PEOPLE DON'T LIKE A THING THAT I LIKE! WHY?

[Angie7F]

My statistician friend hates NUMBERS with passion.
I think the same goes for BBT.
People like the characters dislike the portrayal of the characters and those who never took interest in nerd are not interested in the show.

I personally love the show, but I maybe speaking too soon as I have only reached the end of season 3 and just about to start the fourth season.

 

[squidface]

I really like all the characters, I think they're well written. There is a slight bit of character development - I think we can say that Penny becomes more knowledgeable and Raj gets over his fear of talking to women (eventually). But the thing that I've gradually come to hate about it is that Sheldon's become the number one fan favourite, and virtually every episode of TBBT has become about him. He's a great character and all but... it gets tiring. I enjoyed the first couple of seasons where there were more episodes about each of the characters rather than just Sheldon being Sheldon and also being mildly annoying to the other characters and being awkward in social situations.

IDK. It's like that show I watch when I'm waiting for something else to come on.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

On the contrary, most people that I know actually like The Big Bang Theory. I personally don?t because the characters are annoying jerks (Sheldon especially, but for some reason, he?s probably the only character I can tolerate), the show relies too strongly on shallow pop culture/self-referential humour, abuses the laugh track more times than a Romanian orphan, and I just don?t find it that funny. At all. I wouldn?t care about the stereotypes if it actually had interesting storylines, character development and, most importantly, was genuinely funny. But it?s not.

I mean, I?ve watched it multiple terms in boredom on E4, and have been forced to at friends? houses, and I think I?ve only genuinely laughed about two times in all the episodes I?ve watched. It?s not that I don?t get it?I do. But most of the jokes are nothing more than references to gaming consoles or complicated science, as if they?re trying to reach out of the screen and say to a nerd or someone that just finds nerds funny, ?Look, we?re acknowledging you! Laugh with me, Padawans!?

But hey, one of my favourite sitcoms is Friends, and I know a couple of people who can?t stand it. No biggie.

 

[JochemHippie]

Inserting a laugh track is a horrible form of trying to make something funny.
And it takes someone really easily amused to actually be tricked by it.

 

[maninahat]

Well, the reason I don't like it is three fold:
1) I generally dislike American comedies that lean towards harsh studio lighting, excessive makeup, and what I consider to be a "contrived, over-controlled" atmosphere. Everyone always looks and acts so prosthetic in these things, it actually weirds me out.
2) I don't find the jokes funny (assuming that is what they're supposed to be). Last time I watched it, the gag consisted of seeing the tall nerd acting upset, because he can't use the washroom on his preferred day. The scene laboured this gag for about five minutes. I'm not sure which part I was supposed to find funny - the childish gurning, the implausibly poor priorities, or the implied OCD/autism.
3) The concept of laughing at nerds just feels really dated. Nerd culture is really prevalent in this day and age, and I suppse nerds are meant to be the target audience for this show (I guess), but Big Bang Theory just seems to be a vehicle for laughing at everything nerds say and do - which was tired as a premise, even by the 1980s. Nerds being awkward around women? Comic relief Indians? Thrown in sci-fi/science references in casual conversation? Yawn.

 

[A3sir]

I hate the show, if you actually watch and listen to what is being said a lot of the time, they are poking fun at the nerdy types. This started, and was meant to be a show about nerds for nerds, but it quickly became a show for the masses to have a laugh at the nerds expense. It's not subtle either, they have full on said as much in the show.

Also, as many have said, the laugh track. Watch the show with the laugh track taken out, there are a few edits around the internet. The jokes are horrible, and mixing in with my first point, are clearly written by people who aren't nerds, but have researched ways to make them look as socially inept as possible so the masses can laugh at them.

It also doesn't help that none of the actors are actual nerds, and infact the guys that play Leonard and Sheldon are massive assholes in real life, it really puts me off.

If you want some intelligent comedies, try Arrested Development (which I am sure most people on here have seen) or another, lesser known one, Dead Like Me.

 

[gazumped]

I do love TBBT. Someone mentioned Spaced and IT Crowd, both are better, but TBBT is still lovely.

Leonard told Penny that he met a guy who looked like Adam West.

That's a funny little reference i thought.

"I'm sure you know who Adam West is!"

Added Sheldon. It was still funny but i started to get a bit nervous.

"No, i don't know who that is."

Penny replied and i knew this joke wasn't gonna survive.

"Adam West was the actor who played Batman in the Sixties."

And that did it. They ruined a perfectly good reference by explaining it. Screw you, Chuck Lorre.

See, although I don't remember that bit, simply reading you recounting it and imagining Sheldon and Penny doing that bit made me snigger. It's the awkwardness that makes it work, it's not just smooth quips, it's realistic vaguely face-palm-y situations.

Raj is still painfully shy around women and can only talk to them while drunk. I'd realistically say %50 of jokes involving Raj are this point exactly. When it becomes that predictable it isn't funny.

Isn't he's over that? He was talking to women sober now last time I checked, admittedly I haven't been following it that closely for the last season or so... but yeah, I do think that now they're so popular the series doesn't try as hard, it happens with a lot of franchises, unfortunately.

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

I like big bang theory. It's awesome. People who don't like it are nerd-ist.

 

[Greni]

Inserting a laugh track is a horrible form of trying to make something funny.
And it takes someone really easily amused to actually be tricked by it.

My friend made a little program that played a random laugh track from a databank every 5±3 second interval. Watching some crime drama with that in the background instantly becomes hilarious.

 

[sunsetspawn]

It's just not funny.


You can go through quite a few of these on youtube and each one is worse than the last.
Most modern sitcoms fail the "opinion" argument. It's not a good show and if you like it you should just admit that you like garbage. It's okay to like garbage, just don't like garbage and tell me it's pizza rolls.

Wait, what?

 

[Relish in Chaos]

There's no such thing as a funny, American sit-com.

Come on, that's just unfair stereotyping. There are some great American sitcoms out there. You just must not watch a lot of TV.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

As an admitted nerd, who has owned a variety of video game consoles over the years, played Magic: The Gathering for a substantial period of time, and is currently studying a degree in science at university, I have to say I really enjoy it. I don't understand why other people don't, but hey, that's their opinion.

 

[3quency]

I think the main reason I'm not big on it is twofold:
First, it's essentially Spaced done wrong. In Spaced all the jokes, references and nerd-culture was subtle. It served the plot and served the characters. It was never just a reference in a vacuum. In TBBT, the references are often apropos of nothing. In essence, the fact that they referenced something is often meant to be taken as a joke. That isn't funny. That's just Scary Movie as a sitcom, if slightly less mind-numbing.

Second, and this is just me being petty, the culture that's risen about it. I know I shouldn't get pissed off about this but the whole "gosh, I'm such a nerd" thing is fucking irritating. I didn't start reading comics and playing D&D because a wildly popular sitcom includes both as reference points. I started because I enjoy them. I'm not here to be cool I'm here to have a good time. But hey, as far as I know I've actually just invented this type of fan and they're as real as the "gamer girl" stereotype we've been yelling about lately.

But I wouldn't say I hate the show. Just dislike it.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

It's just not funny.


You can go through quite a few of these on youtube and each one is worse than the last.
Most modern sitcoms fail the "opinion" argument. It's not a good show and if you like it you should just admit that you like garbage. It's okay to like garbage, just don't like garbage and tell me it's pizza rolls.

Wait, what?

I'm sorry, but I don't concede that it's garbage. It's popular, and it's fairly well regarded by critics. The public like it, the people whose job it is to decide what's good and what isn't like it.

It's OK if you don't like, humour is subjective. It's OK to not enjoy pizza rolls, but don't try to tell everyone else that the pizza rolls are garbage just because you don't like them.