Catching Up On: THE BIG BANG THEORY

This past season, I had a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory playing in the background, and I remember chuckling a few times, but it wasn't enough for me to commit to the show. A friend of mine has been hounding me to give the show another chance, so I finally rented the first season via Netflix.

Now, I understand why this show is so popular. For the record, I'm not saying TBBT is one of my favorite shows (it's not even one of my favorite comedies), but it is what it is, and it works at what it does. The comedy is fairly formulaic, predictable, and cliche, but that's why it works.

It's easy to see the main reason to watch this show is Jim Parsons' portrayal of Dr. Sheldon Cooper because he easily steals every scene he's in. The great thing about Parsons' performances is he is so socially inept, but that doesn't make the comedy painfully awkward alla The Office. Sheldon is not a social creature, but he doesn't fool himself into thinking that he is, and he's fine with that.

The rest of the cast is adequate with Kaley Cuoco's Penny and Kunal Nayyar's Raj shining brighter than the rest. The soul low point of the show is the Howard Wolowitz character. His pervy schtick gets old very fast, and he's just annoying after a while.

After watching season 1, I was obsessed with finding season 2 online, and I was able to catch up on all of the episodes, and while The Big Bang Theory is not going to be making any of my lists anytime soon, I will be watching season 3 this fall.