Who Asked For Another ‘The Big Bang Theory’ Show?

Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced that a new comedy series, derived from The Big Bang Theory, is being developed by executive producer Chuck Lorre for the Max streaming service. The new series would be the second spinoff from The Big Bang Theory, following in the footsteps of the popular Young Sheldon. The question, though, is this: is anyone actually asking for another The Big Bang Theory show? No one seems to be clamoring for a new show. There are no people in the lobby of CBS staging a “rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock” sit-in until their demands for one are met. Nor is there a wealth of fans inundating Lorre’s email inbox with a concerted effort to have one created. So, who’s pushing for a new The Big Bang Theory series?

The short answer is obvious: we are, albeit indirectly. The Big Bang Theory averaged over 18 million viewers consistently, from Season 6 forward. The series finale, which brought to an end the longest running multi-camera sitcom in US television history, brought in 23.44 million viewers alone. The fifth season of Young Sheldon averaged over 7 million viewers, well under what its parent series was bringing in but still good enough to make it CBS’ #1 scripted series. Those viewership numbers are difficult enough to ignore, but when one adds in the $125 million-$150 million ad revenue The Big Bang Theory was bringing in, and the $1 billion it brings in with syndication revenue, a new spinoff that brings in even a fraction of those numbers is a no-brainer for being given the green light.

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There’s Nowhere for a ‘The Big Bang Theory’ Spinoff Series To Go Forward, or Back

Directly, though, no one is asking for a new The Big Bang Theory spinoff series because there’s nowhere for one to go. The Big Bang Theory series ended on a high note, one that rewarded Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) with a Nobel Prize for their work, dropped the fact that Penny (Kaley Cuoco) was pregnant, brought Sheldon to openly acknowledge the positive impact of his friends in his life, and left with the gang gathered together as we had seen so many times before. And a fixed elevator. It was a near-perfect finale and, truthfully, came at the right time. The show’s ‘geek gets girl’ premise had long passed, the characters had matured beyond their nerdish obliviousness, especially Sheldon, and storylines were getting progressively thinner. A spinoff that looked past that moment would be very difficult to pull off successfully. If the closest comparable to The Big Bang Theory is Friends, then any spinoff attempt going forward is going to be more Joey and less Frasier. The characters work as a collective but are simply not interesting enough on their own to carry a series.

Young Sheldon only works as a spinoff because of how different it is from its parent: it’s shot in a single-camera format, the storylines are more realistic (as realistic as a show can be with a child genius), and its humor comes from character interactions and not from slapstick and nerd-culture references. As time progresses, it grows even further away from The Big Bang Theory, with some serious dramatic elements that fill in Sheldon’s backstory. In that regard, Young Sheldon actually fails as a spinoff series. The Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory is a comedy icon thanks to his quirks, obliviousness, and conflicts with others, particularly in his relationship with Penny.

Young Sheldon, by dramatizing the roots of Sheldon’s (Iain Armitage) many oddities, turns Sheldon into more of a tragic figure, lessening the effect of the comic elements of Parsons’ Sheldon by giving explanations for them. That said, Sheldon is arguably the only character from the show whose history is interesting to explore in a prequel format. Besides, any other attempt at this point for another prequel-type spinoff would only draw comparisons to Young Sheldon.

‘The Big Bang Theory’ Spinoff Could Take a Cue From Another Classic Sitcom

In fairness, it isn’t like anyone was clamoring for Young Sheldon, and that has turned out pretty well. So if Lorre is indeed moving forward with a new spinoff of The Big Bang Theory, he could take a cue from a recent success story with ties to a classic sitcom: Netflix’s That ’90s Show. The spinoff from That ’70s Show walks a fine line between honoring its past, with appearances from the original cast and “the circle”, and introducing a whole new set of characters, the children of the original characters, for viewers to relate to. That could be an interesting direction for Chuck Lorre to take. It would be an opportunity to catch up with where the original characters are, which children have inherited the nerd gene and which haven’t (with heavy odds that Penny and Leonard (Johnny Galecki) have one of each), and bring in those things that have risen in popularity since The Big Bang Theory ended like TikTok and the Disney+ series of MCU and Star Wars shows.

The takeaway from this is that while no one may be asking for a second spinoff series from The Big Bang Theory, there is going to be one. What that series will look like is in a “dark, dense state”, pure speculation and a tale for another time. Whether that series is successful or not falls on viewers and fans of the original show, both new and old. If it isn’t successful, then that is likely the end of any other attempts to spinoff The Big Bang Theory. If it is successful, then the prospect of a third spinoff series increases exponentially. Ironically, creating a hypothesis of what the series will be and the degree of its success sounds just like the type of experiment that would have intrigued Leonard, Sheldon, Raj (Kunal Nayyar), and Howard (Simon Helberg) for a good half-hour on CBS during the show’s heyday.