nobody mentioned her for weeks and weeks, then there was an episode where she broke up with him (over the phone, so they didn't have to pay her), and we were supposed to buy that he was all devastated about it, even though he hadn't talked about her for five episodes.

So, again, I do like this show. I just don't think it's a "great" show, one that achieves a place in my metaphorical TV Hall of Fame. That said, I'm totally going to watch it tonight, because it makes me laugh.