The Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom served as executive producers and head writers on the series, along with Steven Molaro. It aired on CBS from September 24, 2007, to May 16, 2019, running for 12 seasons and 279 episodes.

The show originally centered on five characters living in Pasadena, California: Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), both physicists at Caltech, who share an apartment; Penny (Kaley Cuoco), a waitress and aspiring actress who lives across the hall; and Leonard and Sheldon's similarly geeky and socially awkward friends and coworkers, aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). Over time, supporting characters were promoted to starring roles, including neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), microbiologist Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch), and comic book store owner Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman).

The show was filmed in front of a live audience and produced by Chuck Lorre Productions and Warner Bros. Television. It received mixed reviews throughout its first season, but reception was more favorable in the second and third seasons. Despite early mixed reviews, seven seasons were ranked within the top ten of the final season ratings, and it ultimately reached the no. 1 spot in its eleventh season. It was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series from 2011 to 2014 and won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series four times for Parsons, totaling seven Emmy Awards from 46 nominations. Parsons also won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series in 2011. A prequel series, Young Sheldon, based on Parsons' character Sheldon Cooper, premiered in 2017, with Parsons reprising his role as the narrating adult Sheldon. Another spinoff is in development.

Cast and characters[]

Johnny Galecki as Dr. Leonard Leakey Hofstadter, Ph.D. – Leonard is an experimental physicist with an IQ of 173 who received his Ph.D. when he was 24 years old. He shares an apartment with colleague and friend Sheldon Cooper. The writers immediately implied a potential romance between him and neighbor Penny, and their sexual tension is a frequently explored drama. Twice they were a couple and eventually became engaged, then finally got married in season 9. In "The Veracity Elasticity", Sheldon moved out leaving 4A to Penny and Leonard.
Jim Parsons as Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D. – Originally from East Texas, he was a child prodigy who began college at the age of 11, after completing the fifth grade. As a theoretical physicist, he possesses a master's degree, two doctorates, and an IQ of 187. He exhibits a strict adherence to routine; a lack of understanding of irony, sarcasm, and humor. This action may sometimes appear as lack of humility when he's just being himself. These characteristics are the main sources of his humor and the basis of a number of episodes. Sheldon shares an apartment with Leonard Hofstadter. At the end of the third season he met Amy Fowler beginning a very slow relationship with her eventually becoming his girlfriend and potential fiancée. In "The Cohabitation Experimentation", Amy and Sheldon tried living together and then decided to live together. In season 11, they became engaged and are married in the season finale of season 11. Together Sheldon and Amy published a paper on super-asymmetry and it was confirmed by some Fermi-Lab physicists.
Kaley Cuoco as Penelope "Penny" Hofstadter – Penny is the attractive blonde, "born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska", who lives across the hall from Sheldon and Leonard. She hopes for a career in acting, and has been to casting calls and auditions, but has not been successful thus far. To pay the bills, she was a waitress at The Cheesecake Factory until she retired. but she liked something about Leonard. They went through two separate relationships finally getting engaged in May 2014 and married in September 2015. In September, 2014, she took a job as a pharmaceutical salesperson after becoming engaged to Leonard. Sheldon then tried living together with Amy and then formalized it moving out of 4A giving Lenny their own place. Penny also surprised Leonard that she did not want any kids, but this changes in the finale when Penny became pregnant.
Simon Helberg as Astronaut Howard Joel Wolowitz, M.M.E. – Howie works as an aerospace engineer with NASA. He is Jewish, and lived with his mother. Unlike Sheldon, Leonard, and Raj, Howard lacks a Ph.D. He defends himself by pointing out that he has a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the apparatus he designs are built and launched into space, unlike the purely abstract work of his friends. He provides outrageous pick-up lines and fancies himself a ladies man with suitably unimpressed reactions from Penny; however, he has shown limited success with other women. He is a polyglot and has an unhealthy relationship with his over-protective mother. Through Penny he met a cute girl named Bernadette Rostenkowski whom he eventually married. Howard also was sent into space by NASA to the International Space Station. His mother passed away and Howard and Bernadette moved into the family home. In season 9, Howard learned he was going to be a father and again in season 11. He has a boy that they named Neil Michael Wolowitz.
Kunal Nayyar as Dr. Rajesh Ramayan "Raj" Koothrappali, Ph.D. – Rajesh, who originally comes from New Delhi, India, works as a particle astrophysicist at Caltech. He is very shy around women and is physically unable to talk to them unless he drinks alcohol; however, he has had much better luck with women than his overly confident best friend Howard. His parents, Dr. V. M. Koothrappali and Mrs. Koothrappali, were seen via webcam. In the third season, he worked for Sheldon because his research had run into a dead-end and he does not want to return to India. At the end of the seven season after a relationship with a quirky broken woman named Lucy, he finally got over his inability to speak to women. In season 7, he met a dermatologist named Emily Sweeney and began a relationship with her and then met a screenwriter/bartender named Claire, and is torn between them. During "The Hot Tub Contamination", Raj admitted that he was no longer seeing either woman at their request. In season 11, Raj became more confident and got a job as a host of a planetarium show. In season 12, Raj realized his instinct haven't helped him and he asks his father to arrange a marriage for him. He met an Indian woman named Anu, they hit it off and schedule a Valentine's Day wedding. Later they wonder what they were doing so they cancelled the wedding, but agreed to date to get to know each other better.
Melissa Rauch as Dr. Bernadette Maryann Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, Ph.D. – She is a microbiologist. Formerly, Bernadette was working her way through grad school as a waitress at The Cheesecake Factory, where she befriended Penny, and they eventually became a trio with Amy. Penny introduced Bernadette to Howard. She was upgraded to main cast status in the episode "The Hot Troll Deviation". She and Howard got engaged in the "The Herb Garden Germination". In season 4, she won a Ph.D. and joined the other doctors in mocking Howard for having only a master's degree. She's married with Howard just before he went into space at the end of season 5. Outwardly sweet, Bernadette refused to tolerate Howard's often childish and embarrassing behavior and has become a stabilizing force in his life. She went to work for a pharmaceutical company that makes her a lot of money, much more than Howard does, and in season 6, when she found out that he and Raj spent $5,000 on a 3D printer to make figurines of themselves, she cut him off from their money and put him on an allowance. In season 7, she and Amy started to go out without Penny occasionally and bond over science-related topics. In season 9, she and Howard moved into the house of her late mother-in-law. In "The Valentino Submergence", Bernadette revealed that she had been pregnant, although Howard was unaware of this until "The Positive Negative Reaction". She has a daughter Halley in season 10 and is pregnant with a son Neil in season 11.
Mayim Bialik as Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler, Ph.D. – She first met Sheldon in the season 3 finale through Raj and Howard, and is very similar to him, except that she is more open to social interactions and thus more susceptible to conventional behavior. She became close friends with Sheldon in season 4, and became his girlfriend in season 5, though Sheldon is extremely slow to progress the physical aspect of their relationship. By the season 5 finale, they had been progressed to holding hands though Amy is inching Sheldon toward a deeper relationship which gradually started to become intimate in season 6 ending in some "intercourse" game-play between their Dungeons and Dragons characters. In season 7, Sheldon began kissing her on the lips for the first time. In the season 7 finale, she is extremely upset at Sheldon leaving Pasadena. Amy also forms a quirky friendship with Penny, whom Amy frequently refers to as her "bestie," and becomes Bernadette's maid of honor at her and Howard's wedding. At the end of season 8, feeling that her relationship with Sheldon wasn't going anywhere, Amy told him that she needed time away so she could figure out what to do about their relationship. In season 9 Sheldon pushed her and she formally broke up with him. After exploring dating, she realized that she still wants Sheldon who asks her to again be his girlfriend. On her next birthday, they lost their virginity to each other, and she later found out about Sheldon's engagement ring when his Meemaw comes for a visit. In "The Cohabitation Experimentation", Amy and Sheldon tried living together and then decided to live together. In season 11, she and Sheldon became engaged and are married in the season finale of season 11. Also both Sheldon and Amy are very excited about their theory and working together on super-asymmetry of string theory. They submit their paper and it gets confirmed by some Fermi-Lab physicists.
Kevin Sussman as Stuart David Bloom – He is a mild-mannered, under-confident individual who runs the comic book store that the men frequently visit. He is also a geek, but he has a talent for drawing, and is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. During Stuart's first appearance, the men brought Penny along to the store and he managed to ask her on a date. They go on two dates until Penny mistakenly calls him "Leonard", leaving him devastated. As Stuart runs a comic book store, he has vast knowledge of comic books and superheroes. In the Season 4 episode "The Toast Derivation", he implied he was in financial trouble and that the comic book store is now also his home. At Howard's bachelor party during "The Stag Convergence", Stuart uses his toasting turn to tell Howard how lucky he is and compares it to his own situation of living in the back of his comic book store. In Season 6, he is invited to be part of the men's group while Howard is in space. Sheldon is not very accepting of this due to Stuart's art degree (which he considers inferior), but relents after Stuart offers him a 30% off discount in the comic book store. Stuart becomes close friends with Raj while Howard is in space, moving in with him and looking for girls together. At the end of season 7, his comic book store has a bad fire. Stuart moves in with Howard's mother to take care of her when she breaks her leg, and after the two bond, she invites Stuart to live in the home. In Season 8 he reopens the comic book store with money from Howard's mother. After her death he continues living in the house now owned and occupied by Howard and Bernadette who secretly want him to move out. He does move out in "The Sales Call Sublimation", but moved back in when Halley Wolowitz was born. At the end of season 11, Stuart seems to be getting close to his new assistant store manager Denise and they become a couple.
Laura Spencer as Dr. Emily Sweeney, M.D. – She is a dermatologist at Huntington Hospital whom Raj finds on an online dating site. Emily went to Harvard, and is shown to have a slightly alarming personality; she is shown to delight in the macabre when she states that she likes her job because she can cut things with knives, and likes Sally from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (whom she has a tattoo of on her shoulder) because she has lots of scars and her limbs had to be sewn back on. Despite spooking them a bit she gets along with most of Raj's friends, except Penny whom she has not forgiven for "sleeping" with Raj years ago in "The Roommate Transmogrification". Not wanting to be alone, Raj has declared his love to her even though she does scare him. She eventually begins participating in activities with the group. Just before Valentine's Day, Raj breaks up with her so he can date another woman named Claire, but she turns him down and he tries to get back with Emily but she rejects him. Later Raj and Emily hook up and get back together after she leaves a tearful message and Raj is now seeing both of the girls, Emily and Claire, at the same time. During "The Hot Tub Contamination", Raj admitted that he was no longer seeing either woman at their request.
- Wil Wheaton as himself - TBA

The Big Bang Theory

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