To call The Big Bang Theory popular is an understatement. The show’s season premiere saw over 18 million viewers tune in, continuing its run as the most watched show on American television.  While Jim Parsons has won four Emmy awards for his portrayal of Sheldon Cooper, the show itself is not particularly critically acclaimed. While it has been nominated for best comedy series at the Emmys, the award has consistently gone to Modern Family.  The show’s writing and directing have never even been nominated and, in general, critics don’t watch it, much less write about it. “I think what keeps me away are two things: one, the multi-cam laugh-track comedy feels inferior in this day and age, and two, no one I know watches it, so there’s no one to talk to about it,” said Joe Reid, a writer for The Atlantic.  While critics may not watch, the show is seemingly critic-proof. Fans simply don’t care if the professionals like the show. It is a ratings blockbuster, not just in the United States, but around the globe, where it is also the most watched sitcom internationally.  How can showrunners replicate this recipe for success? Fans and TV experts explain:  As geek culture becomes mainstream, The Big Bang Theory – with its casual references to Schrödinger’s cat, Star Trek and string theory and a running gag about how one of the characters “only” has a Master’s from MIT – is the natural evolution of a changing pop culture ecosystem.  “This is the age of the geek and The Big Bang Theory’s popularity is a reflection of a massive cultural shift where we’re celebrating the brainy, the intellectual and the different – instead of making them an outcast,” said Katherine Brodsky, a stringer for Variety. “Big Bang Theory lets audiences identify with and be part of that geek world. The jock and high school beauty queen are dead.”  People may also find the concept that their geek overlords are just regular people. “[It’s] this sweet idea that there is no difference between ‘geniuses’ and ‘regular people’ (or ‘nerds’ and Muggles),” said Jacob Clifton, editor at Gawker’s Morning After.  There are no complex story arcs to track over the course of The Big Bang Theory. Taking cues from Seinfeld and Friends, the show is truly nothing more than friends hanging out (with their “shields down,” as one character puts it), without complicated plots, twists or cliffhangers.  “There’s not anything to keep up with,” Parsons told Vulture earlier this year. “You don’t go, ‘I didn’t see the first three seasons, and now they’re off with prostitutes, and they no longer work in the Mafia and I don’t understand what happened’.”  For fans, that means they can watch any episode at any time, without having to remember what happened last week. The biggest question mark about the show is whether Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki) will end up together, but generally, this is not a show that stars with “Previously on …”  That’s just fine with the show’s star, too. “People have so many choices on TV now, so no one’s asking for you to marry us. You can enjoy our show without a weekly appointment,” Parsons told Vulture.  While The Big Bang Theory is ostensibly about the elite ranks of geniuses, they are very relatable. Penny is trying to realize her dreams, Leonard fears he can’t live up to his parents’ expectations, Sheldon struggles to connect to those around him. The characters breathe life into the idea that geniuses are just like us, which is exactly what the fans love.  “Even though the characters are exaggerated parodies, eg Sheldon being an extraordinarily brilliant scientist, lacking even the most elementary social skills, each has some real human qualities,” said fan Al Resnick of Yorktown, Virginia.  Daisy Alvarez, a retiree in Philadelphia, agrees: “The show has a great cast of characters, both the main characters and recurring ones, and I think that most of us can easily identify with one them.”  “It’s got universally appealing humor that reaches across demographics, which I think is a big part of its appeal,” said Brodsky from Variety. “It’s clever yet accessible.“  “I think the reason I love it is, because the characters are simply nice people,” said Bethany Lawson of Seaside, Oregon. A more cynical, yet equally true, take on the appeal of that accessibility comes from Gawker’s Clifton: “The Big Bang Theory is a hit because it reassures people that the Culture Wars are just for pretend.”  Part of The Big Bang Theory’s continuing success is the fact that because of syndication deals, the show is almost always available somewhere on the proverbial dial. When the show reached the syndication threshold of 80-100 episodes back in 2011, it headed straight to cable, and to repeats on Fox affiliates nationwide. “[It] just exploded even more,” said Lisa Vebber, NBC’s former head of scheduling, speaking to Vulture.  Since then it is consistently the most-watched re-run on US television and when the repeats started screening on the TBS network, viewing figures for the new episodes jumped by 21%, which was great news for the network. For the fans, syndication means that even when the show is on hiatus, it is still on.  “I’ve been watching for years, and I watch repeats all the time,” said Cindy Gallop, a New York entrepreneur and advertising guru. “I binge repeat-watch on airplanes on long-haul flights,“  Even detractors respect the omnipresence of The Big Bang Theory. “Every time I stay in a hotel, I think, ‘My life sure would be easier if I liked this show,’ because it’s half the dial,” said Tara Ariano of Previously.TV and Grantland. “But then I remember it’s 2014 and I have a computer.”  “Eight seasons in, The Big Bang Theory is one of the funniest shows on TV,” said writer Kevin Fallon at the Daily Beast in an article titled It’s Okay To Like The Big Bang Theory.  Even professional comedy writers agree: “Big Bang Theory makes you laugh. They have jokes, jokes that are funny,” Ken Levine, a writer on M*A*S*H and Cheers, wrote on his blog.  Jokes that are consistently funny, even into the show’s eighth season, take a lot of hard work and that means a collaborative effort from the writing staff.  “Shows like Big Bang Theory don’t assign scripts to individual writers. The entire staff sits around a table and cobbles the draft together,” wrote Levine.  The show also packs in the jokes. According to Vulture, the average 4.3 jokes per minutes, which translates to a lot of jokes per episode. Yet somehow The Big Bang Theory manages to keep the laughs rolling in.  “It’s a very consistently funny show,” said Brodsky. “Despite its long run, it hasn’t lost sight of what makes the show funny vs cheesy.”
To some, the success of the show is a mystery, but to others it’s obvious. TV experts and fans explain what makes it great