The Big Bang Theory Review

It is a professionally built sitcom, and professionalism is most of what it offers. Lorre and Prady run the traditional multi-camera form at a high level, with setups that land, act breaks that function and a studio audience carried for twelve seasons without a visible dip in technique. Jim Parsons does real work, playing Sheldon's cadence as music rather than as tics, and Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar are better physical comedians than the scripts require.

Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch measurably improve the show once the ensemble widens past the original five. The limit is the joke supply. The series treats a small set of traits, Sheldon's rigidity, Howard's mother, Raj's silence, Penny's ignorance, as inexhaustible, so after a few seasons the audience laughs at recognition rather than at construction. The science references function as signals rather than as jokes, and the women arrive as reactions to men. Shot flat, blocked to the audience, no visual ambition and none intended. Watchable, competent and thin, which is what a C describes.