Sitcom Review: The Big Bang Theory

Sitcom Review:  The Big Bang Theory
by: pageian

"The Big Bang Theory" is an American sitcom that premiered in September 2007.  The show revolves around a group of young scientists living in Pasadena, California and working at Caltech.  The main characters are Leonard, played by Johnny Galecki, Sheldon, played by Jim Parsons, Penny, played by Kaley Cuoco, Howard, played by Simon Helberg and Raj, played by Kunal Nayyar.  Leonard is an experimental physicist, Sheldon is a theoretical physicist, Penny is a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory and is an aspiring actress, Howard, often referred to by his last name Wolowitz is an engineer who has done work for the space program.  Raj, also at times referred to by his last name, Koothrappali, is a particle astrophysicist.  It's generally accepted within the group that they're much smarter than most people and that Sheldon (at least in his own mind) is by far the smartest of the group.  The group also consider themselves to be nerds and are often hampered by their lack of social skills and inability to approach and attract women.  Raj for instance cannot speak if a woman is in the room unless he has been drinking alcohol, though one episode had him speaking to a beautiful woman (played by Summer Glau) when unbeknownst to him he had been drinking non-alcoholic beer.

The series starts with Penny moving into the apartment next door to Leonard and Sheldon.  Each of the four male cast members react differently to Penny.  Howard generally tries to impress her and hits on her relentlessly and gets no positive response at all.  Raj simply doesn't speak and often seems uncomfortable when Penny is in the room.  When he needs to make something know he whispers it in one of the other males ear.  Leonard is immediately attracted to Penny but has trouble making his feelings know due to nervousness and the feeling that Penny is too far out of his league.  Sheldon, unlike the others is mostly oblivious to how attractive Penny is and is more or less antagonized by the change in the group dynamic that Penny represents.  Along with his superior intelligence Sheldon also shows symptoms of OCD and has to abide by his own set schedule of events, seating arrangements and other activities down to the kind of cereal he eats on each day of the week.  Penny's presence within the group often upsets Sheldon's schedules or seating requirements and more and provides fodder for some of the most clever wordplay between the characters.

As the show progresses Leonard and Penny develop an on again, off again relationship until the third season when they officially become a couple.  The plots of many of the episodes revolve around Sheldon being put in uncomfortable social situations, Raj and Howard attempting unsuccessfully to attract women, Leonard and Penny getting acclimated to their relationship and occasionally plots will center on some experiment or project that the guys are working on at Caltech.  Relationships within the group are often dynamic and changing though generally everyone simply tries their best to tolerate Sheldon and his anti-social behavior.  Raj and Howard spend a lot of time together and tend to gather around Leonard when he isn't with Penny.  The relationship between Penny and Sheldon is particularly well done, often fluctuating between outright animosity and feigned friendship.  Sheldon sees Penny as somewhat uneducated but knowledgeable about mostly unimportant things such as entertainment and social protocol while Penny often gets upset at Sheldon's inability to change his habits and sometimes appears to feel sympathy for his near childlike social skills.

The writing and acting on the show are both superb.  Given the subject matter of the main casts work it would seem difficult to incorporate much physics, math or science into the dialogue but the writers do it well and the actors all pull it off near flawlessly.  Jim Parson in particular is excellent in his role as Sheldon not only as being extremely smart but also socially awkward and naive.  Helberg and Nayyar both play their parts brilliantly as nerds who wish they were cooler and often compete with one another over their accomplishments.  Galecki does an excellent job of playing Leonard as nervous about his tenuous relationship with Penny but also perhaps the most stable and socially acceptable of the group.

The writing for the show is clever and well thought out and as mentioned before it does a great job of incorporating subject matter into the plot without slowing the show down or boring the viewers.  The plots of the episodes, while not always terribly creative on their own are at the least fairly original and don't tend to fall back on tried and true sitcom stereotypes that have worked in the past that most shows tend to do.  In fact one of the main differences between "The Big Bang Theory" and other shows of its genre is that there is no clear imbecile in the group, such as a Woody Boyd from "Cheers" or Reece from "Malcolm in the Middle".  In fact it's usually the smartest of the characters, Sheldon, who is in the dark about what's going on around him due to his limited use of social skills.  The show does implement the sitcom stereotype of the resident "genius" such as Malcolm from "Malcolm in the Middle" and Erkle from "Family Matters" but in this case it's not just a plot device to be used at the convenience of the writers, it's actually the whole premise of the show and it's also done realistically and not taken to impossible heights.  The intelligence of the show is real since the characters jobs are based on real world jobs and real world science.

"The Big Bang Theory" is finishing up it's third season and the ratings have increased each season, topping out as the #17th highest ranked show during the third season at over 14 million viewers per episode.  This is a big improvement over the first and second seasons when the show ranked 59th and 42nd respectively.  With solid writing, excellent acting, great interpersonal dynamics between the characters and enough character development to make them seem plausible it's hard to see the show being taken off the air anytime soon.  As long as it can continue it's rise in the ratings without going stale (or jumping the shark for that matter) and can last for at least three or four more years it seems as if "The Big Bang Theory" can end up becoming one of the best sitcoms to come out in the last 30 or so years, ranking it with such comedies as "Cheers", "Friends" and "Seinfeld".  In fact the show that "The Big Bang Theory" may resemble most is "Fraiser" with the corollaries of more than one main cast members intelligence (Niles, Fraiser, Leonard, Sheldon, Raj and Howard), a normal person who gets upset at the temperamental nature of the intelligent characters (Marty, Roz and Penny), and a socially awkward character who falls in love with an attractive character who's out of their league (Niles/Daphne, Leonard/Penny).  "Fraiser" lasted eleven years, let's hope "The Big Bang Theory" has that kind of staying power as well.

Sitcom Review: George Lopez

Sitcom Review:  George Lopez
by: pageian

George Lopez was an American sitcom which ran for six seasons between March 2002 and May 2007.  The Show featured comedian George Lopez, an outspoken Mexican American comedian.  The show was losely based on Lopez's comedy similar to how other comedians shows were premised, such as Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond.  The show revolves around George's family, his wife Angie, played by Constance Marie, his daughter Carmen, played by Masiela Lusha, his son Max, played by Luis Armand Garcia, his father-in-law Vic, played by Emiliano Díez, his mother Benny, played by Belita Moreno and his friend Ernie, played by Valente Rodriguez.  Another major set piece of the show revolves around George's job as manager of a factory that produces aircraft landing gear.

Major themes throughout the show are George's adversarial relationship and poor upbringing by his mother Benny, who is a heavy drinker and smoker and often goes out of her way to not show affection.  George also has a learning disability, dyslexia, that has been passed on to his son Max which makes it difficult for him to succeed in school and also causes problems for George at his job.  Other themes revolve around Carmen's behavior, boyfriends and private school, Angie's job as a cosmetics sales woman and later as a wedding planner and George's dimwitted friend Ernie being taken advantage of by women and his parents.  Multiple episodes are also devoted to Georges search for his biological father and later on his relationship with his fathers family.

There's nothing groundbreaking or earth shattering about the show.  Most of the episode plots have been done before, and perhaps better, by other sitcoms.  The show tries very hard to appeal to the sentiments of the working man by portraying George as a hard working person who's climbed his way up the corporate ladder to become manager.  The characters seem to always be afraid of losing their jobs, of the plant closing or moving, being bought and taken over by another, large company or having to take pay cuts so that the company can continue to operate without having to sacrifice any jobs.  It's a bit too much and often trite how the aircraft landing gear plant is run, it seemed like every season of the show had two or three episodes that revolved around at least one of the main characters job security or the plants ability to stay in business.  It's done in a manner derivative of '90's sitcoms like "Roseann" and "Grace Under Fire" which tended to focus on the adversity that the common working man goes through trying to stay afloat during hard times.  Those plot devices are hard to buy into at times when the economy is doing well which was the case for all three of the mentioned shows.  Job security and economic hardship would seem to be an easy script to fall back on and implies a lack of creativity from the writers.

You'll rarely find yourself laughing out loud at the jokes in the show.  Most of them are telegraphed well in advance so you know what's coming and aren't very well written to begin with.  Again, it's all been done before.  Most of the characters are over-acted, particularly Benny, Ernie and Vic.  Ernie is the dimwitted comic straight man who's not actually very funny, Benny is a mean spirited firebrand and Vic is a hotblooded Cuban heart surgeon.  All three characters can become particularly annoying if you watch the episodes one after another and see them acted so poorly and to such bad writing.  It all comes off rather amateurish with poorly developed characters and all-to-convenient plot devices.  While watching the show you can't help but think that had the show been better written and directed it could have been so much more than it was.

George Lopez lasted six years and that was perhaps a couple years too long.  The ratings dropped every year it was in production yet Lopez himself was surprised and upset when ABC finally pulled the plug in 2007.  To it's credit the show never seemed to "Jump the Shark", a termed used to indicate when a show starts an obvious decline and usually starts attempting unrealistic plots and episodes that don't work without the viewer having to suspend reality in order to buy into what's going on.  It's possible that the show didn't jump the shark simply because the characters were so one dimensional and poorly developed that the unrealistic and convenient plots and episodes where always there from the start. 

In all George Lopez is mildly entertaining if for no other reason than watching it to see how badly written and conceived the show is.  Don't expect many laughs and don't expect to be awed by the acting or writing.  It's pretty safe to go ahead and delete the episodes off of your DVR after you've watched them once without fear that you'll want to go back and watch any of them a second time.