It is perhaps the funniest show on the major networks.

It's ghastly, isn't it? It's up there with Two And A Half Men in terms of the sheer lack of humour. Sadly good comedies are few and far between. The last truly funny one was The Inbetweeners.

I agree, it is terrible.

i guess you just don't get the jokes? How can you not like it, looking at 'dr Cooper' and his strange behaviors? Not your kind of humor?

The main character is static. You know exactly what he's about after 3 minutes of watching the show... and it could be any 3 minutes, because he's always the same. Non-progressive shows are boring as crap.

says the guy with both Hitler and 69 in his name.

Big bang theory, two and a half men, everybody loves Raymond.

I've tried enjoying them but, for the life of me, can't see the appeal. Worse than awful, IMHO

I really like it, except for the canned laughter and Amy and Bernadette. And there's been some really bad episodes especially in season 4.

This is gold...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wDM0ymbG1E

I think BBT is great, but mostly because I deal with people exactly like them all day. If you aren't familiar with that type of environment, I can see how it wouldn't be amusing.

Here's my favorite clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WPgDO3BAXM

It is hilarious. I just wish they would use the nerd jokes more and less of them going to parties and having lifes. It is a show about nerds for nerds. Stay true to your design.

Hilarious - people criticizing a show they admit to not watching and claiming that it is static...THAT is comedy gold. Sheldon Cooper is hilarious, the science humor is hilarious. The episode in one of the early seasons where Sheldon was going to tutor Penny was genius.

Abg, I'm certainly in the n3rd world but still couldn't get into it. It's not nearly as nerdy as it professes to be.

It's more just a generic comedy with nerds in it. And the occasional nerd joke. But not enough.

No, I have seen quite a few episodes (many of my friends really like it). I just find it boring and the humour a bit stale.

@Yonni

I'm not sure what to say then. If find it does an amazing job of picking up on many of the idiosyncrasies that I see throughout my day.

It isn't really *funny* as far as funny goes (I agree with the 2 1/2 Men comparison, you can spot a Chuck Lorre sitcom a mile away) but, like abgemacht, the nuances are familiar enough that I find it entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24HNJv3FkU&list=FLSEaF5KPWR6sbYJpggZU6VA&index=76&feature=plpp_video

This isn't funny? C'mon! Last 30 seconds in particular.
Any true nerd must be able to relate to this!

It has its moments, but a lot of the humor could be exchanged with any other sitcom.

The truly nerdy stuff though, yeah I love it.

Meh, I like it alright...

It's not a blockbuster, game-changer when it comes to humor...

But I'll take science and sci-fi jokes over the other comedy shows on...

It's fun, for a bit...

I actually do like Amy and Bernadette, I just think the show runs into the same problem as my beloved "House" did a year or two ago--overusing and over-doing a good thing or a good character...really, the whole Sheldon's-this-static!-LOL! thing has gotten a bit stale...but then again, Sherlock Holmes had 56 short stories and 4 novels, all structured relatively the same, with Holmes relatively the same, more or less, for most of them, so you knew what you were going to get each time you read a story, but folks kept reading because they enjoyed the same thing over and over again...so long as it was DONE WELL, that's the key.

Star Trek, same thing--every week, YOU KNOW what's going to happen, the cliches are known to folks even if you don't watch the show:

Alien of the Week...
Kirk, Spock, and Bones visit an alien planet, bicker, and Kirk tries to get some alien tail...
"He's dead Jim!"...
Scotty being over-the-top-"Scottish" (I wonder what actual Scots must think of him!)...
Phasers, fist fights, that famous battle music...
Spock says "logical" and "fascinating" almost every scene...
Anyone wearing a red shirt not named Uhura or Scotty usually dies...

And so on.

And yet, people seem to enjoy it, when done well...

TBBT is just the same thing from a comedy standpoint--the same characters doing their same bits over and over again...it just comes down to if you like those characters and, if you do, how many times you can see them do those things over and over.

Not groundbreaking, but not awful...I'll enjoy watching it if not much else is on...

Yeah, I get that people find it funny and I don't mean to rag on them for it. Just bored and felt like whinging.

At any rate, Canada vs. Scotland curling is on so I can be entertained.

@Obi -- yes, it's lost it's initial charm, but is still a hell of a lot better than most of the crap on TV...of course, I guess that's why I cancelled cable and leave the tube off a lot in favor of....hmmm....trolling WebDip!!! Mwaaa ha ha ha ha ha!!

I love that show! Being a math nerd, I understand many of the jokes. I laughed so hard the first time I heard Sheldon say, "I feel like an inverse tangent curve approaching an asymptote" as he was clinging to a rock climbing wall, afraid of height associated with it.

Hold up, I think everyone missed this.

"At any rate, Canada vs. Scotland curling is on so I can be entertained."

How is curling more entertaining than TBBT? I think this explains some of the differences in opinions

I don't hate it, but it's also not the kind of show I like watching. My roommates do, though...

I encourage all of you who think it's so funny to watch the YouTube videos of the show with the laugh track taken out. It sounds like a Beckett play. In a bad way.

I'm with you Yonni. I can't stand the show, and I hate it when everyone tells me that its because I don't understand the jokes.

Women's Curling is one of the best things going.

On TV, I mean.

Best show was Prison Break and the best is Breaking Bad or Supernatural!

I understand most of the jokes and I don't think the show is funny. It is not very clever or creative. It uses the same routine and it places the characters in static fields.

yes I agree

"You must not be watching it right" QFT.

hahaha Prison Break, Breaking Bad & Supernatural are HILARIOUS comedy shows.

I'm with abgemacht here...
knowing such people... the show is priceless. and no it doesn't get stale then.

I like what I've seen of TBBT but I've only seen episodes here or there.

@ TheWizard and Abge

That's just it. I was a physics student for 4 years and I don't recognise any of these people. I understand the jokes, but they're just not funny. It's just half an hour of an exaggerated stereotype that doesn't really exist, punctuated with canned laughter at the end of every bloody sentence, and a scattering of jokes that never get funnier than "a neutrino walks into a bar..."

If you want a comedy with nerds in watch The IT Crowd. It beats it by a country mile.

I can't watch a show with a laugh track. Seriously, it takes me completely out of the moment, and no matter how many times I watch a show like that I only get more irritated, I can't seem to get used to it.

The only shows I can watch with a laugh track are the IT Crowd and Seinfeld.

i enjoy it but i could see how some might not. it is pretty predicatble. but still...

soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur......

my two favorite comedies are Arrested devlepoment and flight of the conchords (first season more, flight of the conchords last few episodes are terrible i can see why they stopped after them)

Seinfeld had an audience, not a laugh track. Even the location shoots were shown to an audience to get their authentic laughter. These are the fun things you learn with the DVD commentary on.

@DJ Did you know Netflix is bring at least some of Arrested Development back with the original cast. I cannot wait.

The Laugh Track Theory

Really, thanks for that Invictus, makes it even beter.
Arrested Development is bloody great, and I think a movie is coming this year.

Seriously, why do they allow the Big Bang Theory on TV? It's just a theory. Shouldn't they be fair and put other theories like God and stuff on TV too?

LOL +1...

Holy_Crusader2113: "It is hilarious. I just wish they would use the nerd jokes more and less of them going to parties and having lifes. It is a show about nerds for nerds. Stay true to your design."

I agree. Giving the characters girlfriends/lives makes the show less funny.

I agree with the disparaging comments.

Comedy should be clever and witty not obvious and banal.

It's a shame that so many Americans lap up this kind of laugh-when-you're-told-to-through-canned-laughter and really obvious no-need-to-think-about-me jokes.