Top 10 Reasons to Rewatch The Big Bang Theory

For fans of “The Big Bang Theory,” names like Jim Parsons or Kaley Cuoco are pretty familiar. Well, how about the name David Saltzberg? David served as a technical director on the show, which saw him reviewing and altering scripts as needed for scientific accuracy. He’s just one of many ways the show helped educate viewers on a variety of subjects over the course of its 12-year run. With Sheldon consistently spouting off science facts, it’s not hard to see how some of this would wear off on viewers. Even interest in real-world physics increased thanks to the subject matter of the comedic show.

During 12 seasons on the air, “The Big Bang Theory” did an amazing job of bringing in countless cameos from across a wide spectrum of talent. It would have been easy to stick to the Mark Hamills and William Shatners of the world, but this show went far beyond that. What other kind of comedy would see Bob Newhart, Elon Musk, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Stephen Hawking all sharing screen time with our beloved nerds. It was the incredible way the writers found to naturally insert these appearances that made you wonder who might be next to knock at the door of Apartment 4A.

Whether you are a fan or not, “The Big Bang Theory” is everywhere. Flip through your TV channels and you’re likely to find a station running reruns of this show. Get on an airplane and the odds are good you’ll see it in the list of shows to watch on the back of someone’s head. If somehow you haven’t caught an episode of this now-classic show, what better reason to try it now than to find out why everyone loved, or for that matter, hated the show. Polarizing or not, it’s now part of pop culture history, and it’ll only cost you 22 minutes to find out what the big deal was.

With 279 episodes produced, “The Big Bang Theory” became the longest-running multi-camera sitcom in history. Much like many other shows that have run that long, it has had its ups and downs. But at the end of the day, fans still continue to watch the show for its own brand of comedy that has proven itself over time. Whether it’s Raj’s bad luck with women, Leonard’s consistent arguments with Sheldon, or just the plain antics of the characters, it’s a show that found a way to make the world of “geek” both loveable, and funny.

You’ve had a really hard day and just want to plunk yourself down in front of the TV and forget whatever is going on in your life. Enter: the sitcom. Shows like “The Big Bang Theory,” “Friends,” and many others are solid “go-tos” when it comes to needing something familiar. For fans, they know they can flip on any episode and quickly get lost in a fictional world that may not be all that dissimilar to their own. They know characters and settings very well, and often may even know the dialogue but it gives them an escape from whatever daily mishaps they’ve encountered.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be a geek or science fiction fan to “get” “The Big Bang Theory.” Sure, there are a lot of references to pop culture and the world of science. Yet, what makes this show so great is that you can start watching it whether you’ve got a Ph.D. or are still in high school. Although most of the characters are well educated and thoroughly immersed in academia, it’s not the focus of the stories being told. Like any great show, the emphasis is all on the characters and the situations they end up in.

If you look back at any successful sitcom, some of the most memorable episodes don’t focus on the laughs. Sometimes it’s how real a show can get that makes it even stronger. Although there were plenty of laughs, “The Big Bang Theory” never shied away from taking a beat to touch on something important. Howard alone experienced both the loss of his mother and dealing with his father’s departure. Penny and Sheldon both dealt with major career decisions. And even Bernadette showed us how worn-down new mothers can be. It’s nice to see episodic television with such visibility take on the heavier topics.

In television, breakout characters are often the ones that viewers latch onto and inspire the writers to give even more screen time. Sheldon Cooper was definitely the standout character of “The Big Bang Theory.” Sheldon can come across as an obnoxious, arrogant scientist with whom his friends tolerate. But as Leonard has explained several times, it’s something Sheldon does unintentionally. Over the run of the show, we come to see Sheldon as far more than just a know-it-all. He’s an amazingly loyal friend, a brilliant scientist, a quirky husband, and one of the funniest parts of this show.

One of the things that makes a show successful is how the viewer relates to the characters on screen. When we see something in them that we recognize in ourselves or someone we know, it becomes all that more real. The characters are fictional but they feel so much more tangible to you when they remind us of someone we know. It’s that unspoken connection that allows the watcher to “get” what the character is feeling. “Big Bang” is filled with highly relatable moments, from characters we could recognize from our own lives. It’s what helped make the show so popular among so many people.

How did shows like “Friends,” “Cheers,” and “M*A*S*H” do so well with audiences where others fell short? It’s something Chuck Lorre must have realized when he created “The Big Bang Theory.” The one thing these shows have in common is that they are far more than just a collection of characters on TV. The stories told through their perspective have been woven with such heart, that even the most cynical of individuals can find a common ground with them. “The Big Bang Theory” is one of the most modern examples of how real emotions can be conveyed through whatever screen you’re watching it on. Whether the characters are laughing or crying, you feel it. That’s the true heart of a show.