The Problem With The Big Bang Theory…

butmyopinionisright:

I’ve been meaning to post something about The Big Bang Theory for a while now but it’s taken me ‘till now to really understand what it is about the show that makes me uncomfortable. I’m not exactly a believer in the whole “only write about the things you like, don’t trash the things you don’t” trend which seems to be plaguing comments sections in negative articles lately, but I wanted to be able to really examine why I don’t like TBBT rather than just slagging it off. My main questions being - Why don’t I like this anymore? Why do I feel uncomfortable watching it? And why do I get so annoyed when I see people sing its praises online? The thing which really sparked this post was seeing a raft of comments on Facebook, below the last round of voting in Television Without Pity’s Tubey Awards, claiming The Big Bang Theory to be “the best comedy on TV”. This made me angry so instead of posting an impulsive comment calling out their bad taste which I’d probably regret later, I decided to really analyse why seeing comments like that made me so mad when previously, although I didn’t really love the show, I’d never considered myself as disliking The Big Bang Theory.

Hell, I even have season one on dvd, it’s sitting right between Battlestar Galactica and Bored To Death in my alphabetised collection.

And here, I think, is where my problem with The Big Bang Theory lies…

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For those of you who like thinking too much about TV, this is a thoughtful take on a fairly thoughtless show.

Baaaaaarrrrrrffffff

Emphases mine:

When Pete democratically suggests they put it to a vote, Roger autocratically reminds him he’s a senior partner to Pete’s junior as well as suggesting they step outside, one-upping Pete with both might and right. Being a whiner not a fighter (as well as part of a generation that prefers to parlay rather than punch), Pete lets it go…

— Mad Men’s Eventful Return

GOOD JOB, NETFLIX

You’re watching The Walking Dead.

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Saying Skip Bayless spurs “debate” is kind of like saying that nothing has done more to advance modern first-aid medicine than the machine gun.  It’s technically true in the most degrading and wasteful sense, and it does a discredit to rational humanity. But, you know, it’s technically true. Coming up on SportsCenter: we talk Joffre, Haig, Ludendorff and our Humanitarian All-Century Team.

Saying Skip Bayless spurs “debate” is kind of like saying that nothing has done more to advance modern first-aid medicine than the machine gun. 

It’s technically true in the most degrading and wasteful sense, and it does a discredit to rational humanity. But, you know, it’s technically true.

Coming up on SportsCenter: we talk Joffre, Haig, Ludendorff and our Humanitarian All-Century Team.

Guy at Karaoke Night Performing ‘Hill Street Blues’ Theme

I know what you’re thinking: “I didn’t know that theme had any words.” 

It doesn’t. He just stands up there and vamps for three minutes. He wins the contest every week. That’s how good he is.

Ways to Improve Tim Allen’s Appearance on Any Football Broadcast

5. Have him stand by a fence and berate “Wilson” for having no idea what he’s talking about, then the camera travels over the fence and reveals Ralph Wilson, standing in mute, shaken dignity, a solitary tear finally falling off the tip of a fluttered eyelid.

4. All three of his TV sons stand behind him looking quiet and bloated and weird—like you could take them to any strip club in a state like Nebraska and have them tell you, within $5, the cost of each sexual act on both the official and unofficial menus.

3. Al Michaels in heavy flannel and a fake beard.

2. Just three straight minutes of him faceplanted into the dirt, his ass in the air, pushing himself along the ground like a human adze, trying to snort the entire sideline like a snitching, coke-dealing sack of crap.

1. Have him plug in 15 different electrical cords, at which point the roof of the Metrodome collapses.

I don’t understand why ‘Whitney’ isn’t funnier.

She’s such a standout on the stand-up comic circuit. I mean, she has tits, and she talks about how she likes to suck dick!

Why isn’t it working on a sitcom, where there have been extremely hot tit-bearing women speaking really clever lines about sucking dick for years now?

I can’t explain in words how much being able to pause live television has comedically enriched my life.

I can’t explain in words how much being able to pause live television has comedically enriched my life.

Swanson ‘Hungry Man’ dinners are missing a huge opportunity by not putting Ron Swanson on every box.

"When you’re young, you look at television and think - There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought."

Steve Jobs (via sirmitchell)

I would find this a lot more persuasive if television comedy hadn’t gotten an order of magnitude smarter in the last decade and if the expansion of channel options wasn’t increasing the diversity of dramas, ideas and characters. This is just a bog-standard “TV is dumb opinion” whose own terms — that it worsens as one ages — actually spell out the means anyone could use to figure out how incredibly stupid it is; television’s aging in the last decade has shown its maturation. Even if this quote were 10 years old, it’d would be stupid. The Simpsons was a smarter comedy than anything that came before it, and it’s only been on the air for a fucking generation.