Hey everyone! Welcome to the second week of my new segment, the Fandom Friday!

Basically what the Fandom Friday is (for those of you who missed out last week’s), its a weekly feature on a different fandom. It came from the fact that…one, I want to understand fandoms that I’m not familiar with or don’t understand or don’t like and two, I just don’t know as many fandoms as I think I do.

So the Fandom Friday was born. Last week, I did the debut post, on the Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare.

This week, my dear friend, Jackie, a.k.a. Bazingirl over at Seeking Bazinga, did a post on The Big Bang Theory, a fandom that I’ve never really been able to get into. Now, we have this lovely post below to tell us allllllll about it.

I hope you enjoy it!

And if you’re interested in writing a post for the Fandom Friday, leave a comment below, or leave a message for me on the Facebook page, or email me at whatanerdgirlsays@gmail.com. I want more of the posts for Fandom Friday to be written by YOU guys, and less by me :) that’s what the rest of the blog is for!

*      *      *      *      *

I was asked by my dear friend Sara to write an article about fandom.  I’m a member of many fandoms and I decided to write about my current favorite TV show, The Big Bang Theory.  For those of you who don’t follow the show, it’s a half hour sitcom that follows the lives of Sheldon Cooper (played by Emmy award winning Jim Parsons), a particle physicist working on string theory and his roommate Leonard Hofstadter (played by the brilliant Johnny Galecki), a theoretical who  work at CalTech University in Pasadena, California and the shenanigans that follow when a beautiful would be actress, Penny (played by the lovely Kaley Cuoco) moves in across the hall from them.  Helping out with the hilarity of the show are Sheldon and Leonard’s best friends who also work at CalTech, astrophysicist, Rajesh Koothrapali (played by Kunaal Nayar) and oft mocked engineer from MIT Howard Wolowitz (played by Simon Helberg).  Boiled down to it’s essence, The Big Bang Theory is about a geek who falls for a gorgeous girl, and spends his time trying to win her heart.

When the show first came out, my sister in law told me I absolutely had to watch this show because it would appeal to the geek in me.  I said I’d check it out, but I never did.  It was not until I started dating a guy who had the first three seasons on DVD that I started watching.  I was  totally Miss Tardy to the Party in this one.  But thank goodness he sat me down and made me watch the first disc.  After that, I was completely HOOKED.  Every time I went to his place, I asked, sometimes begged to watch more Big Bang.  Luckily, he loved it so much it was never an issue.

I completely fell in love with Sheldon, whose brilliance is proportionately unequal to his social skills and understanding of the world around him.  He’s brilliant.  He’s got an I.Q. That he says is so high it isn’t measurable by the standard I.Q. Tests.  As someone who has a brother who when tested as a young child rated at just under Super Genius on the I;Q; scale, I understood a lot of Sheldon’s quirks and his lack of social skills.  He may understand “everything” in the universe because of his knowledge of physics, but he can’t understand joking or sarcasm let alone basic human interactions.  I know that some people who really enjoy the show find Sheldon irritating or annoying, but with all his childlike qualities and his complete cluelessness, I find him utterly endearing.

I also love his relationship with Penny.  Penny is a homespun, Nebraska native who left Omaha to head to Hollywood and become a movie star.  And if that didn’t work, she’d become a T.V. Star.  Her reality is that she works as a waitress for The Cheesecake Factory while she tries desperately to fulfill her dreams of stardom.  Sheldon and Penny do not really get along at first, and he curses the day that Leonard said hello to her, thereby initiating a neighborly relationship with her. Sheldon constantly insults her for not having had a basic college education, and she constantly teases him with sarcasm and disdain for not understanding pop culture or human interactions.  But over the years, sheldon and Penny reach a kind of amazing friendship, wherein they do actually love each other in their own odd ways.

Sheldon found it difficult to incorporate Penny into his circle of friends because she’s not a scientist nor is she that educated, but because Leonard fell head over heels in love with her, Sheldon tolerated her presence in their lives.

Leonard, is actually the main character of the story, and he is pretty much the most adept at socialization of all of the nerds in the show.  He’s sarcastic and witty as well as smart.  He is also a gem of a human being for putting up with Sheldon as his roommate.  The series is truly based on Leonard’s relationship with Penny and how he tries to date her. He does go through a few other relationships during the course of the the series but his heart really and truly always belongs to Penny.  And while Penny, as I said before, is not an educated woman, she is incredibly street smart and has the potential to be as educated as he wants to be.

The draw of The Big Bang Theory is the humor.  I’m not much of a sitcom fan, I never have been.  Well, except back in the day with the Cosby Show and Family Ties when I was a kid.  But the recent sitcoms leave me bored.  Except for the Big Bang Theory.  Now, don’t be intimidated by the science they are constantly spewing.  I’m not anywhere CLOSE to being a physicist, but even a layperson can laugh at Leonard and Sheldon discussing physics and arguing about how much they over think things.  Then you add the “comic relief” of Raj who can’t speak to women, but who has a sharp wit when he’s hanging out with the guys.  And then you have Howard, the Jewish engineer who doesn’t have a PhD and who is constantly trying to hit on Penny in a slightly sleazy/creepy way.  The jokes boarder on risque but they never go over the line and the writers are truly brilliant when it comes to the witty sarcastic humor.

Now, if the first couple of episodes don’t tickle your funny bone, give it a few more.  By the end of season 1, you will be completely hooked.  I can almost guarantee it.  Especially if you have any geek or nerd tendencies.

*      *      *      *

Hope you enjoyed this week of the Fandom Friday! Stay tuned for some new posts coming soon!

And don’t forget to write your own Fandom Friday and send it my way!

Lastly, don’t forget to follow Jackie on Twitter (@bazinGEEKgirl) and on her blog, Seeking Bazinga!