Michael Ansell/Warner Bros.
I watched The Big Bang Theory for the first time in a long time last night, partly because Mrs. Tuned In was curious, partly because I’ve been reading other reviews that says the show has been on the upswing, partly because I’ll watch Summer Glau in anything.
I will say that the Big Bang I watched last night was better than what I recall from the early half of its first season, when I pretty much got off that train (so to speak). On the plus side, I like that the show has decided to laugh with more than at its supernerd characters; yeah, they’re strange, but Big Bang also nods to the fact that there are cool things about being a geek. There are RFID-tag jokes! There are BSG jokes! They get Glau as a guest star, and they do not only Terminator but also Firefly jokes! It’s tightly written comedy, and it gets at something essential about nerdiness: that it’s mainly defined not by intelligence or social awkwardness but obsession.
That said, it’s still ultimately a pretty conventional, tune-out comedy. (By which I mean you can pay close attention, or you can tune out and let the familiar rhythms do the driving.) The characters may not be ridiculed, and they’re not stereotyped they way they could be, but they are still pretty flat. Had I simply watched Big Bang for the first time after about a year, I would have thought, “Hey, this is a funnier show than I expected.” But now, after reading enough “It’s a funnier show than you’d expect!” reviews, I no longer had the benefit of low expectations.
But as I said—RFID-tag jokes. Are any Tuned Inlanders following the show? What gets you geeked out about it?