Review: ‘The Big Bang Theory’ Finale Was About Continuity & Change

Check out the reviews of the last episode of The Big Bang Theory.

The Big Bang Theory ended with a whimper.

The popular TV show The Big Bang Theory finally wrapped up after 12 seasons. While it’s the end of Game of Thrones that’s on top of everyone’s minds, the end of The Big Bang Theory was an event too and by the looks of it, the finale hasn’t disappointed fans as much as the GOT one has. But well, neither has it generated the kind of noise that the American fantasy drama has.

While the final episode of the The Big Bang Theory received mixed reactions, there is a unanimous opinion that it left its viewers with a warm and fuzzy feeling, celebrating friendship and love.

Reviewing the show on slate.com, June Thomas writes, that the theme of the show’s last episode was change. While a lot of things on the show including the costumes of the main characters and the decor of the apartment continued to be the same, there were some significant changes.

While the highlight of the episode was Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik) winning the Nobel Prize in physics, it was the other developments that really left an impact. “Then suddenly 12 years of carefully accumulated character traits unraveled. Sheldon’s self-confidence disappeared (at least temporarily). Despite many episodes in which friends Penny and Bernadette had gently tried to update her wardrobe, Amy suddenly realised that she looked “frumpy” and underwent a total transformation in the hands of TV’s most metrosexual sweater vest–wearer, Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). And in the finale’s second half, Penny, who had always insisted she didn’t want children, was apparently excited to find herself pregnant,” writes June.

Simon Helberg, Mayim Bialik, Jim Parsons, and Johnny Galecki in the series finale of The Big Bang Theory.

Brian Lowry writing for cnn.com adds, “As it turned out, though, the episode (rather sweetly credited to a dozen writers, including co-creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady) served as a conduit to showcase the way in which the show itself has changed — adding key female characters, marrying off the guys and graduating to more grown-up problems and issues, without giving up their passion for things like comic books and Star Wars movies.”

“The graduation to adulthood saw the characters take another major step in the finale, as Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) learned that they were pregnant — joining Howard (Simon Helberg) and Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) in the parents club — a revelation the self-absorbed Sheldon treated with complete indifference.”

However, vulture.com’s Kathryn VanArendonk disagrees. In her review, Katherine believes, “If anything, Big Bang’s finale is a meditation on the show’s own refusal to change”.

Elaborating on her point, Kathryn writes, “Sheldon and Amy win the Nobel Prize, and after he freaks out about how much of his life is suddenly altered, Sheldon’s acceptance speech is about how friends are more important than prizes. Penny is pregnant — something both sudden and suspect, given how much time she spent cogently explaining why she never wanted kids — but the show ends before that has any chance to change her life. And anyhow, the kids on this show rarely appear on camera. The biggest, most paradigm-altering shift in the finale is that the building’s elevator gets fixed, a sweet inside joke dating to the very beginning of the show that also demonstrates exactly how allergic The Big Bang Theory is to change of any kind”.

While there may be differing points of view on the continuity and change of the popular show which began in 2007 with a bang, and had 20 million people watching it at its height, did end with a whimper.

(Sources: Slate, CNN, Vulture)