Review: The Big Bang Theory
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I picked a random DVD out of my screener stack and landed on The Big Bang Theory. To be honest, there's not really much for me to do here. If you like sitcoms, and this sitcom in particular, you're going to watch it regardless of what I say here. Sitcoms are so short and pointless that there's really not much there to review anyway. Having only seen a single episode, the season premier, I can't say that I'd carve out time on Monday nights to watch something that isn't huge like Fraiser, or at least something that brings more than one or two laughs per scene.We're not talking about belly laughs here or jokes that are going to stick with you, I can't remember a single one and I literally just finished watching the premier commercial free.
There's a lot going on Monday nights, Heroes on NBC, Terminator and Prison Break of Fox, CSI: Miami on CBS amongst whatever is playing on cable -- which includes four straight hours of Lost reruns on the SCIFI Channel these days. It's hard enough to make room for a sitcom generally, but on such a crowded night there's just now way it's going to happen for me. Maybe you're tastes differ, I don't know. I will say this though, watching a sitcom without commercials on DVD whenever you feel like it makes them far more appealing to people like me, people that don't really watch sitcoms in the first place.
I wouldn't buy this show on DVD, but if I could get it on DVD for free, I'd bite the bullet and watch any commercials that came on the disc. It'd be worth it. Here it is Monday morning, around 8am or so, and this show won't air until later tonight, but I got to watch it when it suited me which makes me far more willing to try new shows. Although I do have a DVR, eventually you run into a traffic jam. I like and watch Prison Break and Heroes and still watch Terminator waiting for it either to get better, or get canceled. There's just now way for me to record every single thing I might want to check out some day unless shows go immediately into syndication or at the very least show end-of-the-week repeats.
That'd be best, really. I might watch The Big Bang Theory if new episodes ran again later in the week, say Saturday night or even in the mornings like right now. Nobody records stuff on their DVR at 8am in the morning during the week so it's almost always free.
But back to the topic at hand. Sitcoms live and die by their writing, no so much the acting, so all they've got to do to be moderately successful (not the same thing as smash hit successful obviously) is not run over the jokes. These actors seem capable of that, but the show just isn't all that funny. I sympathize with how crazy it is to write comedy, but Big Bang has got to punch it up a few notches if they want to lure people like me away from the serial dramas.
I don't know how this show did last season but if this premier is any indication, it'll probably meet people's expectations. If you already like it, as I said, it's a sitcom -- it's not going to fall off, you'll just get bored with it one day or the actors will get too expensive to justify keeping it around. I appreciate CBS sending me the show for review, but in hindsight I should have passed on the sitcoms.
Can't wait to check out CSI: Miami, though.
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