For the record, laugh tracks are forgivable when the comedy is funny. When it’s not funny, the laughter in the can is laughing *at *you instead of *with *you.
Humor is subjective, sure, but I just don’t find this show funny at all. But I’ll usually just wander off to do something productive when my boyfriend wants to watch it, so it’s probably good for me 
I like BBT, but that’s not why I’m posting. I don’t care if other people don’t like it; in fact, I can definitely understand why many people don’t.
I’m posting because I’m wondering how “being shown on television” equates to “being shoved down one’s throat.” Remote controls are neat little gizmos.
SenorBeef doesn’t strike me as being especially agitated in his above posts. Do you have some reason to think otherwise?
I’ve had at least half a dozen people (about an even split of nerds and non nerds) recommend this show to me, largely based on the fact that I’m into a lot of culture that people consider nerdy. I held out against watching it for a long time because I didn’t feel like it could live up to the hype. I watched a couple episodes of it with my sister a few months ago, and thought it was decent, but not spectacular. I haven’t gone out of my way to see any more episodes since then.
A lot of my problem was that the characters just seemed too stereotypical. Most people who are considered nerds have at least something about them that isn’t stereotypically nerdy, but (in the episodes I watched) everyone was (or at least struck me as) a walking stereotype rather than a person.
I didn’t really get the feeling that the show was providing simple math and science references as low-hanging fruit to make the viewer feel smarter.
Maybe if I’d seem more episodes or had them fresher in my memory, I’d have felt differently, but from the few episodes I saw, that’s my reaction.
And perhaps a pitting of friends who recommend stuff …
How many of these people who continually recommend this show to him actually read the SDMB?
Sure. Is there something about what I’ve said that indicates that I’m a steaming ball of rage? Am I not supporting my opinions or something? Is my typing devolving into a random series of letters as I smash my face against the keyboard?
This is pretty funny. The implication that I’m not a “decent human being” because I make a value judgement on other people based on the entertainment they watch? I might as well go ahead and become a rapist thieving murderous pirate ninja then since I’ve been disqualified from the “decent human being” pool anyway.
Do “valid criticisms” in your view only come without value judgements? If I said the exact same thing as I did before without the judgements on the motivations of the viewers, would my criticisms suddenly become more valid even though I’m saying the same thing more tactfully?
I’m actually not “berating people for liking something I don’t” - and this is an important difference - I’m berating people for feeling smart and smug and elitist and that they must be smarter than you if you don’t like it too.
Actually, I’m being even more specific than that. I’m pretty okay with someone who thinks liking arrested development makes them smarter than someone whose favorite show is George Lopez. My problem is actually people who feel smarter than you because they watch something that’s actually really fucking dumb but gives them the false impression that they’re smart because they’re not smart enough to realize it.
No, they’d need to fill it up with another thirty seconds of unfunny lameness.
“Sheldon, are you coming to bed?”
“No, I’m on sci.astro, and some dingbat is posting a totally inane analysis of Stephen Hawking.” <Laugh Track>
“Who cares? It’s three in the morning?” <Laugh Track>
“Don’t you get it? He’s WRONG.” <Laugh Track>
“So what? Just come to bed.” <Laugh Track>
“But he’s WRONG. On the INTERNET.” <Laugh Track>
Thanks, Sachertorte. It’s /Shvake/, actually. To be fair though, while I am glad that you consider me to be a decent human being, I think it’s perfectly fine to rail against a show you don’t like on a message board. To those who are saying that a remote control is a nifty device and that the OP can just change the channel: you are as compelled to come into this thread, read it, and then post that snarky thing as the OP is to continue watching Big Bang Theory.
My observations were different, though no less negative. I found too much of the humour relied on how cripplingly awkward and neurotic the characters were and not the pop culture/science references. In fact, the science references were often dumbed down: “As Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, the 18th century French nobleman and the Father of Modern Chemistry said as he being guillotined: ouch.” Too many of the science references were painfully over-explained, and served as little more than lead-ins to jokes that were barely at the level of “Don’t go there.”
Of course, I’m not a regular watcher. Maybe it’s gotten better. I did like one joke about a physicist trying to build a chicken coop and another about a scientist’s plan to pick up women in an ice-cream parlor, but in both cases these were actual jokes one character was telling another, as opposed to witticisms worked into the dialogue.
Also, shows like 30 Rock and Community have caused me to view laugh tracks with conditioned-reflex revulsion.
Comparing apples to toenails. Your comment would be valid if we were in the thread complaining about having to read the thread. Chosing to join a thread to point out the error of the OP is our duty as superior intellects (cite: we like TBBT 
) in keeping with the motto of this website.
Full disclosure: I’m incredibly pissed (well, as pissed off as I ever get about a TV show) that this garbage has apparently knocked off Community from NBC and the hour-long block of Office re-runs from my local non-affiliate bottom-of-the-barrel station.
Hell, My Name Is Earl has smarter jokes and better timing than this show.
Not really and good. Community got bumped because NBC insists on bringing back dreck like 30 Rock, and The Office was crap to begin with.
BBT forever!
well the bottom line is still that humor is subjective. I find the Office incredibly dull, & it seems to be re-run on my local stations a lot. sometimes it feels shoved down my throat by critics who like it (same for Parks & Rec, 30 Rock = do not like). but then I change the channel anyway.
I tried to watch one episode of BBT because I had heard it was funny. But I just couldn’t get beyond the laugh track. I assumed it was a pre-recorded track at first because of all the laughs at things that weren’t remotely funny, which was most things in the episode I saw. Later I found out it was filmed with a live audience.
OT - I have a similar problem with the Letterman show, though I still watch that regularly. On his show the theater audience laughs politely and then gives a round of applause to everything Dave says in the monologue, whether it’s a joke or not. If everything is funny, then nothing is funny.
My other problem with BBT was the gay character (Sheldon) who is apparently not gay. I just can’t comprehend him. I think this is a personal issue because I have never met a straight man who sounded and behaved that way. Although there may well be such people in the world, it’s alien to me.
Sheldon’s neither gay nor straight. Here’s an exchange from a season 2 episode:
Penny: I know this is none of my business, but I just… I have to ask - what’s Sheldon’s deal?
Leonard: What do you mean, “deal”?
Penny: You know, like, what’s his deal? Is it girls…? Guys…? Sock puppets…?
Leonard: Honestly, we’ve been operating under the assumption that he has no deal.
Penny: Come on, everyone has a deal.
Howard: Not Sheldon. Over the years, we have formed many theories about how he would reproduce. I’m an advocate of mitosis.
Penny: Excuse me?
Howard: I think one day Sheldon will consume too much Thai food and split into two Sheldons.
Leonard: On the other hand, I think Sheldon will evolve into the larval form of his species. He’ll wrap himself up in a cocoon and, two months later, will emerge with moth wings and an exoskelton.
Penny: Okay, well, thanks for the nightmares.
This is EXACTLY the problem.
I don’t watch the show. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t go into the weekly threads. And I flip the channel if it comes on.
So, when people repeatedly tell me I need to watch the show, even after I’ve told them this, it’s more than a little annoying.
I guess the appropriate venue is pitting the people who constantly recommend the show, but they’re not here.
“Just change the channel” ignores the OP, which deals with people who keep telling you to flip it back to that channel.
Drop the “bot”, call it Monday Night Football and you might have yourself a winner.
For the life of me I can’t imagine being angry or even bothered by a TV show. I just change the channel or shut it off. Plenty of much better things I could be doing anyway.
I’ve also had multiple people tell me to watch this show (“You’re a geek! You would love it!”). So far, I have only seen a few minutes of a couple different episodes, which is hardly a thorough sample, but I’m not impressed.
One episode featured Johnny Galecki bringing his mom to “bring your mom to work day” and she started talking about all his siblings and how much more successful they are than he. When she left the table, one of the friends said that he was “like the Jar Jar Binks of the family,” then proceeded to imitate Jar Jar Binks to mock him. That joke doesn’t even make any sense! Do we know how successful Jar Jar Binks was in relation to his other siblings? Hell, in the prequel movies HE IS THE FUCKING SENATOR FOR THE PLANET OF NABOO, I DOUBT HIS SIBLINGS ARE DOING BETTER THAN THAT.
End nerdrage.
As a matter of fact, I do. See my response below.
No, which is why I never accused you of such. There is, however, a huge middle ground between being perfectly calm and being a steaming ball of rage. In fact, the fact that you imply otherwise doesn’t exactly bespeak of a dispassionate, perfectly objective demeanor.
I understand that BBT is not to your liking, and as I said, I’m not a huge booster of the show. I also understand that people have different tastes in humor. However, when someone insists that people only watch the show because they want to feel smug about their greater intelligence – in other words, imputing vile motives on total strangers as though they were cartoon caricatures rather than recognizing the complex tastes and motivations that real world people have – well, those are hardly the words of someone who is evaluating the situation in a perfectly calm manner.
You’re making a weird connection between rightness and calmness. One can calmly be wrong and be right in a rage. Because you think I’m wrong in my assessment doesn’t mean I’m spitting Bill Cowher style while screaming it.
In any case, for someone appealing to the middle ground, you’re certainly leaving it out when you say that I’m declaring that the only reason people watch it is the unjustified sense of smugness. I’m only saying that there are clearly people who watch it for that reason, since that strikes me as the main appeal.
FWIW, I’m sure there are lots of people who inaccurately assess that the show is smart, or feel smart for watching it, who aren’t assholes thinking about how much smarter they are than people who don’t watch it. But I still think it’s a dumb way to feel.