Ranting On...The Future of The Big Bang Theory

I watched last night's The Big Bang Theory with something I have developed over the past season: apathy.  I've been watching the show now for going on eight seasons, and part of me sort of wonders why.  I still occasionally find it funny, particularly the dynamic between Penny and Sheldon (episodes with the two of them together are almost always the best), but I realized last night that while I may still watch it, I'm probably never going to love it again like I did five years ago.  The problems are manifest, and it's something that I think is indicative of network television in general, and why the broadcast networks have watched their brand suffer while channels like AMC, HBO, and Showtime continue to thrive: the networks don't know when to end a show.

This wasn't always the case, of course-television programs used to be able to be cancelled while the public still loved the show and weren't just watching out of habit.  Shows like The Dick van Dyke Show, for example, went out on-top.  Even recent shows like Lost and Seinfeld had the public interest right up until the last season (it's hard to fault the shows for having controversial last seasons-final seasons of shows almost always rank as their worst), but series like The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family haven't grown enough in recent years to still demand attention.  The problem isn't just the creative output of these shows, but also that they rely on a schtick that no longer works.  Back in the 1980's, when shows like The Golden Girls were wildly popular, audiences didn't demand a series that continually updated its premise and evolved their characters, but with the rise in popular dramas and comedies on HBO (The Sopranos and Sex and the City spring most fully to mind), the constant repetition thing was replaced by a planned arch-we got less episodes in a season, so the ideas could be held over for longer, but we also got a continual push forward for the series.  Even a series like Sex and the City, where the Carrie/Big relationship was a major question mark, didn't have to rely on the will-they-or-won't-they for the central meaning of the show.  We saw that they could genuinely be friends, and not just potential sex-partners.

As much as I love the show, no series better illustrated the downfall of this style of programming better than Friends.  Friends, for all of its intents and purposes, should have ended in Season 8.  Having Rachel Green, who was always the central core of the show and the character who grew the most in the series, give birth to her eventual, unlikely soulmate Ross's daughter was the perfect way to end the series.  But greed and fan demand (it's not all on the networks here) got in the way, and as a result we got two additional seasons.  In the process, we saw what was easily the worst story arch on the series: Joey/Rachel trying their hand at romance.  Fans hated it.  They kept watching because they had invested years in the show, but they didn't like doing it, and eventually you hit your breaking point.

After all, television audiences are patient, but not completely willing to put up with everything.  Think of the avalanche of people who gave up on The Office once Steve Carell left.  For as much as that show truly ended up being Pam's story, and not Michael's story, the fact that we had Michael at the forefront made the show intensely watchable, and his journey to Colorado could have been met with the same sort of "wait a year" ending we got with the final episode.  Instead we got the truly awful season with James Spader and then another one with Ed Helms' manic, cruel Andy at the center.  These final two seasons inevitably marred The Office and even if there were occasional bouts of brilliance (the fourth wall penetration was awesome), we gave up on it.  And The Office is not considered as great as it should be.

The Big Bang Theory is in a similar situation.  We all know how this series ends: with Penny/Leonard and Sheldon/Amy all-together, Raj eventually finding a woman and Howard/Bernadette having a child.  That's how this is going to finish, and we've known this for several seasons.  The constant back-and-forth of Penny/Leonard has gotten increasingly annoying, to the point where you kind of hate whenever they make a relationship landmark because you know they'll just pull back.  Sheldon and Amy at least continue to push forward, but it's at such a glacial pace for a resolution we know is happening that I feel like it's pointless.  The series is one that we all know how it ends, and we have enough fond memories that we don't need to hate it-the series easily could have wrapped up this past season without issue and we'd all been fine.  That we have to wait another three seasons to get to the end of the rainbow is a bit barbaric.

Which is why I wish the networks would realize how much we hate this sort of constant clinging to a series rather than just keeping on and on and on until we have no love for the next series.  Because it makes you, like every unsatisfactory purpose, make you want to stay less and less.  You may continue watching The Big Bang Theory or Modern Family or SVU, but you won't trust them the next time they have a similar show to love.  And that's a poor business model even if in the interim you make a gigantic buck.