Actually, that one is real. We get them just before we graduate, but then we swear an oath not to tell. I’m risking much just by
My husband and I are both Scientists (he’s a Mathematician/Physicist and I am a Microbiologist/Chemist) and we both love the show. I don’t tune into sitcoms to learn about Science, and the show is funny. I know every one of those people. You know, the scientists who argue that other people’s work is bunk. Or those who suck up to people to use their equipment. But mostly just the socially awkward who only seem to fit in with other equally socially awkward.
Anyway, the only show that really drives me crazy because of the science is the CSI series, and mostly it’s because they never mark their tubes.
I agree with this. I used to like the show a lot more, but after the writer’s strike, it seems to me that they concentrate a lot more on Sheldon’s annoyingness, which I find annoying and not all that funny. I remember thinking the show was more clever than the average sitcom when it started though. I still watch it, mainly because it makes fun of physicists. Being an astrophysicist, I know we’re way cooler ;). (I kid, I kid.)
I remember that scene, and I went back and watched it again to make sure I had it correct - basically, I saw Sheldon’s gesture (pointing to each level of a 3D chess board, for those who haven’t watched the clip) to be more jerkish than anything else. Sorta like he was rubbing it in Leonard’s face. I mean, I have a few friends (and I do it myself) that would probably, if in that scenario, use the exact same gestures as Sheldon did. Not 'cause we’re trying to ‘dumb something down,’ but because we’re jackasses who like puns. YMMV, of course.
Truer words about the true nature of BBT and HIMYM were never spoken.
For that matter, the female characters from HIMYM display quite a few geeky traits as well. Specifically all of the high-fiving (which they obviously picked up from Barney, but only a natural geek would keep doing it).
Yes, this show is offensive. It promotes a demeaning stereotype.
My parents watch it, and I’m a certified nerd. It makes me uncomfortable that they laugh at it. It would be like if I were really fat and they were laughing at one of those Eddie-Murphy-in-a-fat-suit movies.
Please.
I was afraid BBT would make fun of geeks when I first heard exactly what it was about, but then I actually watched it. It doesn’t make fun of us, it revels in all the geekery that we ourselves revel in.
Stuff the guys do is stuff I’ve done. This is perfectly summed up in the scene someone was talking about upthread when Penny asked them why they connected their stereo to the Internet. “Because we can” is the answer any certified geek would give.
Personally, I’m amazed that non-geeks can even tolerate BBT. It seems tailor-made for us, not them.
How does one become nerd-certified? Is there a test? Does the certificate come with a cape?
No, just a monogrammed pocket protector.
My milage varies. I got the same reaction as the quoted poster.
I tried a couple of episodes and I found it terrible. Sometimes, because they threw geeky references in and it seemed to be a replacement for humor. (Kind of like Family Guy or the Simpsons sometimes screws up with pop culture references.) And, that was annoying. But, I guess to be expected.
I did like the guy from Roseanne, and the tall geeky guy. I both found them amusing as actors, even if I thought they were working with dreck. The rest of the cast is forgettable, especially the extra geeky guy. (Sheldon? I am not sure.)
Which brings me to the worst part of the show, for me, they were using 70s sitcom tropes which weren’t especially funny at the time they were originally used. One episode I watched involved the geeky guy dealing with his mother. The mother is an unseen loud overbearing shrew. Part of the humor seemed to be that you never see her, ala the doorman in Rhoda. The thing was. She wasn’t funny, and neither was anything she said. Just dumb stereotypical Jewish Mother stuff. I was going to try a few more episodes, but this episode just blew me out of the water with how stale unfunny and awful it was.
As far as other sitcoms I like. I, of course, love the Office, and 30 Rock. Loved Arrested Development, Frasier and Seinfeld. Think that it is hard to surpass Mary Tyler Moore, The Dick Van Dyke Show or Bob Newhart in terms of sit com genius. And, I do like some lesser loved sitcoms. Reba always makes me laugh, and I often spend some time with Barney Fife in Mayberry.
In any case, I do enjoy a funny show. This show just doesn’t make me laugh. It does more to annoy me than anything else. And, while I am a geek, I am not a physics major nor do I have any problem if they make mistakes in science. I just don’t like the mistakes in comedy writing.
oops. Just watched the clip. Sheldon is one of the two actors I like, I guess. Don’t know the name of the guy I was thinking of.
So the point of the OP is that the show isn’t* geeky enough*?
Actually, the tall guy in the show is pretty humorless and likes to nitpick about the facts a lot. Maybe he wouldn’t like the show either!
Oops, missed your post, but we think alike!
Seeing as I am fairly large and laugh along with others at Eddie Murphy’s moves, I fail to see your point. I think you perceive someone laughing at a stereotype to mean they are laughing at you. People can laugh at jokes while knowing the stereotype is inaccurate.
Anyways, every sitcom on earth uses a stereotype, so, by your logic, you can’t laugh at any of them.
I dream of having the social life of anyone on The Big Bang Theory
a) It seems really fabricated. Like someone noticed the growth in geek culture and decided to make a sitcom to pander to that demographic. Which would be fine, except
b) It’s not that geeky, and it’s not that funny.
Arrested Development is a sitcom for geeks, because the best bits are in the details. BBT is not a sitcom for geeks, because it beats you over the head with jokes before cramming them up your extended metaphor.
Maybe I’ve watched too much Friends but it would be nice if the characters were more than stereotypes or sometimes sympathetic instead of just pathetic.
It probably didn’t help that everyone told me I would love it, being a geek. I was going to come and rant about how it was more of a straw-man freakshow than a sitcom, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair. It’s just that, for a sitcom, neither the sit nor the com is very good.
I was going to say the same thing. They make jokes about how unsuccessful the guys are, but over the course of two seasons we’ve seen them do pretty well for themselves. Leonard had a couple real relationships (not to mention a date with Penny), Howard found a couple women willing to sleep with him, and Raj got lucky a couple times too. Even Sheldon managed to attract a grad student, not that he knew what was happening.
Besides the scientific inaccuracies, it’s one of the things that bothers me most about the show, though I still enjoy it. I suppose they need something to fill up half an hour. The real life of a socially awkward geek is considerably less eventful.
Most real “socially-awkward” geeks I know don’t actually go out and try to meet anyone; these fellows do, at least occasionally.
Have I mentioned that I have a big crush on Jim Parsons? Sheldon’s a funny jerk, but I think Parsons is just ridiculously cute and (from interviews) an extremely intelligent and funny guy IRL.
I had a crush on Galecki during Roseanne, though not so much anymore (and once he’s been seen nekkid all over the Internet [google Galecki nude and you’ll have no- ahem- shortage of pics] the thrill is gone). I still love his scenes with Sara Gilbert though.
My favorite moments on the show are when Sheldon takes a mundane human custom like birthday parties or Christmas or dating or white-lies and dissects them endlessly. Vonnegut used to do this as well, and it was done on the better episodes of the (imo) wildly uneven Third Rock from the Sun. It’s always funny to see something we look at everyday in an alien capacity with its absurdity and illogic shown.
But, ultimately, de gustibus non est disputandum. (That there’s Latin for “folks who don’t like what I like just ain’t got no taste”.)
Galecki was a big draw for me, and I liked the beginning when they portrayed him as the “normal” geek who acted as translator between the other more geeky geeks and Penny. Lately he’s become a little bit of the “whiney” geek and I hope they tone that down a bit and return to the “geek diplomat” days.