The Big Disappointment Theory: Here’s why ‘The Big Bang Theory’ has started sucking as a TV series. Before you go all ‘Sheldor’ on my ass, let me state that I am among the biggest fans of this series. Hell, I can’t have dinner without seeing Sheldon complain about his ‘tangerine chicken’. That is why take a moment AFK and think. Really think. About what the past 2–3 seasons have been all about. Seriously. See, you can’t. Coz the answer is, there has been nothing ‘different’ or ‘unique’ or even science-y type stuff in ‘The Big Bang Theory’ a.k.a. TBBT.

I re-watched ‘The Martian’ yesterday. When Damon says, “I will have to science the shit out of this…”, I recalled why I loved TBBT. After the saccharine sweet emotional shopping by botoxed people and baby raising overdose of ‘Friends’ and the idiocy of ‘How I Met Your……who cares anyway??”, finally, there were two shows- ‘Sherlock’ and ‘The Big Bang Theory’. (Game Of Thrones being a different genre already.) Both these shows had brains and worshipped the idea of thinking and doing something bigger than trying to impress a hot dumb blonde.

TBBT is epically failing in it’s premise of rocking being ‘nerds’. Since Season 7, all it’s episodes are focusing only on ‘the mature stuff’- like top theoretical physicists making out and crying coz they can’t find love, playing out ever racist and sexist jokes ever and the forever boring unrealistic issue of Penny and Sheldon. Oh, and Penny chops off her hair, so that’s a big thing. Sheldon kisses too, so yay, we brought him down to our level. Of stupidity. What’s next, moronic group holidays? Already happening!

The idea isn’t that Sheldon is normal or an Amy but yes, they are more ‘real’ than Penny and Leonard and Raj. It’s because the series raised a sort of hope that yes, education, higher degrees, working really hard and single mindedly on groundbreaking research and discussing comic books is the real world.

The real world is not:

· A hot girl next door, unemployed but using her looks to get free food (seriously, which girl with self respect do you know does that?) and who knows how, paying for new dresses and shoes and that fab figure by doing just yoga at home.

· CalTech physicists never working late- always at home to watch TV and eat takeaways.

· Where scientists never, I mean never, read any books on the show. None on Physics. None on non fiction. Only comics.

· Making an entire season about two people losing their virginity. Will they? Won’t they?

· Top notch researchers having girlie parties and discussing their mother in law and each other’s sex lives. Maybe going to a hotel room once in a while to show ‘conferences’.

· An Indian boy who cries coz he can’t get love but who actually just wants to get laid. He is an astrophysicist who doesn’t spend time at the telescope.

· Sexual creepiness of Howard Wolowitz who is strangely married and has a family now.

· Comic Con and Star Trek and lives revolving around debates on their movies.

· Making fun of socially awkward people like Sheldon and Stuart- portraying them as losers who don’t have street smarts.

Yes, the series is still hilarious and Sheldon does try his best to keep the ‘science’ levels in place but I sorely miss the ‘reality’ of the early first seasons. It started as a satire, a comment on the vacuous thoughts and lifestyle of the American middle class but it has become just another version of a rom-com. It could have shown us the ‘other’- the minuscule percentage of people who are actually changing the world with their passionate and patient research. Instead, it is just becoming a ‘family saga’. As Sherlock says, “Dear God, what is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring!”