Fully Functional.
The Big Bang theory always felt like a stupid person’s idea of what smart people are like.
Also, from the couple of episodes I watched, apart from being terribly unfunny, it felt like the whole point was just to mock neruodivergent people.
There was nothing smart about BBT, that’s for sure. It’s just annoying and stupid.
Some of the earlier seasons did have some clever jokes. One every 4 episodes or so. Less frequent than what you find in children’s shows meant for adults. But, “nothing”, is something a sith would say
Essentially just the first season. The show was massively retooled after that because the executives felt the jokes went over people’s heads.
Well, money wise that was probably a good plan. I can’t see the show as it was in the first season running as long as the real show did or having the mass appeal it does.
I hated that show. My mother would constantly make comparisons between Sheldon and I.
That shit hurts, mom…
My wife actually love BBT and got me watching it. I still hate laugh track sitcoms, and as a Super Nerd a lot of things irritated me, but overall it’s not nearly as bad as I was expecting from all the meme hate.
Still, the meme is not wrong, Data had a fine positronic brain, sure, but He can kill a motherfucker when necessary.
Papa Soong didn’t raise no bitch.
You want someone to look tough? Have them knock down Worf. Want someone to look unstoppable? Have them subdue Data.
I found big bang theory a lot more palatable if you consider it as an unreliable narrator story, with penny as the narrator. It’s not what actually happened, but what Penny remembers about it. All the geeky/nerdy stuff gets filtered. Only the surface, superficial stuff gets remembered, and even that is distorted. That is why it plays on stereotypes so much.
My wife likes BBT, I’ve learnt to tolerate it at best.
I did grad school in planetary science while BBT was airing. I hated it. I could go hang out with my friends and have much funnier nerdy convos. “I’ll buy you a beer if you can prove to me that the electron exists.” – one of my favourite remembered starts to many hours of drinking one day.
My dad watched BBT and was pretty convinced it was a documentary of my life, or close enough. I told the above story to my dad, and it did nothing to dissuade him.
I cannot take laugh tracks anymore. They just annoy the fuck out of me. If you ever get a chance and you like the show, the European version of M*A*S*H without the laugh track was a revelation. The people responsible for the laugh track didn’t understand when the show was actually trying to be funny half the time.
Unfortunately, shows with a laugh track are paced around it, so MASH, for example, has a ton of weird pauses when you take it out.
I honestly find even ten seconds of the Big Bang theory to be like nails on a chalkboard.
It feels written by someone who isn’t a nerd trying to write a nerd character and just missing the point utterly and completely.
If you want an example of good non neurotypical nerd characters that are on the spectrum maybe, you don’t need to look any further than Tendi and Rutherford in Lower Decks. They both have heart and feel way more fleshed out than the Big Bang theory.
The Big Bang theory just makes me want to vomit, it either feels like the most insufferable version of nerds or it feels like a high school bullies super reductive perception of nerds. Also the whole “Penny is a normal hot girl hanging out with nerds” is such a stereotypically reductive setup too.
It’s a tad dated now but still hilarious “The I.T. Crowd” owns it hard. One of the funniest shows ever made.
except that one episode
also the misogynistic framing of Jen, although at times she is shown to save the day by being well adjusted
I wouldn’t say it was a misogynistic framing. Is that just because she was IT illiterate?
it was a good how it played the idea of tech vs non tech but it did play a terrible stereotype about women vs men roles. Unfortunately at the time it was written, tech industry was at its prime of being the most difficult for women to break into it for one of the main reasons they were often excluded and even discouraged by a lot of gatekeeping men. (Example: James damore who wrote that misogynistic manifesto).
no doubt it was just writers writing what they know rather than writing from an idealistic approach which seems to be what current day sitcoms try to achieve.
Silicon Valley also suffered a bit of the same although it did try to introduce the occasional tech woman if even just a love interest now and again.
And then there was mythic quest that tried to almost even reverse the typical roles on gender in the tech industry…but then they still wrote women very terribly.
There’s worlds difference between nerds in Silicon Valley and Big Bang Theory. Makes you even cringe harder at BBT.
Silicon Valley gets nerds and coders spot on. It’s such a brilliant show for the first couple of seasons.
I’m curious - why do you think it dropped off later on? I remember it being pretty consistently great aside from what felt like a rushed wrap-up.
Any true fan would have posed Worf getting his ass kicked.
Worf’s main function was to show how tough a new character was by getting beaten up by them.
Unless it was a Klingon story, in which case he would somehow be stronger with their weapons even though he wasn’t raised with Klingons and his combat training would have been mainly federation combat (though I suppose it would make sense for him to surpass them with his access to one of several holodecks on the Enterprise).
Another exception was if it was a child, in which case he was the scary adult laying down the law. But I believe there’s an exception to even this exception, though that child did have powers closer to Q’s than to humans’. And I can’t remember for sure if she did pwn Worf in that episode.
It makes some sense that Worf would be an expert in Klingon combat, because he’s such a tryhard that strives to be more Klingon than Klingons since he feels like he has something to prove.
Worf got exposed to Klingon culture and ideals with no context for how they’re constantly falling short. He’s trying to live up to impossible standards, without knowing that’s not really what it’s all about. And honestly, he’s not doing bad. Except for Alexander. Worf is a horrible father, and given his adoptive parents he really has no excuse.
This is actually explicitly canon to the point that some of the (admittedly less than canon) books have other klingons calling him basically a tryhard.
One thing I did not like about data is he sorta made everyone else second best in thier specialty. stronger than worf, smarter than wesley. I almost surprised they did not give him more sensory capabilities than giordi.
He’s stronger than worf, but doesn’t have his instinct for dangerous situations. He’s smarter than Westley (lol) but doesn’t have a great capacity for improvisation and adaptability. He’s technically better than Geordi at science, but not necessarily engineering, again pointing at his spock-like proclivity for sticking with “in the box” thinking.
Ironically, Geordi has better tech eyes, but data gets more play, if you know what I’m saying 😉
riker will never be as fully functional as data and even picard louds his wisdom at times.
Man in the future not only will machines take our jobs but they will also turn into Data and take our girls
But that’s kinda the same discussion as in pen and paper RPGs - why do have any other regular members of the party if you have magic user. It’s a cool idea to add frankly overpowered character but it will inevitably lead to the numerous plotlines where they gonna have to cripple them or remove from the picture in order to let others to show some problem solving skills.
They do that with villains in those superhero movies too. First you introduce ludicrously powerful character that can alter matter at will or manipulate time or crush armies with thought then how do some much weaker guys defeat them? When they are looking to the left so they don’t see someone’s first. Or some random crap that was never mentioned before. Or sometimes literally a more powerful guy shows up.
It’s the easiest way to put yourself into a corner as a writer.
yeah it drives me a little nuts with adam eve in incredible. she fights so many opponets who rely on tech but doesn’t bother converting it all to lead bricks.
adam eve in incredible
It’s actually atom eve. I had the same confusion when I first watched the show. The fact that the animators screwed up and used the “far away” version of her chest logo (with just an X over the female symbol) during closeups didn’t help. Her actual logo is the female symbol with electron orbits around it.
