Geeks embrace this ‘Big Bang Theory’ too

By Tara Bennett

updated 12:57 p.m. ET Sept. 21, 2009

Flip through the array of scripted television today and just about every societal clique has its own show: high schoolers, twentysomethings, thirtysomethings, lawyers, doctors, cops. Heck, even vampires get plenty of airtime.

But what about the geeks?

Sure, a few shows have geek characters like Comic Book Guy on “The Simpsons” or Dwight Schrute of “The Office,” but no television show actually focused on the very real lives of the nerdy until CBS’s sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” (which premieres its third season on Monday at 9:30 p.m. ET).

Set in the shadow of Cal Tech in Pasadena, Calif., “The Big Bang Theory” revolves around the daily lives of physicist roommates Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and their friends/colleagues Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). What many in the mainstream would label as the nerdiest of the nerdy, these four are as brilliant in their professions as they are their knowledge of sci-fi and pop culture, but when it comes to women and social interaction ... well, let’s just say they’re stunted, a lot. It’s only when Cheesecake Factory waitress Penny (Kaley Cuoco) moves in across the hall that the guys get some lessons on how to befriend and interact with an average woman. And over two seasons, Penny continues to be indoctrinated into the perplexing, yet often charming ways of this nerd pack.

A modest hit when it debuted in 2007, it took awhile for geek audiences to embrace the show. Many initially assumed the series was just making fun of its characters, with their myriad of uptight tics, slightly nasally voices, and comic book character-emblazoned wardrobe.

“When I first saw the show, I admit I found it to be a little bit overdone,” said Craig Byrne, a 31-year-old writer of TV companion books and fan sites (KryptonSite). “But then I realized that the fact that it's grossly overdone is what makes it funny.”

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Byrne said he stuck with the show and it quickly became one of his favorites. “I love ‘The Big Bang Theory’ because not only do [the writers] incorporate geek elements into their dialogue, but the characters have a lot of heart. It's almost as though they had advance mental development but somewhere along the line forgot to advance socially. The addition of Penny to their circle has given the characters a chance to grow, and has given Penny a chance to learn of a side of herself that she never knew existed.”

And Byrne isn’t alone in his conversion. According to Nielsen figures, the second season of “The Big Bang Theory” averaged 10 million viewers, up 20 percent from its freshman season. A big chunk of that increase came from the coveted, and very geek-centric, 18-49 male demo. Their approval started a swell of positive buzz among nerd-centric viewers that understood that co-creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady weren’t mocking their kind but actually celebrating a huge portion of the population that look, act, and talk a lot like their characters.

“We’re writing about ourselves,” Prady laughed in an exclusive interview with Newsarama. “My highly nerdish background is that I was a computer programmer. I’m also a science fiction fan and an obsessed ‘Star Trek’ fan. Whatever you want to call that group of people, nerds, or geeks, there’s a great history of portraying them homogenously; that they are all the same with tape across the bridges of their eyeglasses and have pocket protectors. The thing that I know from living in that world is that it’s remarkably heterogeneous. There are great differences and individual passions. What also exists is a greater respect for differences and a greater understanding of difference. The real-life person that I knew that couldn’t speak to women [a trait exhibited by Koothrappali], it was just an acknowledged part of his behavior and it was just dealt with. You say that’s not the guy to ask to talk to those women over there. All of these things are just matter of fact for us.”

Geeks are real people
Prady said that he and his writers made it an early goal to write these four guys as real people, which meant including idiosyncrasies that sometimes come with being a geek.

“One of the tasks of creating a series is to create interesting characters that are distinct from each other,” Prady said. “We think very carefully about why one character might have a particular reaction that another character doesn’t share. The four of them have very different backgrounds. They have had very different paths through life that affect who they are. There are things they love in common and there are things they don’t share. That also extends to their fandom. I think they are generally game to indulge each other’s passions but I don’t think it’s uniform. By making them distinct, you make them people you are interested in knowing.”

Or that you might already know. Fans often cite the fact that they see plenty of parallels in the show’s characters to their own friends and even themselves.

Will Welsh, a 36-year-old development editor says that Leonard serves as the most relatable member of the group. “He is painfully aware that he’s a geek. He doesn’t always seem comfortable in his own skin, which is a feeling that I’ve had come and go throughout most of my life. The other guys on the show, they don’t even recognize that they’re geeks — they just are and rarely view themselves from outside that window. Leonard teeters on not being a geek and occasionally wishes he wasn’t so geeky, so I see myself a lot in him.”

Leonard actually represents the more socially adept end of the scale thanks to his common problem with attracting women so he is the character most fans say they identify with the most. But the show’s undeniable break-out character is Sheldon Cooper. He represents the extreme end of the nerd scale with his obsessive routines, clueless understanding of most humor, and utter lack of humility about his mental superiority. What could have become a woefully bad cliché in most actors’ hands has instead become a delightfully exasperating misfit in large part to Parson’s beguilingly earnest approach to playing Sheldon.

“The Sheldon character is a riot,” said Tom Wakeley, a retired electrical engineer who's been a fan of the series from the beginning. “He is so inflexible, smug, and oblivious. He reminds me of some people that I met in college and during my career.”

Byrne added, “Sheldon represents many of the quirks and annoyances that we end up having but not always verbalizing. So what if he has a 'favorite spot' on the couch — we all do. But I don't think I'm quite as socially judgmental as Sheldon is. However, Sheldon totally seems to have stolen my wardrobe, with his frequent wearing of comic book-related t-shirts.”

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