After 12 Years, It All Ends With a Bang: Reflections On the Series Finale of ‘The Big Bang Theory’

How It All Ends

Rather than offer up a blow-by-blow recap of the finale, here are the highlights: Sheldon and Amy win the Nobel Prize in Physics, and, naturally, Sheldon freaks out over the changes it brings into his life. And while he and Amy invite the gang along for the trip to Stockholm for the ceremony, it quickly becomes evident that all Sheldon is concerned with is himself (not that that’s anything new). This even trumps the news that Penny and Leonard, who spent much of this season debating whether or not they would have kids (he wanted to, she didn’t) are pregnant. Or the concerns that Howard and Bernadette have over having left their kids back home with Stuart (what were they thinking?). But it’s Amy, the best grounding force that Sheldon has ever had, who makes Sheldon realize that the only thing that doesn’t keep him alone in life and completely alienate the people around him (even her) is the fact that they know his heart is genuinely good.

Recognizing the Truth

This is a true wake-up call for him, and when he reaches the stage to deliver his acceptance speech, instead of focusing on himself (which he had apparently allotted 90 minutes to do), he admitted his love and admiration for Amy and all of their friends who he identifies as his family. In this context it may not sound like much, but watching the moment play out is extremely moving, even though it’s punctuated with a big laugh when he notices Raj, who has convinced Sarah Michelle Gellar (who he met on the plane to Stockholm) to accompany him, causing Sheldon in the middle of things to ask from the stage, “Is that Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

They Fixed It in the End

Oh, and getting perhaps the biggest laugh of all — and applause — is the fact that the apartment building’s elevator is working for the first time in at least 12 years (driving home the point that nothing in Sheldon’s world is the same anymore). Appropriately, the series ends at a place of comfort: this family of friends gathered in Leonard and Penny’s living room, eating Chinese food and laughing. It is genuinely the perfect ending for this show.

In the Beginning: The Magic of Casting

Back when The Big Bang Theory was first starting its incredibly successful run, we had the opportunity to sit down with series creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady to discuss, in an exclusive interview, how it came together and why, from the very beginning, it worked.

“The chemistry between these actors is pretty rare,” says Chuck, “and it literally started right out of the gate. There’s something special going on, on the stage between these people. There’s a commonality there; they’re kind of a support group of lonely people. Disenfranchised in a way, because they don’t quite get what’s going on beyond their narrow borders around the country of their genius. Bill Prady and I took two years to develop this; we got it wrong for quite a while before we figured it out. We worked hard to delineate the characters so they had different voices, and then we were fortunate enough to get the right actors. Had we not found these particular people, I don’t know if this would have worked at all. Lightning struck multiple times.”

As to the characters, he says, what they came to realize is that they had created a group of innocents. “There’s no deceit in them,” Chuck points out. “They are what they are and that’s kind of refreshing. In a way, they almost make the case that they act like outer space aliens; they simply don’t fit in. The things we take for granted, they don’t get. Social interaction, the minutia of people getting along with each other. It really all started when Bill told me the story of when he was a programmer in New York in the ’80s and the other guys that he hung out with were able to figure out PI to 80 decimals in their head, but couldn’t figure out a tip in a restaurant. Fifteen percent or 20% based on quality of service had too many variables.

“There was a character in his life that could not speak if there was a woman in the room. He was that damaged. The guy was capable of unbelievable thought processes that went far beyond what we would consider clever, but incapable of operating around a woman. But the first decision we made when we realized that they were interesting characters was that we wanted to abandon the whole computer world, because it’s become a cliche; it’s about making money, designing software and making fortunes. We wanted to go in the direction of genius for the sake of pure curiosity, which is when we moved into particle physics. They’re not money motivated, they’re just motivated by a deep curiosity about everything. They’re not trying to get rich, they’re just trying to unravel the secrets of the universe. Which is kind of a cool thing to do when you wake up in the morning.”

Chuck also felt poignancy from the fact that, at least in the beginning, fictional worlds were more comforting to them than the real one. “That’s a vulnerability in the characters that I find endearing. They’re more comfortable embracing the world that doesn’t exist than the one that does, because it’s one they can control or it’s one with more hope than this one.”

Elaborates Bill Prady, “We just set out to do something we would like. You only know what you like; you can’t figure out what other people do. You can only hope they like the same thing, but there’s kind of a universal theme that’s kind fo the underpinning of the show. We always feel like outsiders; we all feel that the other guy knows how to handle situations and we don’t — the notion that the other people have it figured out. It was certainly a feeling I had growing up and my partner, Chuck Lorre, won’t quite admit to it, but it’s clear he went through many of the same struggles.

“Then,” he continues, “you just add a little hyperbole and say, ‘What if the smartest guys in the world can’t figure it out? There’s no advantage. The notion is that the nerd or the geek or the person is different, but everyone is different for some reason and that’s the universal theme of what we’re talking about. If there’s a reason that The Big Bang Theory has caught on, I think that’s it.”

Closes Chuck, “I like that it celebrates characters who have not taken a bow. These are the people who change the world. When you get right down to it, when they think a new thought they change things more than someone who fights a battle, passes a law or some element of pop culture which is really transitory. Guys like this — the Einsteins, Carl Sagans, Hawkins — change the world we live in, in fundamental ways. To try and build a comedy around them was an unbelievable act of hubris on our part. It was stupidity and lunacy, but the fact that it’s working is deeply, deeply satisfying.”

For them and for us.