The Big Bang Theory
CBS. Mondays at 8:30.
Starring Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, and Kaley Cuoco
This is the first pilot I watched, and watching this one first is, I believe, a good way to start watching pilots. Because I truly hope the quality can only go up from here. This painful painful half-hour sitcom from Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady deals with two nerds and their hot new girl neighbor. It has predictable jokes, like the nerds rewatch Battlestar Galactica, and insult each other’s quantum mechanics. Once the girl neighbor pops into the picture, it only gets more awkward and groan inducing. See, the nerds don’t know how to have regular social interactions. They’re awkward around girls and calculate the best spot in their apartment to sit in due to cross breezes and the direction of the TV. They have funny nerd things, like Star Wars shampoo and boards with incomprehensible equations. And, because they’re nerds, they have dietary problems, like lactose intolerance (because only nerds have that). Isn’t that funny? Oh, it’s not? Someone should tell Lorre and Prady.
The first episode deals with Sheldon and Leonard (Nerds can’t have regular names now either? No offense meant to anyone with the name Sheldon or Leonard) meeting Penny (Cuoco) and trying to get her TV back from her muscular ex-boyfriend. Pantsless hilarity ensues. Did I say hilarity? I didn’t mean it.
I think of myself as a nerd, and this show gives us a bad name. We’re not all socially inept girl-phobic people with bad hairdos. This is something the show doesn’t seem to realize. This upcoming season is supposed to be the season of the Nerd (with other shows like Chuck also being about nerds) but I really hope that this isn’t the representation that nerds are getting on television. If it is, it’s more than a little insulting.
That’s not to say that the show is a complete and utter unsalvageable trainwreck. Cuoco does bring energy and cuteness to the screen as Penny, and the two other nerd friends are so much more entertaining to watch that I wish that they were the main characters and Galecki and Parsons were the sidekick nerds. And the show does have the occasional mildly chuckle-inducing line, most of which have been already used to death in the promos. If the show focuses more on Cuoco’s character and highlights the other two nerds (meaning not Sheldon and Leonard) more, it might become something worth the occasional watch, but as it stands:
Rating: Not Worth Your Time
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