Big Bang Theory spin-off announced

[Brian G Turner]

A series about a young Sheldon, narrated by Jim Parsons:
Big Bang Theory spin-off Young Sheldon confirmed

 

[Vince W]

Please, no. Just no.

 

[Overread]

I still don't get why its popular, especially as most of its puns revolve not around geeky things but more Sheldon's freakish behaviour. Then again I never got the humour in Friends either and that was apparently pretty big in its day too. A prequel isn't a surprise if the main series has done really well; it really sounds like it will just be more Sheldon without even pretending to being something else.

 

[HareBrain]

I'm a fan of most of TBBT (I can't be bothered with most episodes of the last couple of seasons) but I can't see this appealing at all.

 

[REBerg]

Considering how funny most of Sheldon's references to his Texas childhood have been (he knows he's not crazy because his mother had him "tested"), this could be a rich vein of humor to mine. Seems like a "no-brainer" for CBS.

 

[Lucien21]

Not sure about this one. Spin-Off of comedy shows are hit or miss.

Was Joey a hit when it spun off from Friends, Fraiser certainly was from Cheers. They keep talking about How I met your Father, but it's not going anywhere.

 

[Mr Orange]

hmmm... i would say it ain't gonna work, except for the fact that it has chuck lorre involved and, well, everything he touches seems to turn to tv gold.

i enjoyed the big bang theory early seasons but stopped watching it a couple of seasons ago as all the loose ends that made a lot of the humour got tied up and, as mentioned above, there was just crazy sheldon left

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

I'd have to agree on the generally negative appraisal. Sheldon is a supporting character. It's the play of his weirdness against the more normal (relatively) characters that generates the comedy, not the fact of his weirdness. And the other characters' reactions to those interactions are a major part of the humor. If you start keeping the camera on Sheldon saying something odd instead of showing Howard's and Leonard's reactions to it, you lose a lot of the comedy. Or to put it another way, Sheldon generates the comedic situation, but the other characters exploit it.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

I still enjoy watching the Big Bang Theory (though I'd agree with others that the last couple of series haven't been as good) but I just don't see the value in a prequel. It feels like one of those "wow this made us some money, so let's milk it for all it's worth scenarios" like, well, the Alien prequels spring to mind. I know there's been stuff in the media lately about salaries for the cast and salary parity, so I can't help if this is a vehicle to do the same thing and deliver the same humour in a similar setting without paying as much to the cast. Either way, it doesn't really appeal.

 

[MemoryTale]

Hate the idea. Firstly because there's only so much Sheldon I can take, secondly because a lot of things are funnier unexplained. Would the "My mother had me tested" joke be any funnier for seeing the testing?

 

[The Ace]

I don't think it's a good idea.

Sheldon is largely funny because the people around him can at least tolerate him (Leonard the long-suffering best friend, Penny the babysitter, Amy the girlfriend who's almost as bad as he is, and the comic relief from Howard and Raj) but his fish-out-of-water childhood, is more likely to contain pathos than humour.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

Depends. I'd have to see the underlying concept explained. If it's for kids, maybe. TBBT's underlying concept was coping with loneliness/ alienation/ being an outsider, which is why it had such wide appeal. Actually a lot of Lorre's work is based around the alienated, now that I think about it.

 

[REBerg]

2.02 A Rival Prodigy and Sir Isaac Neutron
I'm finding this spin-off to be quite funny. This particular episode contains enough Star Trek references to qualify as stellar Chrons material.

 

[Mouse]

I've watched bits and pieces but just find the character an insufferable brat. Which I found him to be as an adult in TBBT too, to be fair.

 

[asp3]

Young Sheldon is one of the comedy shows that my wife and I enjoy. I think they've done a great job expanding on Sheldon's childhood and the actors playing his family have done a great job framing his late childhood years. It was one of the bright points of the TV season for me last year.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

When I first saw it I thought: Wow, that's some good casting with Young Sheldon's mother, she looks like a younger version of TBBT's Sheldon's mother
A bit of research later and I find that younger mother (Zoe Perry) is actually older mother's (Laurie Metcalf) daughter!