Rent The Big Bang Theory: Series 12 (2018)

The Big Bang Theory: Series 12 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

It is quite surreal to view the finale to The Big Bang Theory as anything less than cathartic. The show closes out with a two-parter. The first part is mostly a montage clip show of the past 12 seasons worth of episodes, reminding the audience of how horribly the humor has aged of nerds being weird and their pop culture obsession being low-impact punchlines of references. The second part is of Sheldon apologizing to his friends for being so insensitive to them over the many years. In many ways, Sheldon’s apology is more akin to the show itself, realizing how wrong it was. Too little too late, sadly, for a show that spent so much time squandering in its own nerd-sneering silliness to ever be anything more than a mindless sitcom bereft of its actions.

Even though many of the characters have grown at this point to enter into marriage and accomplish more within their field of study, little has changed. The characters still goof on each other in ways that one would hope nerds of this caliber would’ve graduated out of. The same warped view of masculinity being asserted and decried still parades around this series like a decaying skeleton, hissing the dust of a Revenge of the Nerds style of humor that somehow refuses to die as the laugh track prattles on. The geek cameos continue onward where I suppose the audience is to get all giddy and thrilled that William Shatner and Will Wheaton share an episode.

The situations seem to have evolved little over the years. Sheldon is still just as petty as always, even more toxic now when he tries to kick people off projects for not agreeing to his suggestions on academics. Raj is still treated as a date-less punchline, constantly mocked and embarrassed for not being as evolved in his relationships that the show comes dangerously close to throwing him back in the bin of being the funny foreigner. Leonard, trying to seem like the more mature and developed, would be due for some assertions over his mom. Yet when presented with this prospect of speaking out against one’s parents, the show pulls back and status-quos itself to suggest that it’s more on the child to be accepting of the parents than the other way around, which is a pretty terrible take for a show in 2019 in its final season. Howard is still petty as well, being even more coddled and childish in response to Sheldon’s own pettiness.

Considering the show has been a constant on CBS for 12 years, lasting longer than their other main-stays of prattling police procedurals, the show plays itself safe right up until the final episode. Rarely has The Big Bang Theory taken its time to restructure and build on itself and fame, reasoning that nothing was broke and that it need not be fixed. Audiences apparently adored the adorable nerds with their constant video game referencing and comic book babble. So many of the characters and their comedy relies on so much geeky-slang that one has to wonder how much of this writing resonates with the audience and how much of that audience just likes funny words from vaguely familiar pop culture lingo.

The 12th season of The Big Bang Theory is akin to witnessing someone wearing a shirt that no longer fits them. By the time these episodes aired, Johnny Galecki was 45 and watching him still play Leonard in such a way just seemed ill-fitting. I suspect even the mere mention of the 12th season of this show would lead one’s initial thoughts to “oh, that show is still going?” Thankfully, it has ended and pretty much the way we always remembered it with its stereotyping of nerds, lazy writing caked in references, and masculine questioning that was probably hit harder in the 1980s than it ever does now.