On the advice of some friends, I bought Season 1 of The Big Bang Theory and started watching it. I had seen the pilot when the series premiered in the fall of 2007, but I don’t remember being particularly impressed. Leading lady Kaley Cuoco annoyed me too much, so I never gave the show a second chance.
Now I wish I would have stuck with the series because it’s actually a pleasantly funny comedy. I wouldn’t put it on the same level as How I Met Your Mother or 30 Rock, but it’s enjoyable, and the ensemble works well together.
The show centers around genius roommates Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon (Jim Parsons). Their world changes when beautiful blonde Penny (Cuoco) moves in across the hall. Well, really only Leonard’s world changes since he instantly falls for her. Sheldon is more perturbed than anything that Penny is interfering with his ordered world. Leonard and Sheldon’s best friends are the wannabe-womanizer Howard (Simon Helberg) and the timid Raj (Kunal Nayyar).
Despite the onslaught of math and science jokes, it’s an accessible show. If you made it past high school, chances are you’ll even find some of the physics jokes funny. And by the end of the first season, Cuoco started growing on me. I have to admit that she’s got some comedic chops, and I like that they haven’t turned her character into some glamorized version of a young woman living in Los Angeles. Penny is a struggling actress from Nebraska who scrapes by with her earnings from the Cheesecake Factory. The wardrobe department actually dresses her like someone who doesn’t have that much money. Let’s just say that Penny is nothing like a young Rachel Green from Friends.
I’m impressed with The Big Bang Theory because it not only managed to survive last year’s writers’ strike but also, unlike other sophomore series, its ratings get higher and higher with each passing week. Maybe I was biased at first because it’s executive produced by Chuck Lorre, the man behind the wretched and overly sexist Two and a Half Men. I guess I should have given Lorre more credit since he did do Cybill.
So if you’re looking for something to watch before How I Met Your Mother starts on Monday evenings, make sure to check out The Big Bang Theory. It’s one of the better comedies on TV right now. Thanks go out to Rachel and John for getting me to finally watch it!
Oh, and check out Chuck Lorre's vanity cards that appear at the end of every episode of Two and Half Men and The Big Bang Theory.
2 comments:
I'm so glad you started watching it! Sheldon is one of my favorite characters on TV.
I'm not caught up yet, but as of right now I still prefer the Big Bang Theory to HIMYM. Once a math major, always a math major, I guess...
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