Big Bang Theory
Mar. 16th, 2011 10:02 pmI saw one or two isolated episodes of this, and the negative aspects stood out to me, but having seen several more I bought the complete first three seasons, and I can confirm, it really is completely and totally awesome.
Good things:
* Mainstream positive portrayal of geeks. (Not exactly my sort of geek, but they have lots of things in common)
* Although the characters are often dorky, I always feel the humour is affectionate, not malicious. I don't have embarrassment humour as much as some friends, but I do mostly hate it. But I loved TBBT.
* Leonard and Penny's relationship rings really true to me. The outline of "smart guy likes girl who's too hot for him, but she likes him in the end" has been repeated ad nauseam before, but here it actually seems natural that they WOULD like each other, and also that they'd drift into and out of each other's company, rather than having sharply delineated periods of "unrequited love" "sudden conversion and passionate affair" "sudden breakup"
* Much of the science is totally accurate.
* Most of the secondary characters are really cute as well. I really like Leslie and Barry Kripkey and Leonard's mother and Sheldon's mother. They all fulfil their assigned role well, but touchingly show themselves more than that.
* It genuinely makes me laugh. There's lots of things I'd LIKE to laugh at, but increasingly few things really DO make me laugh.
Bad things:
* Raj and Howard, while often cute, are not really characterised as much as the others. Their parents are correspondingly one-note.
* Many geeky things are too heavily stylised to be realistic. For instance, people I know might well talk about mathematical theory X, but they would never normally have an occasion to explain it the audience. They WOULD play secret agent laser obstacle chess if it existed, but probably wouldn't put THAT much effort into setting it up.
* It exaggerates somehwhat. Few people I know are into science AND sca AND chess AND computers AND comic books AND action figures AND have few social skills AND computer games AND massive multiplayer online computer games AND paintball and so on.
* Some jokes are just too complicated.
Good things:
* Mainstream positive portrayal of geeks. (Not exactly my sort of geek, but they have lots of things in common)
* Although the characters are often dorky, I always feel the humour is affectionate, not malicious. I don't have embarrassment humour as much as some friends, but I do mostly hate it. But I loved TBBT.
* Leonard and Penny's relationship rings really true to me. The outline of "smart guy likes girl who's too hot for him, but she likes him in the end" has been repeated ad nauseam before, but here it actually seems natural that they WOULD like each other, and also that they'd drift into and out of each other's company, rather than having sharply delineated periods of "unrequited love" "sudden conversion and passionate affair" "sudden breakup"
* Much of the science is totally accurate.
* Most of the secondary characters are really cute as well. I really like Leslie and Barry Kripkey and Leonard's mother and Sheldon's mother. They all fulfil their assigned role well, but touchingly show themselves more than that.
* It genuinely makes me laugh. There's lots of things I'd LIKE to laugh at, but increasingly few things really DO make me laugh.
Bad things:
* Raj and Howard, while often cute, are not really characterised as much as the others. Their parents are correspondingly one-note.
* Many geeky things are too heavily stylised to be realistic. For instance, people I know might well talk about mathematical theory X, but they would never normally have an occasion to explain it the audience. They WOULD play secret agent laser obstacle chess if it existed, but probably wouldn't put THAT much effort into setting it up.
* It exaggerates somehwhat. Few people I know are into science AND sca AND chess AND computers AND comic books AND action figures AND have few social skills AND computer games AND massive multiplayer online computer games AND paintball and so on.
* Some jokes are just too complicated.