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10* AbandonShipping: In spite of the fact they are the OfficialCouple of the show, many fans jumped ship from Leonard/Penny after they got married. The fact the two seem to have so little in common and joke often about how Penny had to "settle" for Leonard after he wore her down for years seems like a disservice to both characters. However, many fans have noted that the relationship seemed more stable in the final two seasons of the show and the renewed playfulness resulted in fans jumping back on ship.
11* {{Adorkable}}:
12** Sheldon. He's a man who can somehow make wearing a plaid suit almost sexy. There's something endearingly innocent in his total inability to behave like a normal human being. His love of trains is also quite cute.
13** Howard's song to Bernadette in the episode in the episode "The Romance Resonance" qualifies. He is singing what would his life be if he did not have her. He fills it with science and science fiction references in his usual nerdy style. Among the lines are: "I'd be Series/DoctorWho without the TARDIS", "[[Creator/SteveJobs Jobs]] without the Wozniak", "You're like uranium-235, and I'm uranium-238; Almost inseparable isotopes", "I'd be string theory without any string", "I'd be binary code without a one". "A cathode ray tube without an electron gun", "I'd be Series/{{Firefly}}, [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]] and [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Avengers]] without Creator/JossWhedon", "I'd speak a lot more [[Characters/StarTrek Klingon]]" (immediately followed by a line in the Klingon language), and "We're like changing electric and magnetic fields; You can't have one without the other". The whole song is dorky, but adorable in revealing how much Howard values his wife.
14** Bernadette is petite and cute with a squeaky voice and a love for "WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}".
15** Amy has moments of this, particularly when she gets excited about her tiara or about hitting certain social milestones most girls would have experienced in their teens or preteens.
16--->'''Amy''': A guest in my trundle bed and a boy at my door? I wish I could tell 13-year-old me, it does get better!
17* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
18** Sheldon:
19*** His mom mentions that she had the option to take him to a specialist in Houston, which she regrets not doing. Who knows what said specialist would have concluded.
20*** He could be "Clark Kenting" to what he thinks all geniuses should be, copying a professor/doctor/whatever who had Autism (or a different condition) whom he idolized when he was growing up in a highly religious part of Texas. Now he has become the mask. Given how much of a role Dr. Sturgis played in his life, as seen in ''Young Sheldon,'' this may not be a bad guess at all.
21*** Given that, according to Sheldon, his mother had him tested, and that this presumably occurred when he was a child, it is possible that he has a personality disorder that would not have been diagnosable in a child. Alternatively, a personality disorder is not "insanity" -- and given that Sheldon is extremely LiteralMinded he may be just reacting to the terms "insane" or "crazy" only, possibly meaning that the test ''did'' reveal a personality disorder.
22*** There have been lots of hints (some subtle, some not so subtle) that Sheldon's family life was not exactly ideal: [[AlcoholicParent his father was an abusive drunk]] and his mother uses religion as a form of denial. [[DisappearedDad Losing his father]] no doubt added to the trauma. And then there was the analogy Sheldon once drew between schmoozing wealthy university donors for grant funding to being molested in the back of a van... [[{{Squick}} which was probably a little ''too'' descriptive]] for the otherwise overly literal Sheldon to be making an extended metaphor. One gets the impression that Sheldon's childhood was horror even leaving aside the bullying he experienced as a result of his obnoxious personality. Combined with at least three severe emotional breakdowns we've seen him have, Sheldon's arrogance and aloofness may well be a defense mechanism which is breaking down over time. While ''Young Sheldon'' reveals that at least some of this is overexaggerated, he certainly did not have an easy time of it overall.
23*** Another aspect of his home life that might be affecting his social ability: Sheldon is extremely logical and a materialist. His mother is TheFundamentalist. He was raised by someone who, from [[HollywoodAtheist his perspective]], believes in irrational superstitions (and since her fundamentalism is a method of denial and [[AssociationFallacy she is heavily implied to be very controlling, he's likely been hidden away from the positive aspects of religion, assuming all religious people are like his mother]]). He would have been put off at living with and being raised by a person who went around talking about, or even to, a being that doesn't exist.
24*** Sheldon may be a genuinely nice person. He's genuinely concerned when he thinks Penny's been hurt, runs to get her and takes her to the hospital. Rather than just telling Leonard that he wouldn't cover for him sleeping with Priya, he constructed an elaborate and detailed cover to help him. When Leonard lied to Penny about her singing, Sheldon could again have simply said he didn't care and told the truth, but instead chose to follow through and help. He went to great extremes to get Howard's forgiveness when he'd ruined his chances of getting security clearance. When he felt that it would be construed as disloyal to have dinner with Penny, he almost killed himself trying to keep both she and Leonard happy. He couldn't ignore the possibility that Amy was hurt when he didn't hear from her. As much as he may pretend otherwise, he actually cares about his friends. When given the option of being trapped in one of the coldest parts of the planet with anyone, he chose his three friends. He maybe even values their friendship more than any of the rest of them and, even if it may be seen as condescending, is the least frequent to ever intentionally insult any of them (try watching an episode and counting the number of insults Sheldon gives that would actually be considered an insult to his mind, then compare them against those Leonard makes).
25*** On the same note, when Leonard starts sleeping with Priya, is he angry because Leonard is breaking his word and thereby messing up Sheldon's world, or is he truly empathic and angry on behalf of his friend Raj? The way he calls Leonard a traitor seems to heavily imply the latter.
26*** How much of Sheldon’s eccentricities are real and how much are merely done to get his way, as he seems to lose the majority of them when he wants to be a {{Jerkass}} to Leonard as shown in "The Irish Pub Formulation" and "The Itchy Brain Simulation".
27*** "The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplication" shows that when it's something Sheldon wants, he is willing to ride the bus.
28*** Sheldon's CelibateHero status is typically attributed to having the emotional maturity of a 10-year-old, although he seems to simply ignore it to focus on his work, referring to sexuality at one point as ‘the cross we all have to bear’; later on, he reveals to simply have issues with intimacy he’s working on. He is, however, definitely not asexual, despite previous speculation on the issue.
29*** He's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. He grew up a Big Fish In A Small Pond and has taken that attitude to college and now to his job at USC, but now he's surrounded by people who were similarly large in similarly small pools. Making an elementary math mistake on ''page 1'' of a paper is a good example. He also doesn't have a PhotographicMemory as he claims, or else he'd know that his NotTheFallThatKillsYou Superman explanation is completely at odds with what actually happens in the film. In "The Dependence Transcendence" he admits that his intelligence has limits. That being said, he also goes toe-to-toe in a trivia contest with a whole team in Season 1, and it takes until the final question for them to beat him. He certainly ''is'' very intelligent, just not as much as he thinks he is.
30*** ''The Separation Triangulation'' has Sheldon renting his old room and being a model tenant, very much at odds with his usual behavior. Was he simply acting in accordance with the terms of the agreement he wrote up, given how seriously he takes such contracts? Did Sheldon not see the need to act like how he normally does because he was just renting for the sake of working and nothing else? Was it all a BatmanGambit to sucker Leonard into doing something that would snare him into a much harsher contract given Sheldon has done things like that before? Was Leonard actually right that Sheldon's obnoxious behavior through the years was all deliberate or was he just letting his paranoia and frustration paint things to be more insidious than they really were and Sheldon was just too preoccupied with his work to get up to his typical antics?
31*** On a more humorous note: At one point, when discussing fencing, Sheldon notes that if he says he wants to touch (in fencing, a strike is referred to as a touch) one of his friends, he'll get called into HR. Is this a subtle sign of character development, in that by now he has at least some understanding of what kinds of phrases are inappropriate? Or has this actually happened to him before?
32*** Sheldon constantly mocks Howard as being not a "real" scientist and allegedly not being as intelligent as him, due to his being an engineer. However, Howard is ''very'' successful in his field, while Sheldon, while considered a genius, has never had any of his theories proven until the finale. It's possible that Sheldon is attacking Howard because, deep down, he's ''jealous''.
33** Sheldon's mom is usually played as nice, but some of her comments, which are racist if unwitting, really show she's not as nice as she seems. She's a fundamentalist who seems to have a very old-fashioned and limited view of the world, which she took just to compensate for her husband's cheating and uses it as a crutch to keep going. Everyone just tends to look the other way because she's nicer than Leonard's mom and tends to put a leash on Sheldon's antics, but she may very well BE the reason for Sheldon's antics. She's once described him as "one of God's special children", so she thinks, or at least once thought, he was mentally-disabled or insane, and seemingly preached this idea to Sheldon's sister. Sheldon's slightly autistic behavior could be the result of being treated as having autism.
34*** This makes her '''far''' better than Leonard's mom. She does have a limited worldview (and her view is from the Deep South), but aside from spouting stereotypes, she treats Howard and Raj with decency and respect. Leonard's mom, on the other hand, is very well-read, brilliant, extremely educated, and just doesn't give a damn about anyone (except maybe Sheldon). She openly mocks her son for not being as good as his siblings, despite the fact that he is a brilliant researcher himself, she treats her family like an experimental group, and shows no regard for anyone except herself. She may not spout Mary's casual racism, but she's a far more destructive person. Sheldon's family may not known how to deal with a brilliant mind like his (driving many of his idiosyncrasies), but given that both of Leonard's parents are professors, they should know how their behavior would affect him as he grew.
35*** Worse yet when you consider that Leonard's mother knew full well what she was doing, and '''didn't care'''. She treated him as nothing more than an experiment to take notes on. And when she finished taking her notes[[note]]Which was when he left for college mind you[[/note]], she turned them into a book that she titled ''"Needy Baby, Greedy baby"''. That's right, you just read that. Leonard's mother gave birth to him for the ''sole'' purpose of writing a Child Psychology book after messing with his mind for eighteen years.
36** In the episode of Bernadette wanting Howard to move in, was Howard pulling a BatmanGambit? He knew Bernadette would keep bugging him about moving in but he wasn't ready so he had to make a plan. Move in, piss her off by his neediness and make her stop. Notice that in his explanation he said he wrote an email to his mother about moving out and her saying she never reads email since she doesn't know how to properly work a computer.
37** Leslie Winkle: OnlySaneWoman or an immature, inconsiderate bitch who gets off of any punishment for immature behavior in the workplace? Not to mention the cold way she treats Leonard and Howard when she's in a relationship with both.
38** Raj:
39*** Being so opposed to Leonard dating his sister Priya. He puts up a "big brother" front stating he's just looking out for his sister and not wanting to see her get hurt. However, given the way Priya treated Leonard, it's possible that Raj knew exactly how Priya treats her boyfriends, and was actually trying to protect ''Leonard''?
40*** As the show goes on Raj demonstrates some pretty big {{Jerkass}} tendencies. Is this how he's always been and his inability to talk to women kept it from being showcased too much or is it largely born out of bitterness and frustration towards his horrendous love life? Howard did claim that Raj has always been a bit obnoxious it should be noted and prior to getting over his selective mutism he could be pretty snide for no real reason, like his mockery of Sheldon in "The Vengeance Formulation".
41** Wil Wheaton: {{Jerkass}}, or a generally nice guy reacting like anyone would to Sheldon's asshole behavior?
42*** A specific incident: Did he break Leonard and Penny up on purpose to win a bowling game, or did he just let Sheldon think he did to piss him off?
43** Amy. A reasonable woman, who tolerates a lot from Sheldon, or a selfish, entitled woman? Episodes like "The Habitation Configuration" certainly gives off more of the latter interpretation.
44** When Denise is teaching Bernadette to play Fortnite, she's unusually snarky and obnoxious. Is she just having a bad day? Is she super competitive? Or subtly turning Berandette's own {{Jerkass}} super-competitive tendencies back on her?
45%%* AngstWhatAngst: Sheldon after [[spoiler:a brief "break up" with Amy.]] Instead of being sad like a normal human being, he hides it and buys 25 CATS.
46* {{Applicability}}: The show covers a wide spectrum of personality types and situations, leaving a lot of viewers to see parallels of themselves within. While these guys are on the extreme side of smart and nerdy, they accurately portray a lot of the behaviors that are evident with any sort of obsessive fandom. Sheldon's desire to get in line early for a movie can be compared to getting to the stadium early for a [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball football game]], for example.
47* ArcFatigue:
48** After 12 years, Raj has ''still'' been unable to find a steady girlfriend, even when Leonard, Howard, Sheldon and Stuart all have. It became increasingly difficult to be invested in any relationship he pursues since they always end in break-ups.
49*** The writers seem to have realized this as well, because a story arc between him and a cleaning lady at the university in the tenth season (which according to Raj's actor was what was implied to happen) was [[AbortedArc abruptly ended after a single episode with no mention of her ever again]], and a later episode in the same season had [[YankTheDogsChain all of Raj's ex-girlfriends point out how better off they were without him]]. Raj being a perma-bachelor seems to be the sum of his character now because of the pointlessness of his (several, by now) arcs. It's even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Stuart in season eleven that Raj "will screw it up soon enough" after the latter has gotten another girlfriend, which of course he quickly does.
50*** It's gone so far that (when he's not whining to everyone about it) he's pretty much given up. Once in a while he'll still try to make an attempt but nowadays he's [[{{Flanderization}} regressed to the point where he can't even get a date]] while resident ButtMonkey Stuart can. At times he shows that he's scared to death at ending up alone and being left behind compared to everyone else (all of his core group of friends are now married, along with his five siblings back in India), but it's often inappropriately PlayedForLaughs instead of taken seriously.
51** For all of Sheldon's genius intellect (and letting everyone else know at any given opportunity), [[SmallNameBigEgo he hasn't exactly accomplished anything in his field]]. Of all the guys, it's '''Howard''' who is the most successful in his career (actually building and inventing things, not to mention being an ''astronaut'') and personal life, despite everyone else's taunts and misgivings (especially from Sheldon). Any time Sheldon ''does'' seemingly get close to a major breakthrough that would change the scientific community, [[StatusQuoIsGod he's always wrong and ends up back at square one]]. It's not until the GrandFinale that this is finally averted.
52* AluminumChristmasTrees:
53** [[http://www.mattyangel.com/2010/04/01/the-soft-kitty-song-from-big-bang-theory-is-real/ Turns out Soft Kitty is a real song]], albeit some of the lyrics are reversed.
54** There actually ''is'' a low budget exploitation horror movie [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_Wild_Woman about a beautiful woman/gorilla hybrid]].
55** The device that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO4BhXaMpxs Howard was working on to allow anyone to kiss a partner via the internet,]] may seem silly and far fetched, but there have been [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PspagsTFvlg numerous]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taALY5jlLfA attempts]] to do this in real life.
56* AssPull:
57** Sheldon running a red light. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRcuBJBWKc The scene of him driving Penny to the hospital]] shows him refusing to even drive the speed limit (despite Penny begging him to), then stopping at a red light. It's a little hard to believe he would run a red light, much less that he would let Penny talk him into it. The ticket was issued by a traffic camera, though, and their accuracy for deciding what counts as "running" a red light is pretty notoriously questionable, although Sheldon and Penny's dialogue would seem to indicate he did drive through an intersection after the light turned red.
58** In season 11 ''The Retraction Reaction'' Bernedette says that she hides her successes from Howard so that he won't get insecure. However, earlier seasons show that she is ''always'' flaunting her success and her bigger salary in his face. This may be a self-serving memory, however.
59** Penny getting pregnant in the final episode seems to come out of nowhere as a convenient way to resolve the underlying tension between her not wanting to have kids and Leonard (as well as Penny's friends and family) wanting her to have them. Though, it should be noted that even if Penny did take some form of contraceptive, there are a number of instances where they can fail. She may not have used the contraceptive correctly. Birth control pills are typically 99 percent effective ''if you take them correctly.'' If not, that goes down to [[https://www.vox.com/2014/9/19/6418767/birth-control-pills-effectiveness-how-to-use-common-questions 91 percent]].
60* AwesomeEgo: Sheldon. Despite being a self-centered InsufferableGenius, he's considered as the show's breakout character. See also UnpopularPopularCharacter below.
61* BaseBreakingCharacter: All of the main characters (except for Stuart) fall here for various reasons.
62** Viewers tend to either think Sheldon is the best part of the show, or wish that he'd remove that gigantic stick from his ass for once. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone neurodivergent who likes Sheldon Cooper. Autistic individuals in particular have had their behavior unflatteringly compared to Sheldon's, whose writing checks every single box for HollywoodAutism, despite Chuck Lorre claiming that Sheldon isn't meant to be autistic. He would be considered a reductive stereotype of a neurodivergent individual in the 1980s, and he was on network TV in the 2000s. Despite this, he's incredibly popular.
63** Howard, pre-CharacterDevelopment. Either he's hilarious or he's a prick who needs a punch to the face occasionally. Even post-character development Howard can get this treatment. He's either the real hero of the story [[note]]He has had the most character development of any of the characters--being the first of his friends to get married and have kids, as well as being the only one to have any real success in their career until Sheldon and Amy won the Nobel Prize in the finale.[[/note]], or he has become a boring HenpeckedHusband who can't shut up about being an astronaut.
64** Penny--she's either a cute, lovable person and a nice addition to the group(s) or an ungrateful bitch who should be thrown out on the street.
65** Bernadette is either adorable or annoying and bitchy. Her voice certainly doesn't help. Neither does the fact that later seasons seem to place increasing emphasis on her bitchiness, both at work & at home.
66** Leonard is either a total saint and a likable protagonist or a complete {{Jerkass}} who treats Sheldon like garbage and constantly complains about how life screwed him over.
67** Raj is either the biggest [[TheWoobie woobie]] on the show, or a passive-aggressive, girly creep who deserves to be alone. Then there's a third group that just sees him as an unfunny EthnicScrappy.
68** Amy, some people see her as funny, quirky and more reasonable, while others see her as selfish, and never getting called out for her behavior. Her treatment of Bernadette before her wedding, AND her treatment of both Wil Wheaton and Sheldon in the "The Habitation Configuration" has won her few fans.
69** Outside the main cast is Sheldon's mother Mary Cooper. Some like how well she gets along with the other characters and how she's able to put Sheldon in his place while still being a caring mother. Others don't like her constant Bible-thumping, her casual bigotry and her neglect towards her other children George Jr. and Missy, especially after watching ''Young Sheldon'' and season eleven's "The Sibling Realignment".
70* BrokenBase:
71** Is the show a celebration of nerdom, a mockery of it, [[TakeTheThirdOption or shameless pandering?]]
72** The episode "The Good Guy Fluctuation". Leonard briefly making out twice with a girl has earned more scorn than Priya [[TheUnfairSex sleeping with her ex-boyfriend]] in India.
73** The audience laughter -- either worth it because the show's that funny, or teeth-grinding levels of annoying and frequency that quickly overstay their course and ruin the show.
74** Priya and Leonard's relationship, both in and out of universe.
75** The biggest example is probably when Leonard and the guys faked the readings they took during their North Pole expedition. Either you see the others as {{Jerkass}} [[KarmaHoudini Karma Houdinis]] who took the coward's way out or Sheldon as an insufferable ass who got exactly what he deserved.
76*** Some people TakeAThirdOption by seeing both parties as in the wrong. Sheldon got a job dealing with two things: subordinates and data, and proved himself incompetent at both of them. The simple fact that they were able to falsify the data without him noticing shows that he was just dictating to them while they did all the work while periodically checking the results. However they had plenty of time during the trip home to tell him the truth which would not only have given him time to redact his statement but might have softened the blow.
77** Over Penny's pixie cut in season 8.
78** Many didn't like how Raj's story ended in Season 12. [[spoiler:While many understand that his leaving his work and friends with get married to Anu, a woman who repeatedly has been shown to be more pragmatic about love while lacking any of the same interests as Raj, would be ridiculous and could be seen as his being desperate to not end up alone (which is acknowledged), Anu has always been willing to compromise with Raj in a way that made her an enjoyable love interest for the character. Also Raj had admitted that while he loved his friends, he hasn't been happy for years and the season started with him acknowledging that he had made a mess of his life.]]
79* CargoShip: Howard/the robot hand he got stuck on, Sheldon/his spot, Amy/Gerard (her electric toothbrush), Raj and his mobile phone Siri....
80* CatharsisFactor:
81** "The Space Probe Disintegration" has Sheldon calling out Leonard for how much of a jerk HE is towards Sheldon much of the time. Even though [[AesopAmnesia Leonard goes right back to being a jerk to Sheldon after that]], it's still pretty satisfying seeing Sheldon point out that Leonard isn't exactly the nicest guy in the world either.
82* CriticalDissonance: The Big Bang Theory is frequently mocked online, bashed for relying on outdated nerd stereotypes for jokes, perceived SeasonalRot after the guys all entered relationships, {{Flanderization}} of the cast, supposedly promoting "{{adorkable}} misogyny", or simply because ItsPopularNowItSucks. The show is even the biggest target of laugh track backlash, with people editing episode clips with the laughter from the studio audience muted in order to justify their opinion. Yet, it is one of the most-watched shows on cable television even after it ended in 2019, Creator/JimParsons won four Emmys for his performance as Sheldon and critics usually gave it favorable reviews. It even did well enough to warrant a spin-off in ''Series/YoungSheldon''.
83* CrossesTheLineTwice:
84** Howard's remote-controlled Stephen Hawking toy. While perceived as very offensive by most characters InUniverse, it's seen as hilarious by Kripke and the audience. Even the actual Hawking found it funny and cool.
85** During one of Sheldon's dreams involving Arthur Jeffries' ghost, Jeffries outright tries to kill himself with a lightsaber to get away from Sheldon, only to find out that even the lightsaber can phase through him. After the attempt, he tells Sheldon that it was worth a shot.
86** "In the Clean Room Infiltration", Howard tells a story about how when he was a kid, he accidentally sat on a blue jay. In an effort to resuscitate it, he electrocuted it only to accidentally set it on fire. What makes it cross the line is that it ended up smelling delicious.
87* DiagnosedByTheAudience: While Creator/JimParsons [[DiagnosisOfGod confirmed]] that he portrayed Sheldon as an autistic character, no conformation exists for his DistaffCounterpart and girlfriend, Amy. Despite this, Amy is often described by audiences as an autistic-coded character, thanks to her carrying over Sheldon's lack of social skills, niche interests, and idiosyncratic lines of thought that allow her to get along with Sheldon to a greater degree than the rest of his peer group. Her social anxiety and its roots in her lifelong inability to "click" with most other people are also noted as resonating strongly with real-world autistic experiences.
88* DesignatedVillain:
89** Sheldon and Creator/WilWheaton in "The Habitation Configuration". You see, Wil was helping Sheldon out with his Web Show, "Fun With Flags". Amy repeatedly stops filming to berate him for being a poor actor, and Wil tries to take it in stride the first few times. After a while he says that he can't do it if Amy's being a pain in the ass, and Amy gets angry at Sheldon for not calling him out. We're led to believe that Sheldon was wrong for not taking her side, even though Amy's the one who initiated the conflict and it's obvious she's doing it purely out of petty jealousy.
90** Priya, so very much. She was supposed to be a villain mainly because [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality she was dating Leonard even though Penny wanted him]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero even though she's the one who dumped him in the first place!]]. As such, while we are supposed to see her as a total bitch, other than not wanting Leonard to be friends with Penny anymore (Likely because she (correctly) thinks Penny is trying to steal him away from her), she doesn't do anything mean, and is nice to Leonard 90 percent of the time. Penny eventually does start to bond with Priya somewhat in the hospital episode however, and they might have eventually became friends except for the fact that she goes back to India a few episodes later.
91* DieForOurShip:
92** Leonard. Sheldon/Penny fans never seem to catch Leonard a break even once, guy isn't allowed to so much as make a tiny mistake without them calling him a prick.
93** There's also Amy. Comes with the territory since she gets in the way of Sheldon/Penny, the FanPreferredCouple. Amy also stands in the way of fans who adamantly think Sheldon should be gay, like his actor.
94* DracoInLeatherPants: The main characters (except [[NiceGuy Stuart]]) get this a lot as well, especially Leonard. They're often portrayed as saints by those who dislike Sheldon, but in truth they're no better than him and often make fun of him, torment him, or humiliate him [[ItAmusedMe for the heck of it]]. And unlike Sheldon, who's intended to be an UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist, they're rarely called out on it.
95* EnsembleDarkHorse:
96** Both Sheldon's parents are very popular given their screen time.
97** Zack Johnson. Despite being a BrainlessBeauty and ex-boyfriend of Penny, he's remembered fondly by many viewers because of his friendly personality, love of comic books, and OddFriendship with the guys even ''after'' Penny broke up with him.
98** Stuart the Comic Book Guy. He's hilarious and [[TheWoobie Woobie-esque]].
99** Alex, Sheldon's assistant. She is one of the preciously few people who manage to work under Sheldon. Her occasional ShipTease with Leonard also accounts for her Darkhorse status.
100** Howard's mom, thanks to tons of hilarious lines and excellent delivery courtesy of Carol Ann Susi.
101** Bob Newhart as Professor Proton in "Proton Resurgence" was so popular among the fans and cast that he was brought back in a recurring role the following season. The fact that Newhart won his first Emmy for his portrayal really bolstered it.
102*** Speaking of guest stars, it's generally agreed that the most memorable ones are James Earl Jones and Stephen Hawking. Also, the duo of Katee Sackhoff and George Takei.
103** All the cats Sheldon temporarily adopted in "The Zazzy Substitution" are loved for being adorable and bringing out Sheldon's KindheartedCatLover side, but especially Zazzles. A lot of fans have said they wished Sheldon had kept Zazzles, even after he gave away all the other cats.
104** A lot of people really like Dave, which is remarkable considering he's the guy Amy dated during her temporary breakup with Sheldon. However, much like Zack, he avoids the standard pitfalls of being a RomanticFalseLead, in this case because he's a genuinely sweet, funny, affectionate guy... who becomes a ShipperOnDeck for Shamy. Plus, the fact that he's played by Creator/StephenMerchant certainly helps. A lot of people have expressed hope that he comes back, especially since he parted ways with Amy on good terms.
105** Anu was well liked despite being introduced in the last season, her more pragmatic approach to her ArrangedMarriage with Raj serving as an interesting {{foil}} to Raj's romanticism. Unlike a previous one-off love interest for Raj who was also pragmatic about love, Anu was willing to compromise with Raj to find a middle ground where both were happy and many enjoyed her interactions with the other characters.
106* FandomRivalry:
107** With ''Series/{{Community}}''. Besides having a geeky appeal there is little in common with regards to the two series, but when ''TBBT'' was moved to compete with NBC's comedy lineup on Thursdays (which includes ''Community'' in the exact same time slot) it sparked the rivalry. A criticism that fans of ''Community'' often level at ''TBBT'' is that while the former laugh ''with'' its nerdy audience, the latter laughs ''at'' them.
108** Also with ''Manga/{{Genshiken}}'', for having more or less the same idea, only ''Genshiken'' was more nerdy.
109** Fans of ''Series/TheITCrowd'' tend to passively bash this show a lot, saying that it's the former show's premise "done wrong."
110* FanPreferredCouple: Sheldon/Penny, enough that Chuck Lorre even commented on that prospect, saying that while they have an amazing rapport Penny would probably kill Sheldon if they hung around each other too much. Other TV writers have remarked that just the idea of Sheldon being ''Sheldon'' is what makes their relationship work, the lack of romantic entanglement. Going for SlapSlapKiss is too generic a description of their chemistry.
111** "The Flaming Spittoon Acquisition" and "The Intimacy Acceleration" seem to have been both designed to [[ShipSinking sink it for good]], with the former having Sheldon and Amy finally get together and point out (in detail) why he and Penny are not compatible, and the latter having them realize that they see each other LikeBrotherAndSister. They do indeed love each other (Sheldon views Penny as his best friend after Leonard) but not romantically.
112* {{Fanon}}:
113** Many fans and even ''[[http://www.avclub.com/articles/jim-parsons,27415/ the actors]]'' believe Sheldon has UsefulNotes/AspergerSyndrome.
114** Penny's last name being Queen is common in fanfics, possibly due to her VideoGame/AgeOfConan name being Queen Penelope.
115** After [[https://screenrant.com/big-bang-theory-penny-teller-last-name-revealed/ a redditor spotted a label on a package listing Penny's full name]] as [[Creator/PennAndTeller Penny Teller]] in ''[[Recap/TheBigBangTheoryS2E18TheWorkSongNanocluster The Work Song Nanocluster]]'', the authors and editors of the series' Fandom wiki and [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} her Wikipedia article]] pretty much considered it as canon as information on her last name will ever be, and updated their articles accordingly.
116** A popular fan theory about the contents of the letter Howard's father sent him on his 18th birthday is that ''all'' of the alternative accounts told by his friends are true and that putting all of them together is the actual message that his dad left him.
117* FanonDiscontinuity: An example brought about by the prequel series ''Series/YoungSheldon''. Fans like to think that Sheldon's father never cheated on his wife, due to ''Young Sheldon'' portraying him in a more sympathetic light. Despite the fact that ''Young Sheldon'' from the fourth season finale onward is seemingly leading to George sleeping with [[spoiler:Brenda Sparks.]], many are hoping that it's a RedHerring or a {{retcon}} will take place. [[spoiler: Judging by ''Young Sheldon'' episode "Ants on a Log and a Cheating Winker", it seems that George indeed never cheated on Mary. The incident where Sheldon supposedly walked in on his father with another woman was actually Mary roleplaying as a blond German woman]].
118* GeniusBonus: A staple of the show's humor.
119** Surprisingly accurate math and physics jokes at times. Geek culture references can get ''very'' obscure.
120** When Penny mentions that she's used to getting free drinks due to her... less than modest attire, Sheldon offhandedly says that she has a lot of money tied up in 'promiscuity futures' (''futures contracts'' are derivatives where two parties agree on a trade that will take place at some point in the future).
121** This is one of the few sitcoms with science advisers. The producers said they went about a day before they realized there was no way they could study the proper material for all of the science, and so recruited David Salzberg from the University of California, Los Angeles, to help with the dialogue and even certain plot points (Sheldon's search for Magnetic Monopoles for instance). [[note]]Other shows like this are ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' and ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun''.[[/note]]
122** When Raj asks Sheldon to look at data points to see any correlations, Sheldon finds one almost immediately. Raj is skeptical, until Sheldon explains his process with details like how prime numbers have a distinctive color and he can "taste" the speed of light. When Raj tells him that is not normal, Sheldon remarks "I guess I'm a special boy." The whole conversation is based on actual documentation of savants describing their mental process in similar ways, such as doing complex math via associating numbers with shapes[[note]]The theory is that many savants connect the different hemispheres of the brain together that normally don't interact[[/note]].
123** In ''The Space Probe Disintegration'', when Raj goes off on a rant at the elderly Indian man who dents his car in the ashram carpark, the old man in the car looks oddly familiar: this is a deeply ebedded joke which needs a bit of background information to decode, but this actor has been identified as an actor who played Mahatma Gandhi in an Indian TV adaptation of Gandhi's life, and does indeed bear a very strong resemblence. But Raj. Sounding off at Gandhi himself.
124* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff:
125** It is the number one comedy in Latin America, comparable to the love for ''Series/{{House}}''.
126** This is one of the most watched shows in Canada.
127** It's also extremely popular in China.
128** Though it's not reached total cultural saturation in the UK quite as much as ''Series/{{Friends}}'' did, no one would know that from how often it's shown on UK TV, with the number of ''The Big Bang Theory'' reruns on E4 comparable that of ''Friends'' before they lost the rights to the latter. They regularly run somewhere between four and six older episodes twice a day and have done for years, which seems to be a fair judge of its popularity. Plus, if someone has a British friend who only watches one American sitcom, odds are ''very'' high that it's either ''The Big Bang Theory'' or ''Series/ModernFamily'' (and ''[=BBT=]'' has the added advantage of being on a [=FreeView=] channel).
129*** Some British reviewers note that the series is unusually vicious for an American comedy. This appeals to the long-standing and proud British TV tradition of laughing at oddballs placed in amusing situations, which is a factor in the show's British success on E4. It still carries a bit more sentiment than the typical British show and the nerd leads can be even heroic despite their innumerable weaknesses. But Sheldon and especially early seasons Howard is almost straight out of British comedy of a socially awkward oddball who refuses to change.
130** In-universe, it is commented upon that India LOVES ''Series/DoogieHowserMD'' because it features a child genius becoming a doctor, and the Indian culture focuses a lot on higher education and the medical field.
131* GrowingTheBeard:
132** The show wasn't quite certain what tone they were going to have for the show in the early episodes, focusing on the characters getting themselves into awkward situations and barely climbing out of it unscathed. It wasn't until the Halloween party in the 8th episode where the real strengths of the series came into play, showing the characters trying to navigate relatively common social situations and coming up short but wiser for it. This continued into the later half of the first season that cemented its characters better.
133** The show took another step forward starting around the beginning of Season Six. The characters became more mature and well-rounded, less a bundle of stereotypes and more complex in their personalities. It also started highlighting moderate Story Arcs, seeing relationships and events evolve over a couple episodes instead of ignoring continuity for half a season.
134* HarsherInHindsight:
135** In the ending of the same episode, Raj is forced to verbally apologize to Penny about his behaviour towards her, and she hugs him right when Leonard and Sheldon walk out, with their getting the wrong idea that she and Raj spent the night together (she was wearing a bathrobe). Come the Season 4 finale, Penny and Raj, while drunk, end up sleeping together. [[spoiler: However, it's revealed in the following episode that they actually didnt sleep together and instead just fell asleep]].
136** Several times when together with Leonard, Penny would tease about finding another dumb guy when Leonard is caught up in one of his geeky activities. Come the Season 3 finale, Penny realized that being with Leonard actually made it impossible for her to enjoy dating dumb guys again.
137** In "The Zarnecki Inclusion", Raj jokes that Priya was talking to her ex-boyfriend Sanjay. Then in "The Good Guy Fluctuation" where it's revealed that she slept with him.
138** "The Roommate Transmogrification" in Season 4, Bernadette gets her Ph.D and a good job, and the guys joke she's now the female of the relationship, Howard protesting he still has his own life. Leonard snarks "until you have kids". As of Season 5, Howard has discovered Bernadette doesn't like kids and if they choose to have them once married she wants him to stay home to take care of them while she works.
139** Penny once made a comment that Howard gave her a teddy bear which contained a hidden webcam. Come the news of the leaks of private nude photos of Kaley Cuoco and other famous actresses, this comment is a lot harder to laugh at.
140** In the Season 6 premiere, Penny and Sheldon are left wondering why they're missing Leonard so much when he's just having a good time in the North Sea. Sheldon hypothesizes that Penny is thinking that he might have drunken sex with one of the researchers there. Come the Season 8 finale, and it turned out that Leonard had a drunken kiss with one of the researchers there.
141*** Related: Penny would talk for years about how she had either cheated on guys or had been the other woman destroying relationships. [[LaserGuidedKarma Since the season 8 finale, she now knows how it feels to be the screwed over one, thanks to Leonard's confession.]]
142** Howard imitates Raj's accent, drawing this comment: "Did you have to make me sound like a ''[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpsons]]'' character!?". Not so funny when the controversy behind recurring character Apu blew up in TheNewTens, to the point where his voice actor Creator/HankAzaria retired from voicing him in 2020.
143** In "The Jerusalem Duality", 15 year old Dennis Kim told Sheldon that his work in string theory was a dead end, and that he will soon see that. Come to season seven, where he DOES see that, and ends up having to basically start his career over.
144*** Becomes a lot less harsh if you consider that this basically set Sheldon on the path that would lead to him actually ''winning'' the Nobel Prize in the GrandFinale.
145** In season two, Sheldon was having a hard time getting rid of Ramona, so he went to Penny for advice. When she wondered why, Sheldon stated that due to "man after man leaving her apartment", she seemed to be an expert at ending relationships. Come season nine, when it's revealed that someone did go to Penny for advice on ending relationships: [[spoiler: Amy!]] [[FridgeBrilliance It also casts Penny's earlier interactions with Sheldon in the eighth season finale in a new light: she was subtly warning him not to get Amy to end things.]]
146** Also related to the above, when Sheldon is emotionally wrecked after he is forced to give up string theory, Amy makes a joke about how she hopes he is as devastated if they ever break up. Cut to season nine, and Sheldon is an utter mess.
147** In season 2's "The Classified Materials Turbulence", Leonard refused to take Stuart's call, saying that he doesn't want to talk to him about Stuart's upcoming date with Penny. Sheldon points out that Leonard is jumping to conclusions, and Stuart could be calling to say the comic book store is on fire. Come the season 7 finale...
148** On the topic of Howard's mom, in the episode where Bernadette makes it clear to Howard she doesn't want kids, she comes over to Howard's to talk about it but Ms. Wolowitz yells at Howard to talk to her (Bernadette) about this nonsense where she doesn't get any grandkids before Howard has a chance to bring it up himself. Funny at the time due to her unintentionally bringing it up before Howard does, but heartbreaking nowadays because [[spoiler:Ms. Wolowitz ended up passing away two years before Howard and Bernadette had their first child; she never got to meet the grandchildren she wanted.]]
149* HeartwarmingInHindsight:
150** In the Season Three premiere, Sheldon, operating under the belief that he has proven String Theory and is in line for a Nobel Prize, tells the others that while he can't thank them in his Nobel acceptance speech, they can expect a profuse footnote in his memoirs. Cue the finale, and a ton of CharacterDevelopment, and Sheldon delivers a profound and heartfelt speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony where he not only addresses his friends by name, but tells them that he loves them all.
151** Adam West's cameo shows him ranking Lego Batman from The Lego Movie relatively higher than Christian Bale and George Clooney. Later, he would have a supporting role in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegoBatmanMovie'' and received a bigger homage courtesy of live-action footage.
152** Sheldon's Nobel Prize speech, which he dedicates to his best friends, becomes this trope when we see in ''Young Sheldon'' that he similarly dedicated his valedictorian speech to Missy. It just confirms (as if we didn't know already) that the gang aren't just his friends; they're ''family.''
153* HilariousInHindsight:
154** "Shelbot", the mechanical stand-in for Sheldon. "Shelbot" is a remote-controlled stand with a Webcam and tablet computer screen attached that projects Sheldon's face and voice to the outside world while he stays in his bedroom. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPMLJgGsiA This video]] was eerily reminiscent of that creation. The concept was picked up again for Conan O'Brien's Web series, "The Cone Drone," where Conan sends out someone dressed in a papier-mache costume of Conan, while wearing a tablet screen projecting Conan's own face, to irritate or annoy random people.
155%%** One episode focused on Howard's space toilet having a possible malfunction and trying to fix it. Well, on July 2009, it became an actual issue.
156%%** The Mars Rover got stuck in a ditch, just as it did in Season 2. (But it didn't accidentally find life on Mars.)
157** In the first-season episode involving the physics bowl, after Sheldon leaves the other geeks' team, they discuss people who they might be able to recruit as replacements, and one of the people they consider is the actress who played Series/{{Blossom}}. Guess who ends up getting the last laugh as Sheldon's date at the end of the third season?
158** In season 4's episode "The Prestidigitation Approximation", Sheldon can't figure out how Howard does his magic trick. [[spoiler: Howard sarcastically says "Yeah, he's going to win the Nobel Prize." In the episodes "The Change Constant" and "The Stockholm Syndrome", the last two episodes of the series, Sheldon and Amy do win the Nobel Prize.]]
159** When Sheldon and Stuart argue about who will succeed Batman after ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'', Sheldon contends that it must be Dick Grayson while Stuart believes it has to be Jason Todd. The argument is basically Stuart being awesome and smacking down Sheldon's position, calling it "as wrong as calling a tomato a suspension bridge". In "The Battle for the Cowl", Jason Todd [[spoiler:actually tries to become a Batman with guns, but in the end Dick kicks his butt into the ground and takes on the Bat mantle]]
160** The entire episode "The Barbarian Sublimation", where Sheldon gets a guy named Tom to date Penny, as he was the result of an dating site Sheldon submitted Penny on to try to find a boyfriend in order to get rid of her MMORPG addiction, but is implied to be gay and thinks ''Sheldon'' is the one he's dating, is even better with the knowledge that Sheldon's actor, Creator/JimParsons, is gay.
161** In one episode, Creator/WilWheaton receives a call about being in Film/Sharknado2TheSecondOne. He actually was in the movie, though strangely uncredited.
162** In fact, all jokes about Aquaman are pretty hilarious when you consider how successful ''Film/Aquaman2018'' was and how it pretty much ended the character's MemeticLoser status. In fact one episode had Sheldon reading some Aquaman comics for the sole purpose of being able to say he read the comics before it was cool to do so.
163** The recurring joke of Sheldon making fun of Howard for being "only" an engineer at NASA becomes this when Sheldon's actor, Jim Parsons, ''plays a lead engineer at NASA'' in the 2016 film ''Film/HiddenFigures''.
164** One of the sections of Sheldon and Amy's Relationship Agreement involves conditions for hand holding. This includes a hearty handshake after winning the Nobel Prize. In the GrandFinale [[spoiler:they both win the Nobel Prize as a married couple, and have done much more than hand holding]].
165** In "The Werewolf Transformation", Sheldon plays bongos because Richard Feynman played them. In ''Film/{{Oppenheimer}}'', we see an unnamed character played by Creator/JackQuaid playing the bongos and is in fact credited as Richard Feynman.
166** In "The Thanksgiving Decoupling", Penny learns that weddings in Las Vegas are, in fact, real and legally binding. Guess where Leonard and Penny end up getting married a couple of season later?
167** Raj's (unreciprocated) crush on Bernadette is already funny, but becomes even funnier in 2024 when Kunal Nayyar guest-starred as a love interest for Melissa Rauch's Abby on ''Series/NightCourt2023'' -- and this time, it ''was'' reciprocated!
168* IKnewIt:
169** Anyone who had watched ''Series/HappyDays'', saw the episode with Howard's half-brother coming. Thankfully, unlike in ''Happy Days'', the half-brothers aren't both Howard Wolowitz with one going by a nickname to differentiate himself.
170** That the elevator would be fixed in the final season was something that was guessed for a long time.
171* InformedWrongness:
172** Sheldon on occasion. The show likes to play up how he overreacts to things and is generally a Know-Nothing Know-it-All, but there are times where the viewer may side with him but he is still treated as being ridiculous.
173*** In "The Bozeman Reaction", Sheldon and Leonard have their apartment broken into and ransacked with numerous valuables stolen. For the remainder of the episode, Sheldon is paranoid about the burglars returning, is uncomfortable sleeping and being alone in the apartment, asks for a security system to be installed, and finally decides he no longer feels safe in Pasadena and is moving to Bozeman, Montana. Short of moving into another state, all of Sheldon's actions in this episode are perfectly understandable after dealing with such a frightening experience, yet the cast treats it like it's his usual antics, and Leonard seems more upset with Sheldon's behavior than he does over the robbery.
174** Near the end of "The Engagement Reaction," Bernadette berates Howard for thinking that his mother had suffered a heart attack on hearing the news that the two were engaged, when in fact she actually passed out from food poisoning and it was purely coincidental that this happened at the exact time Howard told her about the engagement. While Howard was perhaps a little tactless into jumping straight to the assumption that it was a heart attack instead of his mother simply passing out from shock, and his inability to break down the bathroom door indicates that he should add a little muscle, Bernadette is portrayed as being completely right to yell at him for not working out that such an absurdly improbable coincidence had taken place.
175** While the show tries to show the guys' interests as not being a bad thing in general, it also has a tendency to say the opposite. In season 8, it's revealed Howard had a replica life-size prop TARDIS from ''Doctor Who'' in a shed behind his mother's house after he and Bernadette moved in. He wanted to keep it and store it in the basement, but Bernadette kept treating him like keeping it was the end of the world (and she ends up getting her way in the end). She's continued on with similar instances where she treats his love of pop culture as something that's wrong with him rather than just one facet of his personality. Penny also gets into this as well a bit in a subtle way. While she won't openly state Leonard's love of pop culture is outright wrong, she sometimes passive aggressively acts like it is, such as when he found out she slowly replaced most of the nerdy items in his room with what would be considered "normal" substitutes in season 9 and put them somewhere else without asking him or seeing if it was ok.
176** There are also episodes where the guys will bring something up about their relationships, mainly Leonard and Howard, with legitimate reasons as to why they would, and yet will be berated or labelled as wrong by the girls for some reason, mostly petty ones. There isn't exactly ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen''-levels of it, but it's definitely there if you pay attention.
177** In one episode, Bernadette was excited about being on a cover of a magazine for being hot, until Amy went out of her way to ruin all of that for her. Bernadette got angry and snapped that she only did it because she herself would never be considered for such an issue. Amy got all hurt and left. However, Bernadette was right to be pissed that Amy basically sabotaged something for her just because she didn't like the idea of it. Yet, the episode treated Amy like she was the victim and ended with Bernadette attempting to apologize for snapping at her.
178** Although Amy [[StrawmanHasAPoint wasn’t wrong]] when she pointed out that as a female scientist posing on a magazine because of her looks ''is'' somewhat tasteless. She’s also not wrong that Bernadette's actions as a scientist reflects on the careers of other female scientist’s.
179* ItWasHisSled:
180** Amy and Bernadette become part of the show's main cast from Season 4 onward.
181** The relationships: Leonard ends up with Penny, Howard with Bernadette, Sheldon with Amy, and Raj is the only one that's still single.
182[[/folder]]
183
184[[folder:J-W]]
185* JerkassWoobie:
186** Leonard. Yeah, he may be considered a DesignatedHero and an ass, but the insults that other characters throw at him about his height or romantic life can seem mean a lot of the time. Also his mother can be quite a bitch, to the point where he relates that he ''built a hugging machine so that he could fake having human contact.'' Once Leonard is actually with Penny his retorts to them are basically "You said it would never happen, well I made it happen." In fact most of the time whenever he does something mean or socially stupid you can trace its origin to what someone else did to him.
187** Sheldon can be highly difficult to be around, his quirks constantly interrupt the lives of everyone else, he outright insults the intelligence of ''everyone'' and berates people for not conforming exactly to his schedule. However, his emotional maturity is that of a 10-year old and whenever he is in distress he responds much like a child would and the few times he will PetTheDog will sometimes backfire on him. For a few specific examples:
188*** "The Excelsior Acquisition", Sheldon is taken to court for a traffic violation and Sheldon's style of defending himself (insulting the judge, among other things) ended up getting him thrown in the courthouse jail. The problem was he doesn't drive much and the ticket happened in the same episode when he "played the hero" taking Penny to the hospital when she dislocated her shoulder; it was Penny's coaching that led to the violation and she directed the ticket to him to avoid an insurance hike. It basically ended up as NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished. However, being that he was in control of the vehicle (and the ticket was issued by a ''camera'', which photographed Sheldon driving, not Penny), he is 100% at fault. Penny convincing him into running a red light is not a defense, as even if she was far more experienced than him, traffic lights are a pretty black and white indicator that even people who've never been in a car at all would know not to drive through. He is in fact trying to deflect the blame onto his incapacitated passenger.
189*** However Sheldon was not a licenced driver at the time and took instructions from someone who was. He presented actual arguments to the Judge in traffic court all of which the judge ignored for rule of funny.
190*** A TearJerker moment (as well as a case of MoodWhiplash) comes in Season 6's "The Santa Simulation", the guys play a Christmas themed ''Dungeons & Dragons'' game with Sheldon being annoyed by the theme and eventually leaving Santa, who they were supposed to rescue, to the ogres that captured him. Jerkass, for sure. The Woobie comes in when he tells "Santa" his story of why he hates him and Christmas -- the last time he saw Santa was at a mall where he asks for [[spoiler:his grandfather back, who had died earlier that year and was the only one in the family who encouraged Sheldon's interest in science]]. Instead, he got Lincoln Logs. "You can build a lot of things out of Lincoln Logs, but [[spoiler:a new Pop-Pop's]] not one of them."
191*** "The Guitarist Amplification" suggests that much of Sheldon's colder aspects were his defense against being hurt emotionally when his parents fought, as seeing his friends engage in vitriolic bickering has him on the edge of a full-fledged breakdown.
192** Raj. Yes, doubtless, he TookALevelInJerkass since around Season 3. Only one catch: living without being able to talk with women is especially hard. It's a wonder he hasn't ended up a bitter drunk yet. He may put a SmugSnake face in front of his friends, but once or twice, we see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoCfMOkVX6Q&feature=relmfu he]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk5kPPO-7HI cracks.]]
193** Pretty much every character with any development save for Stuart (due to being too friendly to qualify) will have shades of this. Everyone has moments where they act selfish, intolerable, or just generally disdainful, but they all also have so many issues and problems that it's hard not to feel bad for them.
194** Dr. Crawlie from "The Jiminy Conjecture" would be a full-on Woobie if not for being played by ''Creator/LewisBlack''.
195%%* LauncherOfAThousandShips: All the main characters have been shipped with all the others at one point or another.
196* LesYay: Amy Farrah Fowler and Penny, although this is more of a one-sided crush.
197** Penny has since revealed that as a high school student in Nebraska, she participated in extracurricular activities with the gym coach who had a massive and unwise crush on her. Just to specify the gym coach's gender, they apparently went to a Melissa Etheridge gig together [[note]] Melissa Etheridge is openly lesbian[[/note]]. Penny was not explicit on what she had to do to get the A-grade for gym, but mysteriously remarked that "it all worked out OK".
198** In another episode, Penny relays a story about a guy picking her up in a bar, then picking up another girl and all of them leaving together, then asking if it meant she also picked up the other girl.
199** Penny mentions that the Doctor who gave her use of a mountain cabin was having her go to an Indigo Girls concert with her.
200* MemeticMutation: Sheldon tends to generate these.
201** "Bazinga!"[[labelnote:Explanation]]Sheldon's go-to phrase for explaining that he was playing a joke on someone. The status of it as his [[CharacterCatchphrase catchphrase]] and its consequent omnipresence in promotional material and merchandise resulted in it becoming a popular subject for parody, especially among non-fans, distorting it in a number of ways (e.g. "Zimbabwe").[[/labelnote]]
202*** A variant of this involves Sheldon's Bazinga JumpScare almost causing Leonard to crash his car, with certain edits involving cutting out the part where he gets the car in control and replacing it with an accident or car crash, [[CrossesTheLineTwice with hilarious results]] such as [[https://youtu.be/csCUpDwEAWk this]].
203** Oh, the Humanities! (An UnusualEuphemism, substituting "Humanity", the typical word, for "Humanities", the collective fields of study of Human culture, which Sheldon tends to reference on occasion)
204** Yes! Yes! My brain is better than ''EVERYBODY'S!'' (A reference to Sheldon's typical InsufferableGenius behavior)
205** (knock knock knock) "Penny?" (knock knock knock) "Penny?" (knock knock knock) "Penny?" (A reference to Sheldon's compulsive door knocking quirk)
206** On /co/, the show is commonly made fun of in variations of "Hey guys, Green Lantern!" (audience laughter shakes the studio, snowballing into an apocalyptic event)
207** Replacing the laugh track with a variety of other people's laughs [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=1p4TkRnvNco like]] Creator/RickyGervais, [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX Tidus]], [[WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants SpongeBob]], a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRM9ZQCtKp0 random guy]] or just [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHW3kDeX52c random]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQocmKuqt-4 sound effects]] in general.
208** There are lots of extremely surreal MS Paint productions that rival ''Webcomic/SweetBroAndHellaJeff'' in terms of StylisticSuck. They almost always have extremely botched English, with the punchline usually being some warbled variation of "bazinga" ("bandingo", "bonswazzle", "bazooper", "carabooda", "jumanji", "bepzinky", "vajazzle", etc.) or African and Asian countries (Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Botswana, etc). [[https://www.reddit.com/r/bingbongtheorem/ Have a look for yourself.]]
209** For snarkers against the show, the spin off ''Series/YoungSheldon'' became this, in particular the assumed joke where the titular character corrects his mother over the actual name of salt when she asked him to pass it to her.
210** "I don't need sleep. I need answers." (A quote from Sheldon that is used in fandom obsessed posts.)
211** "I'm going to post NSFW in general!" [[labelnote:Explanation]]A series of videos depicting image macros of Sheldon posting NotSafeForWork content in the "#general" room of a Discord server, facing the consequences for doing so, and trying various workarounds to keep posting NSFW in #general, all underscored by various video game songs (most prominently ones from the ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' soundtrack).[[/labelnote]]
212** "Love is in the air? Wrong! Gas leak."[[labelnote:Explanation]]An image macro of Sheldon with this caption, which originally said "Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, and Carbon Dioxide is in the air" as the last sentence before having "gas leak" hastily added in. The BlackComedy of the edit combined with how well it still matches Sheldon's InsufferableGenius characterization resulted in it becoming a popular subject for reposts, redraws, and further edits online.[[/labelnote]]
213* OffendingTheCreatorsOwn:
214** It's pretty much a fact to say that no-one hates the show more than the nerds it's supposed to be writing about and appealing to. A common criticism among self-identified "nerds" is that it is "nerdface" and laughs ''at'' nerds rather than ''with'' them. Given that the show tends to get nerd-culture and science references meticulously correct, it can be reasoned that there are at least a few nerds working on the show, although they may simply be fact-checkers that have little to no say on the characters or story.
215** The character of Sheldon Cooper has also been widely criticized by the autistic community for allegedly [[HollywoodAutism reinforcing negative stereotypes about the condition]], despite [[DiagnosisOfGod the creators refusing to label him as having it]], instead preferring to stick with an unnamed mental disorder for the RuleOfFunny (though actor Creator/JimParsons disagrees, saying he deliberately played him as an autistic character). Either way, this ultimately became an example when co-creator Bill Prady revealed in 2021, two years after the show ended, that he is himself autistic.
216* OlderThanTheyThink: a number of tropes that seem original actually show up in episodes of ''Series/{{The Office|US}}''.
217** Angela's CreepyCleanliness prevents her from submitting to a group handshake without first laying a napkin on the pile of her coworkers' hands. Sheldon makes the same move in "The Zarnecki Incursion".
218--->'''Sheldon:''' I'm hell-bent on catching a cyber criminal, not the common cold.
219** Sheldon's Roommate Agreement and his Relationship Agreement with Amy seem unique and quirky, but Angela and Dwight had a formal contract regarding procreation. Like Sheldon, Dwight was also a notary public and validated the agreement himself. The contracts on both shows were used to invoke ReadTheFinePrint and MagicallyBindingContract and served as plot devices in several episodes.
220** A few of the main characters having really bad parents, and bad relationships with them as a result, is a trait this show shares with ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen''. It's, for some reason, a favorite trope of Chuck Lorre's, since he's also had the trait show up in ''Series/MikeAndMolly'' as well, to have some of the main characters have bad relationships with their bad parents and also explore the psychological aspects of them. Leonard's mother in particular shares an ''immense'' amount of traits with Evelyn, Charlie and Alan's mother, in that they show absolutely ''no'' understanding of why their children hate them, blame their children for their problems with them rather than actually examining their ''own'' actions that have screwed up their kids' lives, are ''very'' hypocritical when they're blamed for their problems, despite how true the claims are, and show absolutely ''no'' signs of changing for the better. She even shows more genuine appreciation for Leonard's ''siblings''' accomplishments rather than ''his''. They even have Leonard ''proud'' of the fact that she's his mother, as it's lead to his success, rather than saying he would've wanted a more traditional mom who supports everything he sets out to do, is full of genuine warmth, and loves all of her children as much as she can. Even Penny had this happen to her early on with her father, as it's established that he wanted a son and, consequently, pushed Penny away as a result of not having one rather than appreciating her for being his daughter...at least they established that ''before'' he actually showed up in the show, with absolutely ''none'' of those traits as a part of his characterization as you'd expect. Sheldon seems to be somewhat of a subversion of this as, while his mother and he don't see eye-to-eye most of the time, she does genuinely love him and he genuinely loves her and they, generally, have a good relationship outside of their thoughts on religion and Sheldon's tendency to act like a big baby when she comes to visit. Even Bernadette has a good, normal, family life with her parents.
221* OnceOriginalNowCommon: When the show first came out what made it revolutionary was the emphasis on genuinely nerdy and awkward lead characters, along with [[ShownTheirWork the largely accurate science]] and references to actual nerd culture and not just SmallReferencePools or BlandNameProduct stand-ins. It still had a LaughTrack as a traditional sitcom, which likes to mock its characters, and that created a sizeable backlash to audiences who were turning away from that format. But before the show "nerdy" characters in most comedies were either minor side characters where that is their one trait or were "[[NerdsAreSexy charmingly nerdy]]" main characters where they liked Star Trek but otherwise would have a GirlOfTheWeek. By placing more realistically awkward characters with all their flaws front and center, while also giving them prestigious jobs and notable character arcs, it helped to make nerd culture more of a mainstream topic to celebrate. A number of later shows have perhaps been able to be more innovative in its structure and less broad in their character types.
222* OneSceneWonder:
223** Alice from "Good Guy Fluctuation" was incredibly popular, being an attractive, friendly and quirky female nerd played by Courtney Ford.
224** Martha and Abby from "Psychic Vortex" are similar, given how they double date Raj and ''Sheldon'' based on him carrying a Franchise/GreenLantern prop around.
225** Yvette from "The Locomotive Manipulation" is one of the more popular love interests for Raj among the fanbase, despite appearing in only one episode, due to the fact that they shared a lot of the same values and seemed quite well-suited generally. The casting of Tania Raymonde was made quite a big deal of at the time, suggesting that the character might originally have been meant to be recurring.
226** Carrie Fisher... Wielding a baseball bat... after being [[DingDongDitchDistraction ding-dong-ditched]] by James Earl Jones.
227* PanderingToTheBase: Leonard and Penny, despite being the OfficialCouple faced a lot of criticism during Season 10 due to there constant arguments and issues after marriage. The writers noted this and many fans were worried the two would eventually divorce. However, Season Eleven was seen as a huge improvement and many fans were pleased for them to have created a more stable and genuine relationship.
228* ParanoiaFuel: In one episode, it's revealed Howard once gave Penny a teddy bear that she discovered had a ''webcam'' inside it.
229* PortmanteauCoupleName: In-universe. "Shamy" in the Season 4 Premiere for Sheldon and Amy. Amy is quick to put an end to it, though. The fans still use the term to discuss the Sheldon/Amy pairing.
230** Also in universe, Raj has suggested "Koothrapemily and "Emipalli" as one for himself and Emily.
231** "Lenny" is the term used by fans to discuss the Leonard/Penny pairing. Somewhat confusing since Lenny is a nickname of Leonard.
232** The term "Shenny" is used by fans to discuss Sheldon/Penny shipping. The Big Bag Theory Wiki has [[http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/Shenny_(Sheldon_and_Penny) a small article]] on the subject.
233** The term "Howardette" is used by fans to discuss the Howard/Bernadette pairing.
234* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: When Amy was initially introduced she came across as a DistaffCounterpart of Sheldon competing for the BrutalHonesty lines, which many fans did not appreciate. Once she started up a friendship with Penny, calling her "My Bestie" (best friend), and demonstrating her own personality outside of a female Sheldon fan response has switched around. Particularly her instigation of the rumor-mill in "The Herb Garden Germination" and Sheldon calling her a "vixen" for getting him into the social sciences.
235** in an odd version Wil Wheaton's popularity soared amongst Star Trek fans due to his Big Bang appearances as a fictional version of himself.
236* RonTheDeathEater:
237** Leonard is frequently turned into this in order to promote the Sheldon/Penny pairing. Correspondingly, Sheldon becomes a DracoInLeatherPants where Leonard is a horrible person for teasing, pranking or otherwise making fun of him, supposedly because Sheldon is a child and unaware of the hurtful things he says and does.
238** Penny is susceptible to this as well complete with a healthy dose of slut-shaming for having a healthy sex life while single. Some examples are the below mentioned EscalatingWar with Sheldon over the rules at his apartment yet no mention is ever given of the fact that he basically forces his rules everywhere he was going, including Penny’s house. Or her keeping all the horrible things Howard did from Bernadette in "The Stag Convergance" while forgetting that Penny has told Bernadette how sleazy Howard is many times from repeatedly bad mouthing him after they broke up to repeatedly asking her if she really wanted to marry him. Plus the things they saw in the video were things Penny had no knowledge of.
239** Just about every character over the course of the show has had only their flaws focused on and their positive traits ignored, often but not always when in comparison to Sheldon.
240* SeasonalRot: While there are plenty of fans who think it gets better every season due to more CharacterDevelopment and more humor, plenty of other fans think the show has been going downhill since Season 4, because of moving away from the original plot, less focus on the "nerdy" elements and more on relationships, and taking away aspects from the characters that many people loved.
241* ShallowParody: The jokes about geek culture hit really obvious targets like video games, ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', ''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Franchise/StarTrek'', etc. The targets are so big in the mainstream it's considered perfectly normal to be into them. The show itself even acknowledges this early on, when Penny mocks Leonard for collecting action figures only to later be called out on it by Sheldon, who points out that she herself has numerous ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' and ''Franchise/HelloKitty'' dolls.
242* ShipMates: Those who ship Leonard with someone other than Penny (like Alex), which leaves Penny open to be with Sheldon.
243* ShippingBedDeath:
244** Leonard and Penny's relationship had a lot more fan support in the first two seasons than after they get together in the third. The thing was that much of the CharacterDevelopment of the first two seasons was about getting them to that point and resolving their UnresolvedSexualTension while trying to otherwise keep the {{status quo|IsGod}} left the third season feeling very stale. Their relationship had little impact on the stories other than a couple of fights and token episodes where they try to learn more about each other (Leonard tried to learn about sports, Penny tried to learn physics) and they eventually broke up towards the end.
245** Leonard and Penny getting back together in the fifth season has produced [[BrokenBase a mixed reaction]]. Some like that the characters are actually trying to interact with each other on a more personal level (avoiding the stale feeling from before) while others feel that the whole story had run its course and the show is just putting the audience through another round of drama.
246* SpecialEffectsFailure:
247** In the Season 5 premiere, Sheldon has a nightmare where several bugs start crawling all over him. The bug effects look like something out of windows movie maker. Though that does not stop it from being disturbing.
248** In Season 6, the boys (in Star Trek cosplay) get ready to take some photos by [[KirksRock Vasquez Rocks]]. Or rather, in front of a backdrop portraying said rocks -- it's rather painfully obvious they're on a set! Possibly intentional, as a reference to the obvious sets in the original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}''.
249** More like ''Scenery'' Effect Failure, but the brief scene of the women at Disneyland in "The Contractual Obligation Implementation" can be a bit of a MindScrew to those who actually have been to Disneyland. The scene is ''very'' quiet, and it looks as if Penny, Amy and Bernadette are the ''only'' guests in the park!
250** In "The VHS Illumination", the VHS home movie of Sheldon's father giving a RousingSpeech uses the same HD quality from ''Series/YoungSheldon'' instead of DeliberateVHSQuality, on what should be a 1980s cassette tape.
251* {{Squick}}: Howard's subplot in the fourth season premiere. He [[spoiler:built a robotic arm, and after showing it to his friends, when he's at home he gets it to massage his shoulder. Then, as soon as he realizes "it's just like a real hand", well... guess what he tries to get it to do. And it doesn't even stop there -- the hand misinterprets what it's been programmed to do, mistakenly believing its duty is about twisting a screwdriver]]. As soon as Howard no longer has any control over the situation (which is pretty quickly), he has to ask Leonard and Raj for help, [[HilarityEnsues and then everything goes downhill from there.]]
252** In Season 1, Penny's "friend" Christy comes to stay with her for a bit. The night she does, she gets seduced by and sleeps with Howard. The next day, Howard reveals they showered together and used Penny's loofa, which "reached places [Howard's] just won't." Later, Penny said that they made all her stuffed animals "sweaty." If you know what happens at the end of sex, then both are ''very'' nauseating to think about.
253%%** Leonard dressed as a "naughty carrot". Although it could possibly be...
254* StrawmanHasAPoint: Sheldon is a difficult person to get along with and is often assumed to be wrong on certain matters because of his selfish behavior and desperate arguments. But there are a few times when you have to admit he has a point in his argument.
255** After they return from the North Pole after several months of experimenting Sheldon discovers the others interfered with the results so Sheldon would be more tolerable. The problem was Sheldon immediately sent out an email to the University about their findings before they clued him in on what happened; the forced redaction hurts his career and turns it into DisproportionateRetribution. While he is not free of fault due to his own haste in taking credit for the discovery, Sheldon is the victim in this, and is utterly hollowed out when he finds out. The others only offer a light apology, with only Raj actually seeming to regret it, and Leonard was only worried about getting back to he could have sex with Penny. This also doesn't get into the fact that falsifying data in the academic community is a huge breach of ethics; excluding the emotional hurt done to Sheldon, the group's actions could have resulted in the total ruin of their friend's (legitimately distinguished) career, humiliation for the university they work at, as well as calling into question the validity of any of their own current or previous work because they were part of the research team.
256** One particular event that really sticks out is in "The Deception Verification"; Sheldon's treated as if he's in the wrong for being angry when he discovers that his best friend intentionally lied to him, because he didn't want to spend time with him.
257%%** Both Sheldon and Wil Wheaton in "The Habitation Configuration". See DesignatedVillain for more information.
258* {{Supercouple}}: Both Leonard/Penny and Sheldon/Amy are this.
259* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: A good portion of the fandom is upset that the guys are having some success in long term companionships, claiming that the show has become just another stereotypical sitcom with a focus on relationships. The thing is that even the early seasons were focused on relationship stories, mostly on how the guys would strike out (especially Howard). Whether or not the changes to the cast and the formula have been handled well (balanced cast, creative stories, insider jokes, etc) is a different subject altogether.
260* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
261** Leslie Winkle gets phased out of the show the moment Amy and Bernadette were introduced and became regular cast members, which is a shame as you never get to see Leslie interact much with the new female cast. Even when she does return in a later episode, there's never a scene devoted to her interacting with them.
262** The show had the tendency of introducing possible love interests only to completely drop them off the face of the earth after a couple episodes without any explanation whatsoever as to what happened to them.
263*** One notable example of this is Dr. Stephanie Barnett (Creator/SaraRue) in Season 2. She's introduced in a 3 episode mini-arc as Howard's girlfriend only for Stephanie to end up hitting it off with Leonard, and eventually becomes his girlfriend instead. How does Leonard and Stephanie's relationship evolve from there? No one knows since Stephanie [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse never appeared again]] after the mini-arc. The show just continued on as if the Stephanie plotline never happened.
264*** Another example is the ShipTease between Leonard and Alex Jensen (Margo Harshman) in Season 6 not going anywhere. Alex just [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse suddenly stopped appearing]] after a couple episodes to the point of not even bothering to show why she stopped being Sheldon's assistant.
265*** Lucy, who was Raj's girlfriend for the latter third of Season 6. Many fans thought that Creator/KateMicucci would have been a great addition to the show's recurring cast, and were enthused both by the prospect of a female character who was into stereotypically male interests such as comics and video games (she and Raj first met in the comic store), and was much more of a shy wallflower-type character (the nearest thing among the existing characters being Amy, which was mostly negated by her having the same blunt force trauma social mannerisms as Sheldon). However, the episode after Lucy's introduction wasted no time in establishing that her interests were just as stereotypically "girly" as those of the three female regulars and that she just happened to randomly wander into the comic store at exactly the right time to meet Raj, and the remaining episodes she was in gave her next-to-no character development, before she was PutOnABus at the end of the season.
266* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
267** At the finale of "The Santa Simulation," Sheldon reveals to "Santa" (in a Christmas-themed game of ''Dungeons & Dragons'') why he dislikes Christmas; [[spoiler: [[FreudianExcuse Sheldon had asked Santa when he was a child to bring back his grandfather, who had died earlier that year and was the only family member to encourage his interest in science.]] Sheldon instead got Lincoln Logs]]. In TheStinger, Sheldon meets Santa Claus during a dream, in which Santa apologizes for letting Sheldon down as a boy. Rather than a heartwarming moment where Sheldon's Pop Pop comes back for one dream so Sheldon can say goodbye and make amends, [[spoiler:Santa shoots Sheldon with a cannon, making the ending a CatapultNightmare]].
268** In The Bozeman Reaction, at no point does Sheldon point out that Bozeman, UsefulNotes/{{Montana}} is the future site of the test of the first warp engine & first contact with the Vulcans in the film Star Trek: First Contact. Given his love of Star Trek, and TNG in general, this would surely have been a factor in his decision to move there. On a side-note, this counts as a GeniusBonus, and might be deliberate on the part of the writers.
269** "The Bakersfield Expedition" centered around the guys going to Comic-Con while cosplaying as Star Trek characters, only to have their car stolen and put in embarrassing situations as they make their way home. [[http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/11/the-big-bang-theory-the-bakersfield-expedition-review IGN's review of the episode]] posits that, instead of devoting the episode to mocking the leads for their hobbies, it would have been much better to put them in a dangerous situation that would let them live out their fantasies of being Starfleet officers.
270** Due to the increasing amount of attention nerd culture has received in recent years, it would be interesting if the four male leads suddenly found themselves becoming more popular for the geeky hobbies and interests that earned so much ridicule over the years.
271** The GrandFinale, instead of having Sheldon be called out for the hundredth time how much of a jerk he is (seeing the other characters "stand up to him" isn't very satisfying when they've already "stood up to him" multiple times in previous episodes), could've been a good opportunity to have [[DesignatedHero Leonard, Penny, Howard, Raj, Bernadette, and Amy]] be called out for THEIR {{Jerkass}} tendencies (granted, Leonard and Bernadette have been called out before, but both received AesopAmnesia in episodes after that, and it hasn't happened as often as Sheldon being called out), perhaps even [[JerkassHasAPoint by Sheldon]], which considering how mean they are to him much of the time would've been far more satisfying, especially since unlike Sheldon we're intended to see them as likable characters.
272*** Particularly, the last few seasons have multiple moments where someone references Bernadette's hurtful tendencies, such as Amy when she's dressed up as Bernadette or Penny when they're at work. Unlike every other character, however, she never even attempts to be a kinder person (how much the others do can vary, but it's undeniable that all of them are in general more considerate people than they were when they started out), and instead keeps on being "unnecessarily hurtful," as Amy says, to pretty much everyone outside of her friend group.
273** Some feel that Leonard and Penny's plotline in Season 12 [[spoiler:was ruined by Penny being pregnant and happy in the GrandFinale, as it makes their story in that season feel unnecessary. After Leonard coming to terms with the idea of not being a father and simply being happy in a relationship with Penny, all that is said in the final episode is that she now wants them after accidentally getting pregnant]].
274** Penny's B-Horror movie plotline, and how it started to involve Penny in a geekier sphere of influence professionally (i.e. Wil Wheaton's podcast, the fan convention) could have been an interesting opportunity to explore how Penny's years of hanging out with geeks could actually help her as an actress, and in turn, force the guys to realize how much actors like Penny have shaped their lives, and deserve more respect.
275** Some of the later season episodes plays around with the idea of having Howard go back to college to finally get his [=PhD=] in Engineering, which would ''finally'' put him at the same education level as his friends rather than him always being mocked as the guy who's only at a Masters degree. However, this potential storyline is quickly forgotten about after a few episodes.
276* TooBleakStoppedCaring: At first. Even if you find the show funny, it can quickly become tiring watching the four male leads constantly being bullied, harassed, insulted and put down by everyone and their mother.[[note]]That's not hyperbole, Leonard's mother literally wrote a book about why she considers him a failure.[[/note]] in addition, the main characters (except Stuart) all TookALevelInJerkass after the first season, making them very hard to sympathize with.
277* UnintentionallySympathetic:
278** Howard is this in the story arc dealing with Howard's feeling unwelcome and underappreciated after returning from space. While the episode tries to play him off as having AcquiredSituationalNarcissism, Howard has been the butt of his friends' jokes since the beginning of the series for not having a doctorate. Even Penny and Bernadette have mocked him for this. So when he finally has something to brag about they just come across as petty for not letting him do it.
279** Sheldon can fall into this a lot as well. Yeah, he's an InsufferableGenius, but the things that [[{{Jerkass}} Leonard]] and his friends do to him generally slide into DisproportionateRetribution, and they're also rather fond of messing with him because [[ItAmusedMe it amuses them]], making it hard not to feel at least a little sympathy for him. For example, in the aforementioned "The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation", he and his friends return from the North Pole, only for Sheldon to discover that his friends faked data in order to get him to be less obnoxious. They tell him this AFTER he sent out an email to the university about how he'd discovered magnetic monopoles, and as a result he is humiliated and mocked. Even if they were planning on telling him before he sent out the email and just didn't realize how fast he would do it, the others just shrug him off and act like he's overreacting (the only one who has his back is Penny; and Raj, to an extent). We're presumably supposed to side with them, but can you really blame him for being upset and betrayed considering that they humiliated him and on top of that ''faked data'' -- which is a big breach of ethics in the academic community -- just to get him to be less annoying?
280** In "The Agreement Dissection", after Priya abolishes the Roommate Agreement, we have Sheldon coming home to discover that Leonard, Howard and Raj got Greek food, which they know that he loathes, on Pizza Night [[ItAmusedMe just to tick him off]], which was not justified at all -- none of them had said anything about not liking pizza, and Leonard hates Greek food just as much as Sheldon does and yet he's totally okay with getting it for no other reason than to make Sheldon angry (not to mention that when Sheldon points out that Leonard hates Greek food, Leonard just replies "[[{{Jerkass}} Not as much as you]]."). How exactly is Sheldon in the wrong for being angry about this?
281** Wil Wheaton for being fed up with Amy's whining and bitching in "The Habitation Configuration", and Sheldon for siding with him, and being treated like he's somehow in the wrong for it.
282** Fans and characters in the show usually make fun of Raj for being desperate to get a girlfriend (and, indeed, some of his actions are pretty pathetic). That being said, it can be ''really'' difficult when all of your friends are in relationships, and you're the only single one. Especially given that his family life wasn't great as a child, meaning that he already had low self-esteem as it was.
283** Lucy is blamed by all the characters for how she dumps Raj over an email, but the fact is that he pushed her into coming to a large party full of strangers when he knows perfectly well how incredibly shy she is. While dumping him over email is pretty low, it's also completely understandable that she feels they're done.
284* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
285** The gang is supposed to be sympathetic for having to put up with Sheldon. The thing is, they're hardly better than him in later seasons and greatly enjoy mistreating him (and each other). In fairness though, several years of putting up with Sheldon's {{Jerkass}} behavior would wear just about anyone out, especially since he refuses to learn despite being warned nicely time and time again. Goodwill only lasts for so long.
286** "The Panty Pinata Polarization" has Sheldon and Penny getting into an EscalatingWar over the rules at Sheldon's apartment. We're supposed to side with Penny, but she's acting just as awful and petty as Sheldon, especially since it was technically her fault that they were feuding to begin with.
287** Another example of Penny being this comes in an episode where Leonard sneaks a look at and fixes her bad history paper. She gets angry at him because she wanted to do it herself... then proceeds to enlist the help of Amy and Bernadette to rewrite it just to stick it to him. Hypocrisy, thy name is Penny.
288** Howard can be considered this in "The Apology Insufficiency", where he gets ticked-off at Sheldon because Sheldon accidentally told a government agent that Howard crashed the Mars Rover trying to impress a date, which causes her to deny Howard security clearance to work on a project. Howard [[NeverMyFault was the idiot who crashed the Mars Rover trying to impress a girl in the first place, and he didn't even have clearance to enter the control room in the first place]]. While Sheldon's actions in this aren't model behavior between friends, it's clear that Howard brought this on himself.
289** Amy in "The Habitation Configuration", where she acts like an enormous {{Jerkass}} towards Wil Wheaton, and yet when Sheldon is understandably annoyed he and Wil are treated as the ones in the wrong.
290** Raj after breaking up with Emily. He spends the rest of the episode as a thoroughly depressed mess, but he only broke up with her after obsessing over another woman (who clearly told him she wasn’t interested) for days before breaking up with Emily right before Valentine’s Day. He then went crawling back to her when this stupid decision blew up in his face. All in all, he comes across looking more like a sleaze than someone you should feel sorry for.
291* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Most of the characters on the show are not popular in the conventional sense, but within the context of the main group this comes up regularly.
292** Sheldon, whose {{Jerkass}} behavior is barely tolerated by the others and they have contingencies on how to deal with his narcissism and arrogance, but was certainly the BreakoutCharacter of the show.
293** Barry Kripke is an obnoxious tool the other characters dislike, but being such an unapologetic ass who can put Sheldon in his place earned him a good deal of fans.
294** Stuart is straight up TheEeyore sad sack, but being the owner of the LocalHangout and friendly demeanor earned him a place in [[PromotedToOpeningCredits the main credits]].
295** Bert sees the main group as the popular crowd, and his social awkwardness is hard to get around, but his sincerity and being played by Creator/BrianPosehn elevated what was [[AscendedExtra originally a one-gag character]].
296* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: In the Season 7 premiere, Leonard gets hoisted off of a boat by a Kraken's tentacles. It really looks believable.
297* WinBackTheCrowd: [[SeasonalRot Season 3]] was criticized for an [[SpotlightStealingSquad overabundant focus on Sheldon]] and a lackluster exploration of [[ShippingBedDeath Leonard and Penny's relationship]]. Season 4 was slightly better with Amy and Bernadette shaking up the character dynamics, but the quality control on Season 5 left a normally reliably funny show as being hit or miss, especially [[DemotedToExtra as Raj became more incidental to the stories]]. But after an iffy start to Season 6, many people started praising it as hitting a new high mark as everyone started getting some really juicy comedic moments, and Raj became important to the show again.
298** The LongRunner nature of the show meant that everyone would have their own opinion of when it started suffering SeasonalRot (ranging from season 3 to season 12). The GrandFinale, on the other hand, was wildly praised by just about everyone as a great conclusion, ending on a high note as a love letter to both the characters and the fans. Sheldon truly becoming kinder and more empathetic also earned a lot of praise.
299* TheWoobie: Pretty much the entire cast and even side characters take turns at this, since they bonded by having mutual problems with apathetic family members and growing up ostracized for their intelligence.
300** Leonard is generally a decent guy who tries to find some sort of emotional attachment and rarely getting it. But then we find out he was never hugged as a child, his parents never celebrated any birthday, and often directly mocked for his struggles (especially by Sheldon, but Raj and Howard also teased him about Penny frequently with no provocation).
301** Woobie status will shift to Sheldon sometimes. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PLC0UBuFgE Especially here,]] where he nearly has a panic attack because the guys cut off one of his long rants, and they did it on purpose. Although Sheldon's unpopularity attitude makes him an target for a lot of pranks, this show still probably deserves credit for making TheWoobie out of characters who, in most sitcoms, would merely be one-joke occasional characters. Consider how much of a FlatCharacter Sheldon -- or even the other guys -- would be as extras in a more traditional sitcom.
302** When Amy was first introduced she was rather cold and distant to most people, only becoming friends with Sheldon because of feeling a kinship between them. As she became friends with Penny she opened up extensively and often recalls having a rough and lonely childhood, probably more so than any of the guys. While her dialogue is still meant to be funny, a lot of it hints towards her being very sad and depressed before she met them. When Penny is staying at her place and Raj shows up Amy said, "A sleepover ''and'' a man at my door. I wish I could tell my 13-year-old self it '''does''' get better!" Things get worse in the Season 5 episode "The Isolation Permutation" where Amy has an emotional breakdown because Penny and Bernadette don't ask her to pick out wedding dresses with them. She spends most of the episode agonizing over how no one wants to hang out with her and recounting some pretty horrible experiences where people have humiliated her, at one point calling herself "the tumor nobody wants around." Yeah, pretty safe to say she's the show's biggest Woobie by now.
303** Stuart, due to his growing debt, PerpetualPoverty, and the fact everyone takes advantage of his friendliness and easygoing-ness to get cheaper prices on stuff from his store really makes you feel for the guy. The closest thing he has to a dating life is a cat he doesn't own that occasionally visits to share cans of tuna. He finds it hard to talk with people outside of the nerd community, and is often depressed about his lot in life, and the fact that he's rarely invited to hang out with his friends in their group events. To cap it off, his comic book shop burns down in the Season 7 finale (and no matter what other people say, he didn't do it to collect the insurance), and in Season 8, Debbie (Howard's Mother), who he was getting close to, [[spoiler: passed away right after providing him with the funds he needed to get his shop back in business.]] The poor guy just can't catch a break.
304** Alex Jensen, Sheldon's assistant. The poor girl tries ''so hard'', and she still gets talked down to on a regular basis.
305** Raj. In Season 6, he and Stuart bonded over their shared loneliness as Raj's best friend was away and both were single. For the past few seasons, he's been feeling really depressed about [[AloneAmongTheCouples being single while all of his friends are paired up]] (especially since one of the couples involves ''Sheldon''). When he does finally get a girlfriend, [[YankTheDogsChain she breaks up with him.]] He also had a girlfriend for an episode who ended up being a GoldDigger.
306** Howard. His father abandoned him when he was a kid, forcing him to look after his mother (who may qualify, herself.) Sheldon constantly taunts him about not having a doctorate (at one point, Bernadette joins in), Bernadette goes behind his back to tell his mother about his going to space, he comes close to breaking up with her after his lecherous past is revealed. He is clearly terrified of going into space. There, he's bullied by the other astronauts who dub him "Fruit Loops" and he suffers from SpaceMadness. It doesn't get much better for him upon re-entry, as his wife is [[{{Squick}} trying to seduce him while suffering from a cold.]] His mother is having an affair with the dentist, he finds himself between Raj and Stuart's HoYay, and the rest of the group coldly rebuff him, leaving him to eat cheesecake alone in a diner where he finds out he caught the cold from Bernadette. Poor guy.
307** Howard's mother used to be thin and beautiful until she became a chocolate addict from eating the candy her dates brought her. Her husband up and leaves her alone with a young child to raise alone and she clearly suffers from a fear of abandonment because of it. Her controlling and manipulative nature just seems to be her way of keeping the only person who loves her close to her. Then she dies while on a great vacation and only a short time after developing probably her closest friendship in years.
308** Even Penny can be this at times (just not as often as the others). In the early seasons she had a tendency to fall for JerkJock types only to be devastated when she realized they were jerks. When she and Leonard broke up and Leonard began dating Priya, Penny tried to pull an IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy, but couldn't actually say it out loud without bursting into tears mid-sentence. She's an aspiring actress (and has some genuine talent) but her acting career has been going nowhere. Every now and then, the realization of that hits her ''hard''. Even when she gets a job that pays a lot of money, she eventually admits to Leonard that she hates it because having to flirt with doctors all day to make sales doesn't feel good, but she also isn't sure if she wants to go back to acting because she remembers how miserable the auditions and failure made her.
309[[/folder]]

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