Twenty years after the premiere of the first season of The Big Bang Theory and seven years after its finale, the hit comedy is back on the small screen. Though perhaps not in the way fans of the nine-time Emmy-winning sitcom had dreamed. This Thursday, HBO Max will air the first episode of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, the latest spin-off of the show that said goodbye in 2019 but never really left.
First, in parallel with its final seasons, came the prequel Young Sheldon, centered on the childhood of the character Jim Parsons made famous in the original series. Then came Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, another prequel focused on the couple formed by Georgie Cooper, Sheldon’s younger brother, and his wife Mandy. Returning to the classic sitcom structure, the series already has two seasons available on HBO Max and a third announced for October of this year.
But before that return, Chuck Lorre — the Midas of television comedy, responsible for unbreakable series like Two and a Half Men, The Kominsky Method, Mom, and of course The Big Bang Theory — decided to indulge himself by telling the Big Bang his way, using his well-known comedic skills aided by the tools of science fiction.
“About a decade ago, I had the idea that Stuart, the owner of the comic book store the characters from The Big Bang Theory visited, had a portal to other universes in the back of his shop. I always wanted to try a genre that allowed me to explore the use of visual and digital effects. I was very intrigued that nowadays you can put on screen whatever you imagine. In my opinion, the key to combining comedy with science fiction is being clear about whether something is funny or not. No special effect can turn something that isn’t funny into something funny,” Lorre explained in a Zoom press conference.
Famous for his ability to create extremely popular stories and characters, the producer is also a rarity among his peers: not only does he not seem to take breaks between successes, but he also often uses everything at his disposal to communicate directly with viewers of his shows. He did so during the most controversial stage of his relationship with Charlie Sheen, and he does so now through the cards that appear at the end of each episode, called “Vanity Cards.” In his case, they are messages full of wit and self-referential humor that invite viewers to pause and read them with the same attention given to the rest of the series.
“I’ve spent 40 years writing about people sitting on a couch doing nothing but talking. This time I wanted to try something else, though you might see that here too there are couches and people sitting on them talking,” Lorre wrote at the end of the credits of the first chapter of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.
The plot begins in a post-apocalyptic world plunged into chaos after the explosion of a device created by Leonard and Sheldon to explore alternate realities. With civilization collapsed and the quiet city of Pasadena transformed into a dangerous no-man’s land teeming with giant insects and hungry cannibals, Stuart’s comic book store remains a refuge for superhero fans. But it is also ground zero of the dimensional fracture that sets in motion the adventures of four old acquaintances: Stuart, his girlfriend Denise, the geologist Bert, and the fussy Kripke, Sheldon’s old enemy at the university.
A dimensional fracture puts the meek Stuart in a position to save the world, as long as he dares to navigate the many alternate universes multiplied to infinity, a clever resource that allowed the writers to include some of the most beloved characters from The Big Bang Theory in the new story. Although it’s best not to reveal who they are or how they will appear, what is worth knowing is that while everything will be more fun if viewers have references to the characters and their original ways, it is not necessary to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the 279 episodes of the original series to appreciate the effort Lorre and his team put into imagining different parallel realities, such as one where magic is real or another where machines control every corner of the human experience.
Para mí esto es otro verso de la progresía woke. HBO Max, la plataforma de los zurdos, nos quiere lavar la cabeza con multiversos y diversidad. Stuart es un perdedor, no va a salvar nada. ¡Viva la familia tradicional y la física de verdad! No lo miren, es una pérdida de tiempo.
che otro spin off berreta de tbbt? stuart salvando el universo? mamita dan verguenza ajena los yanquis explotando la misma formula hasta el hartasgo para mi prefiero mil veces ver documentales de la lucha de clases que esta basura alienante dejen de romper las pelotas con lo mismo lacras del sistema fdo elcompache