I find it interesting that the character Raj never married while when the show first came out he was the only married actor. I agree with post # 57 regarding the show in recent years. It needed to end. Nice touch/closure to have that elevator fixed. Loose ends tied up. They move on from their young adulthood- just as our college bound/college/post college kids do. Ages and stages.
As a STEM woman it was delightful to (finally) see science types- both men and women- finally get mainstreamed in TV land.
Correct. And she’s stunning!! Raj also had flat ironed hair for most of the series. It’s only since season 11 that he’s had his natural hairstyle on the show.
Simon Helberg has been married since the series began. Jim Parsons has been with his husband since before the beginning of the series, although they only married last year.
@wis75 ,I believe Jim Parsons was a main character that was actually in a long term relationship well before the start of the series. He married his partner in 2017. Howard married in real life in July 2007 , just before the start of the series. He has two kids. Raj did not marry in real life until 2011. Leonard has never been married in real life but is expecting his first child with his girlfriend. Penny has been married twice in real life but well after the series began. Crossposted with @skieurope .
As my career was in chemistry education and science administration, I loved the show. But in the back of my mind, I always felt uneasy—was America laughing WITH the science geeks or laughing AT them.
I mean, science geeks are regular people, aren’t we???
I teared up at the ending. Loved the series, realize it is just tv. But I have an issue…
So the one non-degreed, non ‘hyper educated’ woman - who brings the emotional intelligence to a bunch of geeks - decides she really is conflicted about having kids. She’s not sure, in fact she is clearly stating she may not ever want kids.
But the season ends…by this woman becoming pregnant. Her husband is happy, her friends (who have their own reasons for wanting her to have kids) are happy. And somehow Penny is now happy.
I may not be remembering this correctly so feel free to add on or correct -I believe quite a few episodes ago, someone wanted Leonard to donate sperm (Penny’s old boyfriend? ) because the couple was having fertility issues. Leonard did not go through with it and there was some discussion about the door remaining open for them to have children themselves. I was not surprised Penny was pregnant.
And the pregnancy was a bit of an accident, happening the night she went out drinking with Sheldon. She was ambivalent, and I don’t find it so hard to believe that now that it’s happened, she’s happy about it. She, like the rest of the characters – and like real-life people – has changed and grown.
I really liked the last two episodes of the show. I heard someone say (or quote someone else) and it went something like, “…the best books are the ones where you get to the end, close the cover and the story continues on in your own mind”. I’ve searched for the quote and can’t find it, but it’s how I feel with TBBT. We left them eating dinner together and they left us imagining how their lives will go on.
I thought Raj had his moment in the previous show where he decided to stay with his friend family. I imagine him someday meeting his perfect mate and she’s someone who will appreciate his romantic nature. I see Penny loving being a mom and having more beautiful, smart children. I see Amy getting pregnant and Sheldon being a wonderful, neurotic dad. What I can’t resolve is where they will live once they need a bigger place. It wouldn’t seem right for Penny and Sheldon to live further apart than across the hall.
Loved the show, but I’m glad it went out on a high note.
Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuocco were on CBS TM earlier this week and he said he would rate the final 3 episodes in his top 5. I might agree, but my all-time favorite was the Christmas episode where Penny gave Sheldon the napkin signed by Leonard Nimoy. His child-like joy and the connection it sparked with Penny tugs on my heart every time I see it and my eyes always end up leaking.
That was a great episode - his obligation shopping at Body Works and buying all the different gift packages so he could give just the right amount … not too much, not too little. That show was one of the ones featured in the behind the scenes good-bye that Galecki and Cuocco hosted after the finale and the Young Sheldon aired on Thursday.
I will miss this show a lot. It is one of the few sitcoms I watch regularly. I was hoping it would end with Penny being pregnant, so that made me happy.
re post # 65. That WITH or AT aspect of laughter is probably why I dislike Young Sheldon. I do not see any insights into being gifted, even at less high levels while at least BBT approached science and women in science in general, not just the extremes of Sheldon. We could use a TV show that addressed the issues the gifted face.
I have only watched the show occasionally, but I felt the laughing AT was far more than the laughing WITH. While I don’t have a PhD in a science , I know dozens of people who do, and none of them are like the characters in this show. They are perfectly well adjusted, “popular in high school” , attractive, frequently talented in music or other arts. I can’t think of one of my grad school friends who was like the people on this show. And yes, I know a few who were in college very early (there used to be a cafe thread about this).
While many science PHd’s I know are not like the BBB tribe, many I know are. Especially those who are in the theoretical physics field. My daughter who holds a double engineering degree but dressed in college pretty much like Penny ( often identically to her) found these characters to be a pretty accurate representation of many …not all…of her fellow students and loved the show and it’s charcters.
It’s a sitcom and the writers are trying to make us laugh at the characters and the situations. Sitcoms wildly exaggerate real life to make us laugh. I don’t know anyone like Sheldon … or Lucy Ricardo, Barney Fife, Frank Burns, Phil Dunphy, Michael Scott and so many other great sitcom characters I’ve had the pleasure of watching and laughing with and at. The show isn’t trying to portray real life science PhDs, and I think the people who love the show also genuinely love the characters. The writers make us laugh and they also make us care. It’s not a mean spirited, or a make fun of people thing.
MADad I believe America was laughing with the BBT science geeks. More than that I think the show brought an understanding of the highly intelligent and how really, everyone wants the same things - to be loved, liked, and that everyone needs other people.
Personally I fell in love with the characters over the years. For me, I especially loved Sheldon and Raj. I too cried in the end and will miss them. I have enjoyed this show among the endless supply of reality TV.
My favorite story line was Howard’s. He went from a womanizing creep to a devoted husband and father. His relationship with Bernadette was so sweet. I think it was hard for the writers to have a character’s main quality change so drastically. At times they veered to making him and Bernadette the Bickersons but this season really mostly stopped that and you saw the warmth and delight in their relationship. Also loved that Stewart found a soul mate.