The argument you make sounds exactly like those people who insist that Gallop can’t be right because they only surveyed 2000 people and surely they need to go ask the other 300 million if they’re going to have valid information.
Even judging a show based on its advertisements should be fair game (at least for purposes of this poll, not necessarily for critical scholarly analysis). After all, these advertisements were designed with the purpose of attracting viewers. If they can’t put anything funny in a 30-second commercial, why should the other 265,000 seconds be any better?
While I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite show (I just don’t watch enough tv to have a favorite show), I do enjoy it when I see it and it does make me laugh. I grew up in an incredibly nerdy university-town environment where the majority of my neighbors were some type of eccentric genius, so I appreciate a lot of the ‘in’ jokes that are used in the writing. They get a lot of things right in their characterizations, even though they are intended to be stereotypes utilized for the purpose of humor. The unsophisticated enthusiasm over what most would consider childhood toys or interests, the intense focus when something/anything catches their attention, the way many ordinary common sense things just whoosh over their heads, the professional backbiting and jealousy that seems out of character or just plain below them, all of that is quite real.
I love the early episodes; those of the last few years not so much. I think it started going downhill with the episode where Sheldon spoiled Harry Potter for Leonard.
Sure, obviously, it doesn’t have the same cultural/historical weight behind it.
But I think you’re being too kind to it in your first paragraph. Sure the nerds are protagonists. But much of the humor of the show still comes at their expense, from mocking them. And, speaking as a lifelong nerd, their characterization just did not ring true. Most of the people I know are nerds of one sort or another. Hell, I work at a video game company. And none of my friends or coworkesr look or act like the characters on BBT. Sure, the fact that BBT exists is part of a general societal thawing of attitudes towards nerds, now we’re for more than just shoving into lockers or what have you. And BBT is certainly better than, say, Weird Science. But the attitude of the show is not (at least to me) “sure, they’re nerds, and they do nerdy stuff, but also they live their lives… let’s watch and enjoy”, rather it’s “they’re nerds, isn’t that HILARIOUS, man they’re so WEIRD”. Which is better than “they’re nerds, let’s beat them up”, but that’s damning with faint praise.
That said, I do know a few people who really love it (although not any of my actually nerdy friends), and hey, if they enjoy it, more power to them.
If you want an actually sympathetic and somewhat realistic nerdy character on a TV show, I suggest Ben Wyatt on Parks and Rec.
I picked the second option, because it isn’t my favorite show. But it is my favorite current sitcom, the only sitcom I watch new episodes of within a week of their airing.
I’m torn because I have an active dislike of all the male characters (essentially the same person with minor variations) but I like all the female characters–a far more significant range of personalities and style of humor. So I watch for them–not habitually, but often enough that I’m familiar with the storylines and history.
They also do a good job with famous cameos (the most recent one I saw was Adam West) and those are very funny and well-done. Bob Newhart earned his only Emmy from this show, and that was very well-deserved.
Also, once in a while, the insufferable Sheldon gets his comeuppance–not often enough, but sometimes, and those moments are satisfying.
Not only that, but most of the “top-rated” sitcoms are not funny, as far as I’m concerned. If a television show is actually different, even its worst episode will indicate that, and it will leave you at least a little curious to see another episode. That didn’t happen with the one episode I’ve seen.
I just don’t think traditional sitcoms are funny; in fact, I think the traditional sitcom is just a dead form, and that one episode of BBT I saw gave no indication that it was really anything different from a traditional sitcom, in a not-so-clever disguise.
I supposed if I had more time I’d give it another chance. (BTW, the episode I saw was one in which one of the characters is obsessed by a bird on the window ledge, and another is all in a twist because he goes out to a movie with his ex girlfriend. If that is indeed the show’s worst episode, I might give it another shot, but really, that episode was such a typically bad example of a sitcom that they’d have to do a lot to redeem themselves.)