The Big Bang Theory:
The Complete Series
review by Bobby Blakey
These days being a geek or a nerd is the cool thing thanks to the success of the big budget comic book movies. Back in 2007 a little sitcom looked to point the spotlight on this culture before the Marvel Cinematic Universe took the world by storm and turned into a massive hit. Sadly after twelve seasons The Big Bang Theory came to an end, but that doesn’t mean you can’t travel back in time to revisit it thanks to the all-new Complete Series: Limited Edition boxed set.
In case you lived 14 million years ago, the show followed Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper, brilliant physicists working at Cal Tech in Pasadena, California. They are colleagues, best friends, and roommates, although in all capacities their relationship is always tested primarily by Sheldon's regimented, deeply eccentric, and non-conventional ways. They are also friends with their Cal Tech colleagues mechanical engineer Howard Wolowitz and astrophysicist Rajesh Koothrappali. The foursome spend their time working on their individual work projects, playing video games, watching science-fiction movies, or reading comic books. As they are self-professed nerds, all have little or no luck with women. When Penny, a pretty woman and an aspiring actress from Omaha, moves into the apartment
across the hall from Leonard and Sheldon's, Leonard has another aspiration in life, namely to get Penny to be his girlfriend.
After twelve seasons this show obviously evolved past the aforementioned synopsis as they all grew in career, relationships and life. I was originally late to the party on this show and remember finally seeing an episode on a trip leading me to go back and play catch before watching it weekly. Unlike most shows, for me this show never failed to entertain every single episode. Sure there were moments that some might felt jumped the shark or felt forced here and there, but as a whole they always delivered. The show clearly focused more on Sheldon and Leonard initially with Sheldon the anchor, but as it evolved every single character became a major player including the late to the game Melissa Rauch as Bernadette and Mayim Bialik as Amy Farrah Fowler.
Most shows try to grow their characters but they tend to run their course or mess up the chemistry that makes it all work, but here their tight night yet dysfunctional friendships helped keep them fresh and interesting. I loved the varying degrees every aspect grew with marriages, children, relationships, jobs and as people. During all of this they never changed who they are and allowed the laughs to flow as they dealt with their daily lives. The show never really went all that deep outside of a couple of episodes, but still had some realism to their ridiculous lives.
Every member of the cast were on point and clearly loved playing them with Parsons stealing the early seasons as Sheldon. The later seasons saw him still bringing his usual crazy fun the rest of the cast began to outshine him with the last few seasons. With them all separated into their own lives, but still interjecting with each other it has added a new dynamic that works to perfection. This is one of those rare shows that I have not only loved every episode, but have seen most of them a few times and they all still hold up.
This complete series box set is the perfect collection for fans of the series. It not only includes all 279 episodes from the twelve seasons, but a ton of bonus content including cast and crew highlights of the guest stars, a collection of funny moments from every season, final reflections from the cast and producers and so much more. As if over 12 hours of extras from all the seasons and a bonus disc with never before seen featurettes, this collection also includes a 32 page episode guide and a lay-flat book featuring pop-up art.
For those that have already been stocking up on their new seasons with every release you can also grab the Twelfth and Final Season as well when both hit stores on November 12th from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
