‘The Big Bang Theory’ Eyes Young Sheldon Spinoff Prequel Series On CBS
Thoughts? Not sure if his 10 year old antics could sustain an entire show.
Laurie Metcalf would be a must!
We’ll see how far they get. The last time they tried something like this was with How I Met Your Father and that didn’t go anywhere.
CBS doing its best to make sure not to include People of Color in any of their shows.
ABC/Disney, shockingly, has cornered the market in racial exploitation sitcoms.
And no Jews in this one either.
Can anyone see any way this could possibly work? A character like Sheldon is fine, sharing one of the top five billings in a show. Make him the star, though, and he’s just way too annoying. Plus, he needs other nerds to play off of, and it’s already established that the rest of his family is non-nerdy.
Much better to leave his past in vaguely-defined Noodle Incidents.
The only reason the Sheldon character is funny is because of Jim Parson’s performance, and even then it can occasionally go over the top. They’d really have to find a great actor and supporting cast. Of course Laurie Metcalf could carry a whole show practically by herself.
They should just do a flashback episode on the regular show, just to see how viewers respond.
The linked article says they’re planning to set the show when the character was twelve, when he was already in college. So it’s entirely plausible for there to be non-family nerds in the cast. And I think much of the humor is going to derive from his nerdiness against the non-nerdiness of his family.
In short, it can work with good writers and a good cast.
:rolleyes: Really? That’s your reaction to this? Amazing. And depressing.
They would have to get an incredible actor to play a young Sheldon, but I could see funny episodes and situations as a result. Sort of like The Wonder Years or Doogie Howser. Yeah, going back kinda far for those two.
Well she didn’t do that the The McCarthys. It lasted 11 episodes.
Metcalf is 61 years old. It would be hard to make her look like a believable mother for a pre-teen Sheldon. Possibly a teenage Sheldon.
If they want to do this then they don’t need to make the character Sheldon. It would be a Doogie Howser type show, the lead needs to be a more likable and relatable character.
I feel like the very young college student idea has been done before on TV, anyone remember something like that?
Doogie Howser is the closest to that I know of. I’m kind of surprised that there isn’t one like that on this list.
Let’s say this show (miraculously) is a hit and is on for several years. Young Sheldon will age and go thru these steps. (From the TBBT wiki.)
Age 11, enters college apparently straight from 5th grade.
Age 14, graduates, starts grad school.
Age 14 1/2, receives Stevenson award.
Age 16, first doctorate, a PhD.
Age 20, second doctorate, a ScD.
Not sure when he got his MS and MA.
Assuming the show starts with him at age 12 and runs at least 5 years, is he going to get his BS and PhD locally so that the show can still be centered on his family?
Where Sheldon got his degrees is something of a mystery. It is claimed online that he got his BS at UT Austin, but I don’t find a cite of this. He apparently got at least one graduate degree from CalTech (a diploma with that heading is shown in S06E09). He studied abroad for a while, including a lonely holiday in Germany where he was sick, and he presumably got his ScD around then.
Going to UT Austin and spending significant time with his family wouldn’t work unless the family moved.
Which brings up another issue. Sheldon routinely points out how poor his family was, their home was on wheels, etc. Also they have to go to Houston for medical reasons. But the nice house his mother lives in in Houston is clearly his childhood home given that his bedroom there still has all his toys, etc.
And where are they gonna find a 12-year-old who looks like a praying mantis?
He probably doesn’t have either. They aren’t required to get a PhD.
Sheldon has stated he has both. You can generally trust Sheldon. (Although, the aforementioned “2001” error raises questions.) And no one on the show has questioned his degrees.
Not sure about the MA, but when I was getting my PhD, after I had passed my qualifying exams I could have gotten a MS by paying $50 (this was quite a while ago) and filling out a form. I already had one and money was tight so I didn’t do it.
Perhaps he got the MA as part of the ScD program in a similar way.