After airing for about 12 years and setting the record for being the longest-running multi-camera series ever, The Big Bang Theory is finally going to end its course. We have seen it before how difficult it is for the show-runners to maintain the quality of content as the show progressively reaches new levels of fame. However, The Big Bang Theory has reached even newer levels by degrading its humor to such a point that even the hardcore big bang theorists rejoiced when the producers finally announced that the 12th season was going to be the final season.
The show began as a story of four Caltech Employees, three of them were brilliant and nerdy scientists and one was the brilliant, nerdy and horny engineer. In the beginning, people loved the concept of situation comedy that was introduced through this TV Series. It was fresh, funny, sharp and something new which the world of sitcoms hadn’t experienced before. Until then, most of the sitcoms were pretty much alike. But The Big Bang Theory introduced the world a glimpse in the life of nerdy, childish and genius fools who found it hard to get out of their comfort zone and confidently act in social situations.
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The show even displayed cultural diversity by introducing an Indian character, Rajesh Koothrapalli whose incapability towards talking to women made him lovable. Jim Parson’s memory for remembering long dialogues and adding minute details for things which aren’t even noticed by other actors added magic to the show. Sheldon’s inability to understand sarcasm, Leonard’s failed attempts of dating Penny, Raj’s weird insecurities and Howard’s creepy tricks to get laid; all the above things helped the sitcom to become the funniest sitcom airing at the time through all the initial seasons.
People even started comparing it with F.R.I.E.N.D.S and How I Met Your Mother. The show made the audience feel affectionate towards its simple yet relatable characters as it was focused to make the nerds look cool but after the 6th season, the show started to lose its essence. The Big Bang theory hit a lot of milestones, reached peaks of fame, won a lot of awards and then the writers decided to change the core theme of the story. The laugh tracks that were used seemed unnecessary and jokes were non-existent.
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The main reason why other sitcoms like F.R.I.E.N.D.S, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, etc didn’t degrade to this level was because of their awareness that the core should always be the same. After the 5th season, when Bill Prady stepped down as the head writer, the show moved forward without any specific direction. Sheldon lost his charm, Leonard got into a boring relationship with Penny, Howard got married and Rajesh just got weirder. The show was amazingly humorous when there were 4 geeks and 1 hottie but as new characters got added and the existing characters started changing the main reason why they were loved so much, it apparently changed the way audience viewed the show.
At this point, the show is all about a lot of boring content and one weird joke which makes the audience roar in unnecessary laughter and eats about 10-15 seconds of the running time for that specific moment. There were way too many plots and interesting issues that could have been used in the episodes instead of burning the old fumes of nostalgia. But the writers decided to go forward without any plot building and character development causing stagnation and making the situation even worse. Now that the last 10 episodes are remaining, all we can hope for is a good ending so that we can finally make peace with the fact that our lovable characters have finally got what they deserved.
So to sum up, in this world of money-hungry producers and fame-hungry actors, the content of the sitcoms will keep degrading and the world of sitcoms might never be the same as it used to in the 2000s.
