It seems to me that many of us have one friend from high school who, no matter what you do, they won’t go away.
You desperately want to move on and put that stage of your life behind you, yet they’re still annoyingly present.
For me, this “friend” is The Big Bang Theory.
Things obviously change after we graduate high school, which was the only time I ever liked this dumpster fire of a television show.
When I was an incredibly naive 14-year-old and The Big Bang Theory was still relatively new, I laughed at it easily. It was the new show that everyone loved, referenced and mimicked at every turn.
This was a time of ignorance, when hearing “bazinga” yelled down a school hallway didn’t make me physically clench every muscle uncomfortably and start twitching with annoyance.
Yet, it didn’t take me long to realize a definitive and eventually unavoidable flaw in the show’s overall execution: it just wasn’t that good.
The laugh track unceasingly chants over the most miniscule moments, so that I question my sanity at the end of every episode, making me wonder why I’m not chiming in with everyone else over their zany and wacky antics onscreen.
We get it, for fuck sakes.
They’re all nerds, so that means they’re funny!
This entire concept was something that grew stale really quickly.
At first, it seems innocent enough.
They’re a bunch of misfit guys who are not stereotypically masculine.
They’re awkward and just want to learn the mysterious ways of women.
Here we insert Penny, the pretty plot device that makes me want to write an angry letter to CBS complaining like an old man who yells at kids to get off his lawn.
She’s quite literally a stereotypical dumb blonde who is constantly labelled as a “slut” and used for objectification by the group of elitist, privileged morons across the hall, who also find amusement in making fun of their ultra quirky friend, Sheldon, who doesn’t understand social norms.
Penny is painted to be the stupid one, but at least she manages to function like a normal human being in society and is by far the most well-adjusted person these idiots know.
I may not be her biggest fan, but this show takes endless pleasure in demeaning the intelligence of others if they don’t have a PhD or don’t know the ins and outs of every Star Trek episode by heart.
It’s sickening to think that this 20 minute problem has been on air long enough to garner 10 seasons of insipid canned laughter and debated salaries for each actor that are well over a million dollars each.
Every character is an asshole.
Leonard is debatably the most narcissistic little man of the bunch.
Raj gives me feelings that I can equate to accidentally stepping in goose poop.
Howard is basically a Pepe meme come to life.
Sheldon isn’t too much better, but he’s outwardly unpleasant 99.9 per cent of the time, so I’ve become adapted to his crappy disposition more easily than the others.
Amy and Bernadette merely exist to counteract the poor behaviour of their respective boyfriends, though they aren’t necessarily positive or progressive representations of intelligent women.
Amy is depicted to be nearly as socially inept as Sheldon and dowdy in her overall appearance.
Bernadette is shrill, jealous and “crazy” with her behaviour when dealing with Howard.
Both of these characters are reduced to servicing their boyfriends and doing nothing that would overshadow them in any possible way that would make them feel insecure.
The problems with this show are endless, but it’s come to a point where I have serious doubts as to whether or not The Big Bang Theory will ever actually end.
They keep being renewed season after season and I just found out they’re making a fucking prequel called Young Sheldon.
That sounds like a creation from the mind of Patrick Star if he scrambled to think of an idea to pitch at the last minute, just pointed at a poster of the cast and muttered, “what if Sheldon is a child … we could make even more money… bazinga.”
Much like Patrick Star, that seems like it’ll only be funny to anyone who literally lives under a rock.
I believe that all things have a shelf life, no matter how good they are or how much I love them.
It’s part of the entertainment cycle of life: that everything must come to an end.
Sometimes, the sooner you decide to make this decision, the better.
It seems that for a long while yet, I’ll have to inadvertently endure it and hope that if I ever hear its Barenaked Ladies theme song again, it’ll be during my descent into hell.