‘Big Bang Theory’ prepares for end after epic run
The CBS comedy found a formula to last for 12 years, but cheers, tears are likely as the cast absorbs reality.
BURBANK, Calif. – It’s early April and “The Big Bang Theory” is shooting a scene from an episode of the top-rated CBS comedy that airs Thursday (8 EDT/PDT). ❚ The seven stars, joined by writers and crew, mill about a living-room set familiar to millions, getting ready for a signature dinner scene in a place they’ve gathered thousands of times over 12 seasons.
Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik) want advice as they face a dilemma: Scientific colleague Barry Kripke (John Ross Bowie) has information that Dr. Pemberton (guest star Sean Astin), one of their rivals for the Nobel Prize, plagiarized an academic thesis, and they’re not sure whether they should expose him.
The friends’ responses are equal parts amusing and wise, a formula that has worked well for the series, which has averaged nearly 17.7 million viewers over its run and has ranked as TV’s most-watched comedy for seven of the last eight seasons. It’s the top-rated series for the current season.
Filming proceeds smoothly – makeup artists do touch-ups, a prop master replenishes the pickle supply – with humor and camaraderie between takes. When a reshoot is needed because Simon Helberg, who plays Howard, held his napkin in the wrong hand, Kaley Cuoco, who plays Penny, lifts her food box high and mockingly asks, “Does it go over my head? I don’t remember.”
A few minutes later, Melissa Rauch animatedly recounts a story to Bialik, who’s laughing, and Parsons,
who has his hand over his mouth, as they sit in their familiar spots on the couch. As the shooting angle shifts, Cuoco learns she’s not on camera. “I’m here in spirit,” she announces to her colleagues, flipping them the bird.
The scene is all business – at least as much as you can expect from a bunch of cut-ups making a sitcom – and no one seems distracted by two significant events: The episode will mark the show’s 276th, moving it past “Cheers” to set a sitcom record, and only three more remain to be shot for “Big Bang,” co-created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady.
There’s no crying, but there have been tears and there will be more as the cast absorbs the rapidly approaching end, a one-hour May 16 series finale.
“It feels like we told a story for 12 years and the story is done. It’ll be sad to say goodbye to a lot of the elements and people, but I feel proud of what we did and privileged to have been part of it for 12 years,” Helberg says. “I’m excited, as an actor, to get to take off these skinny jeans and put on another pair of pants in another role.”
Still, news last August that the show would end with Season 12 was jarring to cast and crew, coming just a couple of weeks after CBS said it had hoped for a renewal. The top stars are among the highest paid TV actors, earning in the neighborhood of $1 million per episode.
Parsons, who has won four Emmys for breakout character Sheldon, explains why he chose not to continue, a move that became a catalyst for the decision to end the show.
“It’s different for everybody. It was time for me and I felt that. It’s both simple and complicated. I don’t have a diary that I could bring out and say, ‘Here are the reasons as far as quote-unquote future plans in a concrete way or (that I had) a problem with coming here.’ None of those things were true,” he says. “I felt it was the right moment for me. But, it only helps so much to go through the end of something like this feeling you’ve made the right choice. It’s still exceedingly emotional.”
Cuoco and Johnny Galecki, who plays Leonard, were surprised by news that the show would end.
“It was definitely a shock. I did not see that coming,” Cuoco says, recalling the meeting where the cast heard from the show’s leadership. “I started bawling and I couldn’t even talk. And then everyone started bawling. I think we cried for like 30 straight minutes. Chuck did, too.”
Galecki adds that cast members didn’t necessarily disagree with concluding the popular comedy.
“When we signed on for two years the last time we renegotiated, I think it was all clear to us that that would be it,” he says. “But the timing of the conversation about the ending of the show was a surprise to a few of us.”
With just weeks to go, the mood is sad and celebratory, as actors appreciate the millions of fans who have embraced a story that centers on two brilliant but socially awkward physicists and their friends and loved ones.
Kunal Nayyar, who plays astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali, credits character development for the show’s longevity.
“The writers were able to create characters who evolved, as opposed to what can happen when you get stuck in the same formula,” he says. “And it’s not like they grew overnight. It was stretched out exactly the way it should be.”
“Big Bang” thrived with the addition of new characters, including scientists Amy (Bialik) and Bernadette (Rauch) and comic-book-store owner Stuart (Kevin Sussman), says Helberg, part of the original cast with Galecki, Parsons, Cuoco and Nayyar. (The show eventually spawned a hit prequel spinoff, “Young Sheldon,” which heads into its third season in the fall, most likely in the “Big Bang” time slot.)
“For a couple of seasons, they got to flesh out the five of us and then they brought in Melissa and Mayim and eventually Kevin. They created three more fantastic, multi-layered human beings that not only were fascinating and wonderful to watch in and of themselves, but they brought out all these other colors in us,” Helberg says.
Rauch was worried she’d “be the ingredient that came on and ruined the batter.” Now, “the girls’ night scenes are some of my favorites. I love how they’ve explored the power of female friendship.”
More characters meant opportunities for new friendships and romances. Penny and Leonard married; Bernadette and Howard wed and had two children; and Sheldon, the brightest but most socially inept in the group, took his time but eventually fell in love and married Amy.
“When you add the potential for longterm relationships, the writers have a lot more to mine from and a lot more depth they can explore,” Bialik says.
Over time, that solid foundation allowed the show “to get a little more serious at times,” Parsons says. “You stumble upon these moments of sincerity and revelation and that to me is one of the gifts.”
With the finale just weeks away – it was filmed Tuesday – the actors said they didn’t yet know how the show would end, but they had their wishes.
“It would be wonderful if it ended with us just sitting on the couch eating Chinese food, just the way it started,” Nayyar says.
Cuoco suggests another familiar location, the forever broken apartment elevator, but a different idea.
“I’d like that damn elevator to get fixed and then I want us all to get stuck in there and then we have to keep shooting the show,” she says. “I don’t want it to be some final door close. I want the characters to live on in people’s minds.”
“It feels like we told a story for 12 years and the story is done.”
Simon Helberg, “Howard”