With 'The Big Bang Theory' Over, What Does the Future Hold for the Television Sitcom?

Last week, The Big Bang Theory­—the highly-rated sitcom that first debuted on CBS in 2007—bid farewell after 12 long seasons. When the series first started, traditional half-hour sitcoms with laugh tracks, a multi-camera setup, and live studio audiences were starting to be considered a thing of the past. With the conclusion of Will & Grace and the debut of 30 Rock in 2006, a new breed of television comedy was introduced that dared to fly without a laugh track and with quirkier, oddly-tempered jokes that were almost always geared towards a particular sense of humor. Gone were the days, it seemed, when television sitcoms were produced to please all audiences with family friendly premises and characters—The Office, Everybody Hates Chris, and later Parks & Recreation appeared to usher in a new era for the television comedy in the mid to late 2000s that let the audience come to the show, and not the other way around. But in September 2007, CBS premiered The Big Bang Theory and let it become a shining star for what was now apparently a form of television comedy from a bygone time.

In all seriousness, The Big Bang Theory was not the only remaining multi-camera sitcom with a  laugh track and audience-pleasing jokes in this postmodern era of television. If anything, while the other networks became committed to following and setting new trends, CBS remained more conservative and continued to put their faith in male-dominated, patriarchal procedurals and comedies. While NBC moved onto 30 Rock and Parks & Rec and ABC moved onto Modern Family and The Middle, CBS continued to give big budgets to traditional (and often male-dominated) television sitcoms—Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, Rules of Engagement, Mike & Molly, and The Big Bang Theory—to name only a few. In an era where the tastes and production of American television comedy was shifting, CBS stuck to what everybody already knew: a good, old-fashioned sitcom with a laugh track, zany but loveable characters, and an affinity for happy endings. And for awhile there, it worked—CBS was practically the only network that managed to continue to bring ratings to new, traditional sitcoms, and while other networks continued attempts to replicate multi-camera sitcoms with laugh tracks, not many stuck. The Big Bang Theory, however, managed to become either the most-watched or the second most-watched program on American television by its seventh season—an accomplishment difficult to achieve in a world that was already converting to streaming.

The series was not initially a huge success, commercially or critically. The Big Bang Theory had a modest debut in 2007, with mixed reactions from television critics and somewhat below average ratings. It was enough for them to survive the infamous writer’s strike of 2007–2008, and they returned in their Monday night timeslot either preceding or following Two and a Half Men for an additional two seasons. By season four, the series had grown enough in both ratings and popularity that CBS moved it to Thursdays at 8:00—which was once broadcast primetime television’s most coveted timeslot. For the next few years, it was television’s second highest-rated comedy, behind only ABC’s Modern Family. While that series might have been single-camera without a laugh track, both functioned as the past and present of the television sitcom molded together as one—a family comedy for modern times presented in mockumentary style, and an unapologetically geeky take on the Friends formula. The Big Bang Theory’s sixth season brought not only some of the highest-rated episodes of the series but some of the highest ratings by any primetime program in the 2010s—a 2013 episode, which brought over 20 million American viewers, was one of television’s highest-rated broadcasts since 2007. In 2014, CBS renewed the series for three additional years—an ambitious investment practically unheard of by our postmodern standards of television. By season seven, it was the second most-watched program in the United States, and took hold of the number one spot by season eleven. The Big Bang Theory came on and people watched—which became more and more extraordinary in an era where network television had become hopelessly usurped by Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video. Since 2010, it has been the single most-watched television program in Canada (aided by nightly reruns on CTV). Ratings continued to boom, and so the series continued—despite the fact that The Big Bang Theory died creatively multiple seasons before its ultimate conclusion.

It is undeniable that The Big Bang Theory’s success was made possible by the success of Friends in the ‘90s, and its continued popularity in reruns and on streaming services (one publication even claims that The Big Bang will leave behind a much greater legacy than Friends). Sheldon Cooper is basically Chandler Bing with a PhD and an inability to relate to others. And while a series about a group of science fiction-loving, Klingon-speaking geeks and their hot, blonde neighbor might not have immediately resonated back in 2007, The Big Bang Theory would eventually come to be embraced by the same audiences as a new and different version of the Friends premise—only with slightly more diversity and the same staunch heteronormativity. It didn’t matter if every audience member didn’t comprehend the scientific references to figures such as Richard Feynman or Marie Curie laced in a majority of the series’ episodes, because we understood the characters as social beings and related to them on that level. We understood everyone’s frustration and ultimate compromises with those relentlessly devoted to rules, routine, and insistence on imposing them on everyone else, and we cheered for Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) just as we cheered for Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) in 1996. But where Friends excelled and The Big Bang Theory ultimately failed was that Friends knew where to draw the line and knew when there were no more stories to tell. Similarly, while Modern Family is scheduled to conclude after its eleventh season next year, there are still a few stories left to tell and loose ends to wrap up. The Big Bang Theory ran out of stories to tell after season eight. Maybe season nine, if I’m feeling generous. It definitely could have concluded after season ten. But then CBS renewed it for two more years, and we finally said goodbye after season twelve—the network and producers were allegedly interested in an additional two years, since Jim Parsons turned down a new $50 million deal in favor of ending the series.

The original cast of The Big Bang Theory, 2007 (Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS)

Rather than living in the shadow of Friends, The Big Bang Theory almost feels like a contemporary version of Happy Days (which ran for eleven seasons on ABC between 1974 and 1984). Much like that series, The Big Bang Theory went through several different incarnations before finally landing on a formula that was concrete and didn’t need to change again—but by that point, it again felt like all of the stories were already told. Seasons eight through twelve of The Big Bang Theory feel as if Friends were to have continued on after everyone was married and had children. Perhaps if they had attempted to portray a unique and refreshing take on married life with all of the central characters now married (with the exception of Raj), it wouldn’t have felt like the series was stunted creatively and died a slow, agonizing death. Of course, it could have been much worse—once it achieved its status as an untouchable ratings monster, The Big Bang Theory could have become an outrageous fantasy with the characters winning the lottery and fighting terrorists on trains, in the vein of Roseanne. But just like CBS, the series stuck to what they knew, and it got boring. Fast. The writing for most episodes after season ten felt hopelessly uninspired, and honestly, can you blame them? Aside from Two and a Half Men—another CBS cash cow which also ran for twelve seasons under wildly different circumstances—can you name me another American television sitcom that ran for twelve seasons? Even Happy Days, and soon Modern Family, will have ran for eleven. And maybe if there was still life left in The Big Bang Theory with stories left to tell, twelve seasons wouldn’t have felt so long. But after Leonard and Penny were finally married, Sheldon reached sexual maturity with Amy, and Howard and Bernadette started a family, was there anything left that was worth telling? Not really. The series did conclude with Sheldon and Amy winning the Nobel Prize, something Sheldon had aspired to from the very first season, but even that felt like sugar on top of an already over-sweetened sundae. It was as if the series had become the sitcom equivalent of a police procedural that can easily run for close to twenty seasons, since the lives of the characters are not the central focus (not so coincidentally, those procedurals also tend to be CBS’s speciality). The Big Bang Theory ran for twelve seasons not because there were stories still left to tell, but because until the very last episode it was an unstoppable force of ratings for CBS in a world that had long since declared network TV dead in favor of streaming. And in the world of entertainment and certainly television, a cash cow trumps endless creativity every time.

Amid a series of nostalgic goodbyes, the end of The Big Bang Theory has also called the future of the multi-camera television sitcom into question. Apart from several new comedy pilots every year and short-lived sitcoms that quickly get thrown out, CBS still has Mom—another sitcom created by Chuck Lorre (who is also the man behind The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, and several others)—presented in the traditional style of laugh track and studio audience, which has been renewed through its eighth season. They also have Man with a Plan—an uninspired modern retelling of The King of Queens or Everybody Loves Raymond starring Matt LeBlanc—entering its fourth season, and The Neighborhood, a somewhat socially conscious tale of an overly friendly white couple moving into a black neighborhood, which has been picked up for a second year. The other networks have their own fair shares of attempts at the television sitcom for the modern age, including successful revivals of Will & Grace and Roseanne (but not Murphy Brown, whose own revival received mixed to negative reviews and was cancelled by CBS after a single season). But the end of The Big Bang Theory has left many questioning if there will soon be another series to take its place, especially given that The Big Bang was a placeholder from a time when network television meant more than it does now. Does the traditional, multi-camera sitcom still have a place in a world captivated by creatively bold series like Veep or Schitt’s Creek?

Sitcoms, let alone drama series, produced by network television have also come to be all but ignored by the Primetime Emmy Awards, which are now dominated by programs produced by streaming services and HBO (while the single-camera Modern Family did well at the Emmys for its first few years, the last multi-camera sitcom to win Outstanding Comedy Series was Everybody Loves Raymond in 2005). But with classic twentieth century sitcoms like The Golden Girls, Seinfeld, and of course Friends still popular in reruns decades after their heydays, some remain optimistic that the classic, multi-camera sitcom that generations have grown up to could always make a comeback, as it’s done countless times before. “I still believe that shooting a show in front of an audience is a wonderful way to a tell a story,” says Chuck Lorre. “I don’t think the audience watches and counts cameras. They watch the show because they love the characters and it delivers on the comedy … If you have something worthwhile, I don’t think it matters whether it’s single-camera, four-camera, eighteen cameras, or a flip book. If it’s really good, it’s going to find an audience. Maybe that’s naive or overly optimistic. But I have to proceed on that basis.”

Book Review: 'Finding Dorothy' by Elizabeth Letts

"Magic isn't things materializing out of nowhere. Magic is when a lot of people all believe in the same thing at the same time, and somehow we all escape ourselves a little bit and we meet up somewhere, and just for a moment, we taste the sublime."

I really enjoyed reading this. Finding Dorothy is a historical novel that fictionalizes the true history behind the inspiration for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz books, as told by the author's wife, Maud Baum. The story follows Maud throughout two different time periods; her youth and young adulthood when she meets and marries L. Frank Baum in the mid to late 1800s, and the production of The Wizard of Oz film adaption by MGM over the course of 1938 to 1939. After hearing about the film adaption of her late husband's beloved story, Maud decides to work her way into MGM in hopes that she will be able to see the script and recommend any necessary changes, especially surrounding the character of Dorothy. Her eye is also soon caught by a young Judy Garland, whose safety she fears for on the MGM lot given her outstanding talent but very young age. Maud's instinct to protect young Judy is driven by another young girl she knew who also didn't get a happy ending; a young girl we learn about throughout the novel.

Finding Dorothy is very entertaining for anyone who has grown up either watching The Wizard of Oz (one of the most seen films in history), or also reading the books on which the film was based. Maud's inclination to protect a character like Dorothy despite everyone's insistence that she's not real is very touching and heartwarming, given that a multitude of famous fictional characters are often based off of real people. The novel is also very well written and easy to get through; the kind of book you could sit down to only read a chapter or two and then end up reading a hundred pages. The chapters taking place in the present, 1938 and 1939, were the most interesting to me given that The Wizard of Oz film is very near and dear to my heart not only because I grew up watching it like everyone else, but because since growing up I have found new insight and comfort in what the story and the character of Dorothy represent—innocence, a longing to belong somewhere, and a yearning to exist in someplace where there isn't any trouble and where people understand her. For me, and I'm sure for countless others, this is why the story of The Wizard of Oz continues to resonate, since these are themes that never go out of style. Elizabeth Letts does a very good job of capitalizing on these themes, especially surrounding the people on the movie set who grew up reading Baum's books.

The author also does an exceptional job at chipping away at the age-old link between Judy Garland and Dorothy; a link that scholars, critics, experts, and the actress herself have long since suggested that Garland and the character were impeccably similar in heart and spirit when the film was made. In a story about the origin story of one of fiction's most famous characters, Dorothy Gale—the girl who wanted to fly over the rainbow—the author wastes no time in pointing out that a young and vulnerable Judy Garland, who was hopelessly susceptible to the ruthless Hollywood studio system in place at that time, was just another Dorothy character looking for her rainbow and yearning for her happy ending (a happy ending which Garland claimed she herself never received). "What must the weight of so much expectation—of men, and their ambitions and desires—feel like on the shoulders of a lonely teenage girl? "

For me, the novel began to drag about halfway through, when it appeared as though the author was losing interest in fleshing out the details of the chapters taking place in the past: she quickly glosses over crucial events, does a lot of telling instead of showing, and it feels as though she definitely wanted to get back to the much more interesting storyline taking place in the present. The author explains her writing process and inspiration for Finding Dorothy in an afterword at the end, explaining that the entire novel is a fictional story based closely on the truth and that she poured over the diaries, journals, and letters of the real Baum family in order to properly construct a fiction that very well might have been close to the truth. She also explains that she did leave some things up to the imagination regarding Maud's youth and the origin story of Dorothy, writing that she didn't feel completely comfortable fictionalizing every aspect of the plot. I understand that, but after awhile the chapters taking place in the past were just a bore to get through. I believe she could have ended the story in the past once she started to not feel comfortable fictionalizing it further, and then focused solely on the production of the MGM film adaption since that was clearly a much more interesting storyline for both the author and the reader.

In any event, I really enjoyed Finding Dorothy. I think it would make a great movie, and could join the ranks of other films about the real-life origin stories of American literature classics, in the vein of Finding Neverland or Saving Mr. Banks. I think this story could even resonate more than those films, given that The Wizard of Oz movie is such a classic story beloved by countless generations whose popularity has even transcended that of the books on which the film was based. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the film rights for Finding Dorothy get snapped up sometime soon, but until then, I'd recommend reading the book. 4/5 stars.

Carly Rae Jepsen Reminds Us That Pop Music Should Be Unapologetic on 'Dedicated' (Album Review)

Could anybody have ever predicted that Carly Rae Jepsen—the Canadian singer who initially appeared on Canadian Idol in 2007—would have become pop music’s biggest cult favorite? Three albums and dozens of singles later, Jepsen has returned with her fourth studio effort, Dedicated, an album in which she says she has finally learned how to “embrace her weirdness.”

After finishing in third place on Idol over a decade ago, Jepsen signed with Chad Kroeger’s 604 Records in Canada and recorded her folk-inspired debut album, Tug of War, released domestically in her native country in 2008. Her real breakthrough would arrive four years later in 2012, when she left her folksy side behind and went for straight up bubblegum pop on her single “Call Me Maybe”—which, with the help of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, was boosted to significant mainstream popularity and later became the highest-selling song of that year. Meanwhile, Jepsen was signed to a new joint record deal with Interscope and Scooter Braun’s label, Schoolboy Records, and released her second studio album and international debut, Kiss. After the significant mainstream success she enjoyed with “Call Me Maybe” and its accompanying bubblegum pop album, Jepsen returned with her third studio album in 2015, Emotion, whose dance and synthpop sound drew heavy inspiration from ‘80s music. Although the album was the subject of critical acclaim, it underperformed commercially worldwide, only seeing the moderate success of its lead single “I Really Like You,” another bubblegum offering. But in lieu of commercial success, Emotion reinvigorated Jepsen’s career as the pop singer we know her as today—instead of being at the top of charts or trying to create another “Call Me Maybe,” she is making her own style of pop still heavily influenced from bygone eras, which has undoubtedly given her a large gay following—which has been referred to as a “queer cult.” 

On her new studio album Dedicated—for which Jepsen says she wrote over 200 songs over the last two years and ended up narrowing it down to a final track listing of 15—she continues paving her own road. She’s stated that her goal was to make “chill disco,” and despite the EDM single “Now That I Found You” not appearing incredibly original at first, Jepsen manages to find new ways to create poignant sounds that sound both old and new with sometimes poetic lyrics offering new insights into typical romantic clichés often found in pop music. But this is what Carly Rae Jepsen represents in the current pop music landscape: that the genre’s purpose is no longer solely to sell records and top charts. Sometimes pop music is just about dancing, having fun, and accepting that the human spirit is something that never goes out of style.

If Jepsen crafted an album about the unpredictability of human emotions on Emotion, she proves that she is dedicated to that theme on Dedicated. I wouldn’t necessarily describe the album as disco, but it definitely accomplishes the “chill” vibe that she said she was going for. I feel as though only Carly Rae Jepsen could somehow make campiness chill, and create an album that screams camp while still being consistently mellow and without the hysterics found on Emotion (also, I must point out that Jepsen could have made any kind of album she wanted and I still would have been grateful to finally hear her voice with refreshing new production without the ‘80s synth vibes that infested both Emotion and its sequel, Emotion: Side B, from start to finish). Dedicated’s highlights appear hidden between the lines—she maintains her dreamy and lovestruck stance on “Julien” and “No Drug Like Me” before coming through on the disco influences on “Want You in My Room.” On “Too Much,” she sings about what it’s like to always go too far and feel too much—which feels as though it could be a sequel to any number of dance numbers from Emotion. “The Sound” functions as an excellent predecessor to quite possibly the album’s biggest highlight, “Automatically in Love,” which combines sounds reminiscent of Mariah Carey and Donna Summer to form an escapist pop sound that is undoubtedly, unapologetically Carly Rae Jepsen. “Feels Right,” a collaboration with Electric Guest, is an upbeat and catchy track reminiscent of Motown funk that indeed feels right on an album like Dedicated. The album nears a close with “Real Love,” a standout ballad combining new wave synths with EDM about following your heart. “Party For One” serves as Dedicated’s closing track, which was initially released as the album’s lead single last November but now only serves as a bonus track on the digital deluxe edition.

Some listeners who have failed to look between the lines still only know Jepsen as the “Call Me Maybe” girl, but Jepsen has spent the better part of almost a decade since then forging her own path as someone who subverts expectations—she might not represent what current popular music is today, but on a deeper level she represents what the genre has always been about: dancing your troubles away, accepting the inevitability of a broken heart, and the ever-changing nature of human emotions. In a world where pop culture craves pop songs that will resonate with everyone, Jepsen’s music focuses on a predictable theme we all can relate to, no matter what: feelings. Her songs also celebrate the intimacy and primacy of those intense emotions of forbidden desires and secret crushes, which has certainly contributed to her appeal and resonance among gay men. If anything, Dedicated proves that working with old sounds with an artist’s own twist does not speak to a lack of ambition on Jepsen’s part, but rather a passion for unique, unapologetic pop music. And it may not be the last we hear from the Dedicated era, since Jepsen says she may or may not release a compilation of B-sides and tracks that didn’t make the final cut, in the same vein as Emotion: Side B (which may include the title track “Dedicated,” which did not happen to make the final cut). Jepsen knows and embodies the fickle, feel-good pop music we know and love, whether we know it or not. “Sometimes you live with songs too much,” she says. “I just warn my manager, if we’re going to go with something, we should probably go with it soon, because God knows this girl changes her mind.”

Jeffrey’s favorites from Dedicated: “Julien,” “No Drug Like Me,” “Now That I Found You,” “Want You in My Room,” “Too Much,” “The Sound,” “Automatically in Love,” “Feels Right,” “Real Love,” and “Party For One”

Book Review: 'At Home in the World' by Joyce Maynard

"It is unfathomable to me, at eighteen, that some people actually grow up feeling reasonably content with themselves. It will be years before I understand some people go to bed every night with a sense of well-being that has nothing to do with winning prizes or publishing their stories."

At Home in the World is a memoir by writer and author Joyce Maynard, first published in 1998. My interest in reading it was peaked several years ago, after I had read and enjoyed two of Maynard's novels of fiction, Labor Day and After Her. And despite knowing Maynard as an author in the context of having read two of her books, I actually had no idea of her rich history as a writer, author, daughter, mother, and a woman trying to finally feel at home in the world.

The memoir mainly focuses on Maynard's eleven-month relationship with infamously reclusive author J.D. Salinger between 1972 and 1973, which began after New York Magazine published an essay she wrote about growing up as a young person in the socially and politically turbulent 1960s. But At Home in the World is more than that: it's a story of a young girl who, for the majority of her life, struggled to find a place where she felt at home. She details her upbringing with her mother, a writer, and her father, a university professor who was an unstable alcoholic. Essentially, Maynard describes how she seemed to follow every rule that she was supposed to and still ended up feeling dissatisfied once she grew up; something that is still relevant and resonates today. She describes how she met Salinger at such a formative time in her existence and had still yet to process her own writing career that began to bloom at such a young age. She wrote her first memoir following the success of her published essay, Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties, despite still being too young to truly know or find her place in the world. Maynard also struggled with anxiety and an eating disorder as she tried to maintain different expectations and standards of perfection, all while becoming infatuated with a famous author who attempts to mold her into the woman and writer he wants to see.

Reading how Maynard describes the era in which she grew up, especially since she was an adult when she wrote this memoir and finds strength in her perceptions merely from the distance of time, was fascinating. It was interesting to see how past generations, especially ones who came of age in an era of shifting social norms, struggled just as much with feelings of anxiety as current generations do. Growing up is hard and being alive is hard, and Maynard always reminds us of that. For me, At Home in the World was less about her relationship and/or affair with J.D. Salinger and more a coming-of-age tale from a now-grown woman who refuses to lie to herself anymore. She admits that she was too young to have been given such a platform as a writer and journalist for multiple magazines and newspapers, including Seventeen and The New York Times. She admits she was infatuated with Salinger merely because he was such a highly respected author and, from the time she was a child, she craved approval anywhere she could get it. She admits that reading many of the pieces she published as a teenager and young adult make her uncomfortable now, because no eighteen-year-old should ever sound that sure of themselves. But she uses her affair with Salinger as a focal point for her own becoming, and how despite the fact that he was the one who grew bored with her and abandoned her, she was able to finally find her footing as a person in the world once he was out of her life. Years later, as an adult, Maynard visits him in person and demands an answer to one question: what was her purpose in his life? He doesn't really give her one, but what he does say is enough to confirm what she and the reader already know: maybe the whole world is full of liars and fakes and phonies, but it's better to be in it, than down here with you.

I find At Home in the World did drag in places where Maynard chose to focus a little too much about her immediate family by building up characters who don't really play hugely pivotal roles in the overall story she is telling, but I feel as though she had to establish who she is by telling us about her upbringing and her family as they were. But the memoir itself was crafted very strongly and will surely resonate if you have either read Maynard's books of fiction before, or you've ever struggled to feel at home in the world: I'm willing to bet every single human being will satisfy at least one of those. Maynard's storytelling is very raw, honest, and real; she writes of her own failings and shortcomings with such vulnerability and realism that you can't help but keep reading until the last page. 4/5 stars.