Future Tense: The Big Bang Theory

Posted 08/03/2011 at 1:34pm | by David Gerrold

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I stopped watching sitcoms when Mary Tyler Moore and M*A*S*H went off the air. When half-hour shows turned into rude people taking cheap shots at each other, they stopped being funny. And I stopped watching.

Several years ago, I was in Florida for a convention and a shuttle launch. I spent a few days with one of my nephews. One night, all discussion stopped immediately after dinner so we could watch a new sitcom he had become enamored with. Suffering from an untimely attack of good manners, I kept my mouth shut and prepared to suffer through 22 minutes of inanity. Instead, I laughed out loud. The show was The Big Bang Theory, and I immediately recognized it was about me, all of my friends, and most of the readership of MaximumPC. Returning to the left coast, I set the DVR to record every episode.

A few months later, I was at Comic-Con, exhausted and hiding behind a large stack of tribbles (www.tribbletoys.com) resting my feet, when I heard a voice asking, “Is David Gerrold here?” Being too tired to deal with fannish questions about anything at that moment, I sunk lower behind the tribbles. Until the voice said, “My name is Bill Prady and I’m a producer on The Big Bang Theory—”

—at which point, I came shooting up out of my chair like a whale breaching from fifty fathoms. “Big Bang Theory? That’s the best-written show on television!” I must have startled him and several others in the immediate vicinity. But it was the beginning of a genuine friendship—or at least, a very healthy mutual admiration society.

See, way back in the B.C. era (Before Computers), I wrote a book about writing for Star Trek. It was a love-letter to a great television show. I was privileged to share a small part of that particular adventure and I wanted to share it. In those days, there were no VCRs or DVDs and I expected the show to be quickly forgotten. Who knew? Right. But I didn’t expect the book to sell as well as it did—and I didn’t expect that it would end up as a textbook in college classes. I was still a beginner myself. I was just sharing what I was learning.

Uh....no, the other Big Bang Theory.

Bill Prady had bought my book as a teenager and (according to him), it opened his eyes to the whole process of how television works, how a story becomes a script becomes an episode. He told me that it was one of the things that inspired him to go into television himself. (And I’m glad he did.)

I appreciate good writing. I respect it. I admire it. I am in awe of it, because I know how difficult it can be. Good writing is about surprising the reader with every chapter, every page, every paragraph, even every sentence. Good storytelling is about creating a reality more fun and more compelling than the chair the reader or viewer is sitting in. Good writing is taking the audience on a marvelous journey of adventure, discovery, and emotional involvement. (All of which is why I don’t watch a lot of television and I’m skeptical about most movies and favor good novelists like Spider Robinson and Terry Pratchett.) Good writing is why The Big Bang Theory stands out as such a remarkable show. The writing staff of The Big Bang Theory consistently demonstrates a mastery of character and comedy that others would do well to study.

Bill Prady invited me to a taping of the show. I had so much fun, I kept coming back—and I started bringing friends. You can hear me on the laugh track. The scene where Penny gives Sheldon an napkin with Leonard Nimoy’s autograph—that’s me howling so loudly in the background. The show does not use a laugh track.

Watching a movie being made is boring. It looks like everybody is mostly standing around and waiting most of the time—because they are. Cameras have to be put in position, props have to be readied, practical effects have to be prepared, costumes and hair and makeup have to be adjusted and tweaked, lights have to be rigged, camera moves have to be rehearsed, and once in a while you even get some actors in place to give a meaningful look, open a cabinet, react to something, and maybe even speak a line of dialog.

But a sitcom is produced like a play. Each scene is done straight through from beginning to end with multiple cameras following the action, each from a different angle. Under the guidance of a skilled director (Hi, Mark Cendrowski!) the process looks effortless. He’ll shoot a scene twice—once to get it in the camera, once for insurance—and occasionally go back for a pickup from a different angle or because the producers have decided to change a line. More than once, those last-minute tweaks have resulted in hysterical improvements.

In front of the camera, the show has a remarkably talented and very likable cast. My personal favorite is Kaley Cuoco (Penny) because she’s so much fun to watch. She can say more with a single facial expression than some performers can say in a whole monolog. Johnny Galecki continues to make the character of Leonard Hofstader the most likable sad-sack on television. Simon Helberg (Howard Wolowitz) demonstrates how to live in a delusional mind-set of chauvinism and questionable fashion-sense without ever being cringe-worthy. Kunal Nayyar (Raj Koothrappali) brings a delicious creepiness to his own sidereal nerdiness. And of course, Emmy-winning Jim Parsons has made Dr. Sheldon Cooper a cultural archetype—kind of like Mr. Spock, but without the pointed ears and the seven-year sex drive.

Other great cast members include Carl Ann Susi as the unseen Mrs. Wolowtiz, Melissa Rauch as Bernadette, Howard’s girl friend, and Mayim Bialik as Amy Farrah Fowler, Sheldon’s friend who is also a girl, but not a girl friend, although….

While most audience members come to watch the show, I also love watching the crew behind the cameras. This production company has the best morale I’ve seen on any TV series since the original Star Trek. It’s not just that everybody here is good at their jobs—it’s also that they’re having a lot of fun doing their jobs.

Mary Quigley does a great job with costumes—each character has his or her own distinctive look. Just looking at what’s on the hanger, you know who it’s for. Scott L. London manages the props and it’s fun to watch the prop team reset the scene before every take. Peter Chakos edits the series and occasionally directs an episode. Asst. Director Anthony Rich seems to be everywhere at once, coordinating all the myriad details of keeping the production on schedule. I like watching Jeannete and Megan handle the clapboard tasks, and Jamie, one of the cameramen, works weekends at the local Apple store genius bar. (Which is why the show occasionally does gags about the genius bar.) There are too many other good people to mention all of them here, look them up on IMDB.

Overall, this is a great team, and I think much of the credit has to go to Chuck Lorre, who is long overdue for an Emmy award of his own. A couple years ago, Chuck Lorre was the keynote speaker at the Science Fiction Writers of America Nebula Awards banquet and he gave one of the funniest speeches I’ve ever heard at any banquet. He said he was honored to be in the same room with so many writers he admired.

But there’s another reason for acknowledging The Big Bang Theory. This is a show about geekery and nerdiness carried to the extreme. It is an avalanche of in-jokes—references to comic books, board games, science fiction movies, TV series, computer technology, high-level science and math, and everything else in nerdspace. This is because the writers and producers are geeks and nerds themselves—they are writing from their own experience. That the show has become the number one sitcom in America, even surpassing Chuck Lorre’s other big hit (Two And A Half Men) is evidence that geekiness has finally become mainstream. More than that, it has become fashionable.

The Big Bang Theory represents a tectonic shift in the cultural landscape. It is a show about intelligent people with intelligent and esoteric interests. At first glance, it seems as if it’s ridiculing braininess—but the characters are so well-drawn and so likable and the actors who play those characters are so likable and fun that they have changed the national perception of geeks and nerds. We are real human beings now, with real goals and real feelings. More than that, tech-freaks and sci-fi geeks are becoming the new hip.

What do you think?

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David Gerrold is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author. He has written more than 50 books, including "The Man Who Folded Himself" and "When HARLIE Was One," as well as hundreds of short stories and articles. His autobiographical story "The Martian Child" was the basis of the 2007 movie starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet. He has also written for television, including episodes of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Twilight Zone, and Land Of The Lost. He is best known for creating tribbles, sleestaks, and Chtorrans. In his spare time, he redesigns his website, www.gerrold.com