Bazinga

A few years back I saw a crappy looking American sitcom on my television. It looked like something you’d see before Frasier at six in the morning on Channel 4; it looked shit. Before I could reach for the remote control I laughed, and then again, and before I knew it, I loved The Big Bang Theory.

TBBT shouldn’t be funny. It’s largely set in one apartment, it has a laughter track, its characters are poorly constructed stereotypes including a token ethnic minority, it has a gimmick, it has everything most other sitcoms have, and therefore shouldn’t be funny. Initially I was confused, I was laughing at a show which I believed wasn’t funny, so was I just losing my sense of humour? I had to ask people if they had seen it and if they found it funny as well. I wasn’t crazy.

Despite having all the hallmarks of a shitcom, TBBT was different from anything else because its gimmick (science) has been so rarely used in comedy. Prior to TBBT Ross Gellar was the pinnacle of scientific comedy, the joke being that because he likes science, he’s a nerd and that’s funny. TBBT took that concept and made a whole show out of it, one scientist is funny, so four scientists would be four times the funny! It could have been terrible but the writers (initially) used the gimmick very well, making references to scientific concepts and theories proved to be funny as well as slightly educational, at least compared to the usual dumbed down cavalcade of American sitcoms.

Assuming that being a scientist means you’re smart, and that being smart makes you a nerd, and being a nerd means you like comics and Star Trek, and liking Star Trek makes you socially awkward, our four scientist protagonists are also four nerdy, socially awkward, scientist protagonists. While being stereotypical, it sort of makes sense, and the nerdiness of the show has added to the funnys. After all, there are only so many scientist jokes they can make, they need something else to fall back on.

Sadly, four seasons in, they’ve run out of both science and nerd related jokes, and directions for all five of the main cast. The majority of episodes are Sheldon-centric escapades; Whatever will this socially retarded genius do next? In the fourth season you would have expected some kind of progression for his character, instead we’ve had to go through the same “kooky mishaps” week in week out, listening to the ever present catchphrase “bazinga”, like an obligatory Scrubs pratfall, getting more annoying with each repetition.

The introduction of a potential girlfriend for Sheldon should have been much funnier than it actually was, pairing him with a female carbon copy was like introducing the exact same character. It would have been far more interesting/entertaining/funny to pair Sheldon with a “normal” woman, seeing him out of his comfort zone and interacting with society. What we got was two “Sheldons” sharing the same punch lines.

Girlfriends have been something of a theme for this season, and in a sense cavorting has replaced science as the show’s main gimmick. After it became quickly apparent that the Sheldon-Sheldon relationship was going nowhere we’re left with the irritating Howard-Bernadette and Leonard-token Indian girl relationships. Putting these characters in relationships has ruined the whole dynamic of the show. It’s just like Yoko and the Beatles. Leonard plays the part of a straight man, facilitating Sheldon’s comedy, while also providing a compulsory Ross-Rachel thing with Penny. Meanwhile Howard provides the “humorous” latent homosexual bromance with Raj. Putting Leonard and Howard in relationships not only made their characters boring and redundant, but also Raj’s and Penny’s, leaving the comedy of the show dependant on Sheldon, who we established isn’t that funny anymore.

The other consequence of this is that we’ve been introduced to three new characters, who are all irritating. Leonard’s girlfriend Priya may have been written intentionally irritating in order to contrast her with Penny in a later episode, but she’s really irritating. I don’t want to be annoyed for several episodes just so they can do what they did with Ross, Rachel and that Chinese woman in Friends. These are supposed to be socially awkward scientists/nerds, they’re lucky to get one girlfriend, let alone a fucking pick of them.

This season just hasn’t jumped the shark, it’s fucked the shark. From Raj’s Bollywood dance dream sequence to his hook up with Penny, it’s been an absolute catastrophe. Oh what was that? Yes, Raj fucked Penny, in Leonard’s bed! The writers mustn’t have know what to do with them, so they just got them to fuck, that’ll spice things up. What are they thinking? Let’s throw all rationality out of the window! Let’s introduce an alien in the next season, that’ll be funny, Sheldon and an alien, and the alien is more human than Sheldon, HA HA FUCKING HA. The alien is smarter than Sheldon and Sheldon doesn’t like that, HA HA FUCKING HA. It’ll happen, they’ll do it, those crazy writers, they’ll put an alien in, and it’ll hook up with Penny, and that will be more rational and plausible than Raj fucking her! This season has been a text book example of how to ruin a good show. If this was the intention of the writers then they have succeed with aplomb. I will pretend that there were only ever three seasons of The Big Bang Theory, and that they were funny.