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Populated by sometimes clumsy geeks making references in physics, The Big Bang Theory, whose final episode airs on Thursday, seemed destined initially to attract a niche audience. But as the series ends, it has become one of the most watched series in the world.
Determined whether the characters Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah-Fowler will win the Nobel Prize, the show will stand out at the end of its 12th and final season.
The show, aired on the American channel CBS, has been carved a prominent place at the head of American television, with over 12 million viewers for most of the season the most recent (17 million with delayed viewers) – similar levels of Game of Thrones.
According to research firm Parrot, Big Bang was one of the five most popular shows in the world last year, a series of CBS would have been happy to continue, without the actor Jim Parsons of Sheldon. after announcing that he would leave the show after the 12th season.
For producer and writer Stephen Engel, who worked on it early in his production, Big Bang owes much of his success to the boring but lovable character. "It was a fortuitous mix of a character and an actor who was magical," he told AFP.
Representing a brilliant scientist and socially devoid of anything, Sheldon's portrait was "a perfect marriage of point of view, jokes, voice and actor that brought this character out of the screen "said Engel.
But Sheldon's charm alone can not explain how a series that was not hailed by critics, or even by the top 50 at the end of its first season, lasted longer than the clbadics of the American sitcom like Friends, The Cosby Show and Seinfeld.
According to conventional wisdom, it was the description by The Big Bang Theory of characters like Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj as proud geeks – obsessed with television series, video games and obscure sub-genre interests – this allowed its longevity.
Long badociated with niche interests, a geek or a nerd, the culture is introduced to the general public, through such sagas as The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Game of Thrones and others, meaning that he feel an affinity with the characters of The Big Bang Theory.
Handprints and signatures of actors Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki are visible after the cement handprints ceremony of the television comedy The Big Bang Theory at the TCL IMAX Chinese Theater. .
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"In the wake of Friends, there was a tendency to put as many beautiful people in a room as possible and hope people would look at them and just want to watch the series." Big Bang Theory decided were nerds, we can get the funniest actors we can find, "said Engel. "They do not have to be handsome."
Although The Big Bang Theory differs from most series in its popularity and subject, the series still relies on a variety of proven sitcom conventions: the episodes, shot on multiple cameras, are made up of series of typing lines interspersed with a laughter track, some of which are edited later (the show is shot in front of a studio audience).
The end of the series, which coincides with ABC's The End of Modern Family, which will end with its 11th season next year, marks the end of an era for the genre.
Sitcoms broadcast on traditional networks such as Young Sheldon, a spin-off of Big Bang, and Mom, also the work of the creator of Big Bang, Chuck Lorre, simply do not bring them same audience figures.
And Netflix tried the format, with Fuller House and One day at a time, though none of them come back after the end of the year. By 2020, the clbadic sitcom will be missing from almost all major streaming platforms, including Amazon and Hulu.
(L / G) Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch from the cast of The Big Bang Theory.
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"I have lived many times in this business where people were saying: the sitcom is dying," said Stan Zimmerman, who worked on Roseanne as a producer and scriptwriter. "And then it comes back somehow."
Coupled with the decline of the traditional sitcom, the fragmentation of audiences means that we are worried for this universal series, able to capture the attention of large sections of the public, such as The Big Bang Theory or even Game of Thrones could do, left.
"I find it wonderful that we are so different in programming and the voices we hear and that we just need more of that," said Zimmerman, who is working on a show called Silver Foxes, a comedy-centric on the aging of gay men.
But he says that he would not count for the moment the series of water coolers. "There is still room for a big mainstream show, where everyone could sit and watch, laugh and talk about the next day at work," he said. "There is room for everything now."
Follow @htshowbiz for more info
First publication:
May 15, 2019 20:01 IST
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