The day before yesterday as the episode of the season of Big Bang Theory rolled to its conclusion, I capitulated to what the makers of the series wanted me to do — I let my eyes get just a bit moist.
BBT could also be charged of stealing hundreds of hours from our family mealtime. It had quite undesirably shifted our meal venue from the dining table to the living area in front of the TV. Guilty as charged!
But BBT had also given us three countless moments of laughter. While many jokes were cheap, mean, racist, mildly profane, most were truly witty. The main characters were designed with enough craft, psychological insight and variety of traits that it hadn't grown monotonous watching them. Though I don't possess the knowledge to evaluate, I think there's enough mathematics involved in optimising the ensemble of traits visible in all the characters and how they are distributed among the characters to maximize the comic effect. Much of the humour in the series lay in its dialogues and how they were delivered. Again, the dialogue design exhibited phenomenal access to knowledge in human psychology and various branches of sciences (astrophysics, neurobiology, microbiology and of-course physics).
One of major ticklers of the theme was the presence of contradictory traits in Sheldon — a genius level IQ contrasted with a nearly absent EQ. Undoubtedly, the focus was mostly on his low EQ as instances of his genius would be mostly inaccessible to most viewers and would have little comic value. It provided an excellent contrasting backdrop on which to paint glorious pictures of his goofiness. I also feel that the makers mayn’t have shied from capitalising on the fact that people on average love to hate brilliant people. That a genius level scientist can completely fail in social settings isn't just funny but even comforting in sadistic way to an average viewer.
Of course, there many instances of contradictions in the show. Amy with high IQ and EQ but bad body image. Penny with physical attractiveness and street smartness but low textbook intelligence. Leonard with his maturity but emotional vulnerability. Howard and Rajesh both with impressive academic background but low self-esteem and creepiness. Bernadet with her tiny height and cute face but with a dominating and aggressive personality. Howard with his creepiness but attachment with his mother. The impressively high intelligence of all four boys contrasted with their social awkwardness and love for comic, videogames and superhero tales.
Placing complementary characters side-by-side maybe another of those design tricks. For instance, Amy (high EQ) against Sheldon (low EQ). Penny (low IQ) versus all the others (high IQ).
Probably complementarity of various types is a standard comic tool.
In the jungle of slapstick, there were plenty of examples of genuinely witty and high-class use of language. If not anything else, I am sure that all three of us learned a lot about clever use of language, English in particular, because of watching BBT.
And I think one of most comforting and endearing aspect of this show was its light-heartedness. We are academicians ourselves. And, while we love our profession, we know how gruelling it can be with more its share of stress, anxiety, ego, competition sometimes amounting to bitter rivalry and even hatred, insecurities, manipulation and corruption, powerplay, bullying, abuse and harassment. However, these characters, academicians themselves, when they sat down together in the living room of Sheldon's apartment, eating always out of their ordered in packet, they would always be exuding a sense of relaxation. There may be dashes of sarcasm, anger, frustration and all sorts of negativities, but all adding up to create an atmosphere of cosiness and camaraderie, devoid of overwork or overwhelm. Having my meals in their company would transport into their world for those few minutes, and my life would lose its bit of burdensomeness for a while.
So there! That little mist that appeared before my eyes wasn't just because of Sheldon's emotional speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony, but because I had also already started missing these fictional friends of mine, with whom I had spent more lighthearted and quality time than with many other so-called real characters in my life.
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