Does everyone hate The Big Bang Theory?

My fiance loves this show so I have to suffer through it way more than I would like. I don’t find it funny either. It never deviates from formula, the characters are flat and glaring stereotypes. I really don’t think any of the show’s writers or actors are geeks themselves. They just don’t get geek humor the way something like Community does.

I don’t want to pile on too much. It’s competently written, just uninspired and lacking any creativity. I mainly don’t like it because I often find myself watching it when the pre-wife has the remote.

The kids and I watch Big Bang together, and we enjoy it. They play board games I enjoy, talk about things I talk about with my friends, etc. It’s fun, simple humor and while I prefer something like 30 Rock, Community, or Arrested Development, this guilty pleasure has its place.

The laugh track never bothered me (didn’t Cheers have a laugh track? Did Seinfeld? I can’t remember, but I think they did).

However, for some reason, watching the only episode of Whitney I watched the laugh track there made me want to slap a bitch. Seriously, they were using that cannned laugh at EVERYTHING - it was creepy.

Yeah, I just don’t get this show. What’s kind of odd is that my wife, who is not a nerd by any means, absolutely loves the show and laughs uproariously at it. But I, the household nerd, am just slightly amused occasionally at best.

I tried and failed to enjoy it.

The wife and I love it. Mainly for Sheldon.

Something telling there, I think.

I dropped the series some months ago. I decided it wasn’t good enough, from time to time I would laugh, but it was more the dumb type of humor.

I couldn’t put my finger on why I did not like it as I have had tons of folks tell me I should, but I think this sums it up. I get it. There is a lot of cool nerd jokes in there, but I think there is too much nerd. I want more more non-nerd to counterbalance. Maybe that would work. I doubt it. Standard sitcom stuff.

It is not greater than the sum of its nerds.

I could go into the many reasons why the show is beneath my superior intellect and refined sense of culture and art, but to do so would waste my obviously superior mind on lesser pursuits when I can be accomplishing so much more.

BAZINGA.

You’re right, SlyFrog. Everybody should like everything that’s popular without question, and never have any personal standards for art whatsoever.

I like it okay, but at this point I watch it for Penny, Amy Farrah Fowler, and Bernadette more than for the original guys.

Hate it.

I really liked this show the first year it was on. It was like a polar opposite to 2 1/2 Men, where it was warm-hearted instead of mean spirited all the time. They legitimately got nerd culture, where they could actually make decent jokes about WoW or Rock Band or Comic Con, and Sheldon was a rare breakout character.

The novelty wore off for me quickly after the first year, tho. Nerd gets girl, nerd shoots self in foot, and Sheldon’s act started to wear thin. I don’t hate the show by any means, but I’ve barely watched it in the last few years.

The stereotype may be true (depending on your point of view), but I can personally vouch for the fact that the writers have plenty of personal experience with the nerd world. Whether that translates to the screen in the end, well…lotta cooks in the kitchen, I suppose.

Admittedly, I’ve only ever seem promos for the show, but the way they do the leads’ costume, makeup, and hair doesn’t read as being nerdy to me. Metro/hipster/douche? Yes. Nerd? No.

Sheldon is the only one whose day to day clothing is nerdy in that way. The T-shirts with Green Lantern, Flash, and other symbols on them, various chemical symbols, etc. But he definitely fits the profile; if I recall correctly, he was once wearing the same Centipede T-shirt that one of my friends wore for far too long (and far too often). And that friend was most definitely the nerd type.

Some of the others (e.g. Leonard) do still wear the nerdy clothing, but tend to break it out at things like Halloween parties and other events.

That’s the thing - I think the internet has allowed nerds and geeks to become a bit more self-aware of their caricatures. And so many of them try to be a bit more mainstream in their dress. I’d say Big Bang Theory captures: (i) those nerds who have no desire to be so self-conscious, and so still wander around wearing T-shirts saying things like, “I’d rather be slaying dragons” on them (which I still see when I wander into a game shop); and (ii) most nerds as of about 10-15 years ago, before the previous mentioned consciousness-raising started.

Howard has the inadvertent hipster/douche thing going that you are talking about.

I tried to watch this… stuck with it for 3-4 episodes and just couldn’t take it anymore. I think Arrested Development and Modern Family have forever ruined me for laugh-track comedy. I only want deadpan from now on.

Also, the Youtube clip without laughter just confirmed how much I hate laugh tracks.

My boss insists this is the funniest program on television.

vomits

Not defending the show in any fashion (it would be useless to do so with the Qt3 crowd), but that Youtube clip has been widely debunked. All actors in front of a live audience pause for laughter. The Big Bang Theory films in front of a live studio audience. It’s not a laugh track.

If you’re saying you don’t like shows where you can hear other people laughing, I can understand that. It’s a forced situation where the show’s producers are trying to clue you into where to laugh, and that’s patronizing. The difference here is that it’s real people laughing, and it’s not canned.