Following the sitcom formula with a chemist’s determination, The Big Bang Theory features the straight man, the wacky one, the love interest, the popular one, and the shy one; the time tested tropes of sitcom success. Each character falls in line with the sitcom tropes to a “T”, leaving everyone outside the laugh track wondering just what’s so different about this seemingly generic sitcom.

For starters, it’s main characters aren’t every men in the slightest. Named Leonard and Sheldon, they are two Cal-tech prodigies in the physics trade, with IQs over 170 and multiple Ph.D.s. Their friends are Howard and Rajesh, a master engineer and astrophysicist respectively. In this way, The Big Bang Theory turns the idea of the modern sitcom on it’s head by making it’s characters so smart as to be seemingly unrelatable. It’s “breakout character” Sheldon built a CAT scanner, a nuclear reactor, and received a Ph.D. all before he was sixteen. With all of Big Bang’s talk about twistor theory, darkmatter, and bosonic string theory, you’d think it’d go right over the heads of it’s audience, but that’s where the brilliance of Big Bang Theory comes into play.

See, despite their genius level IQs, they still have to share an apartment, awkwardly chase the girl next door, learn to drive a car, and deal with the anguish of a girlfriend who believes in psychics. As a collective of geniuses constantly hovering around one another at work and home, they are forced to deal with social situations that they are too smart to understand, rather than too dense. This way, Big Bang Theory turns sitcoms upside down, but still proves that geniuses still have to go through the same societal chores as the rest of us, creating a scenario where characters with nothing in common with a viewer could still be totally relatable. Want proof? This award-winning TV show is already renewed for a fourth season and is syndicated to over fifty countries worldwide, and you don’t need a particle physics degree to see why.

Filled with classic lines and characters, and projected to run well into the future, Big Bang Theory provides an advanced science-oriented comedy that everyone can relate to, and characters we can laugh both with and at. Big Bang Theory t-shirts have never been so in demand, with Bazinga t-shirt fever about to hit prime time by storm. An added bonus: All the show’s science is fact-checked by professionals, ensuring a scientifically accurate and fascinating experience for those who choose to dig deep into this hit show!