How young Sheldon changed the controversial plot of the Big Bang theory

There are some pretty big differences between The Big Bang Theory and its prequel spin-off series Young Sheldon. First, Young Sheldon is a single-camera series, while The Big Bang was multi-camera to allow a studio audience that was a pretty big change for the show’s creators. Not only that, Young Sheldon is completely different in tone, starting out as a fairly standard family comedy before turning into a drama, giving The Big Bang Theory a whole new context. Instead of just making jokes or referencing later events in Sheldon’s life, the series actually expanded on some ideas from The Big Bang Theory and made Sheldon Cooper a richer and more complex character. And because The Big Bang Theory was written with no plans for a prequel, sometimes that meant they had to rework a few things to make it all make more sense.

One of the biggest changes came in the character of George Cooper Sr., Sheldon’s father, played Lance Barber in Young Sheldon. George Sr. died before the events of The Big Bang Theory, and Sheldon (Jim Parsons) always spoke negatively about him, calling him an abusive alcoholic and adulterer. In Young Sheldon, George Sr. doesn’t always understand his youngest son Sheldon (Ian Armitage), but does his best to be a good husband and father. In fact, in Season 7 of the prequel, we find out that George Sr. never cheated on his wife at all, and it was all one big misunderstanding.

In The Big Bang Theory Season 10 episode “Hot Tub Contamination”, an adult Sheldon reveals that the reason he always knocks three times instead of just once is because he saw his father having sex with another a woman when he was young, and it traumatized him. The first knock is normal, but two additional knocks give you the chance to pull yourself together and put on your pants. Sheldon’s three knocks are used to highlight some important moments in the show, such as when he purposely only knocks on Amy’s door once so she won’t suspect it’s him, showing how much the incident has affected him.

In the “Young Sheldon” episode “Ants on a Log and a Trickster”, we learn that Sheldon didn’t actually see his father with another woman, but that George Sr. and his wife Mary (Zoe Perry) were playing adult role-playing fun, and Mary was dressed by the German barmaid Helga. George would die of a heart attack a year after Sheldon’s “discovery”. and he never confronted his father about it, leading to a feud that was never resolved. The consequences of George’s death fall heavily on the entire Cooper family, although it should be noted that Sheldon didn’t come home from college for his family’s first Thanksgiving after George’s death, and the rest of the Cooper crew mourned without him.

The decision to cancel George H.W.’s infidelity was met with a very mixed reaction from fans, as some felt it was a disservice to the Big Bang Theory characters, while others appreciated it because they loved George H.W. for seven seasons on Young Sheldon and didn’t want to suddenly hate him right before his death. Honestly, making George Sr. less of a villain and making his relationship with his son more complicated than the grown-up Sheldon portrayed it on The Big Bang Theory was the right move, because not only did it work better for the spin-off, but it also made it interesting moment on the nature of memory. We are all unreliable narrators of our own stories because we rarely have all the information, and Sheldon has spent decades of his life hating his father for something that never happened.

There was love between Sheldon and his father, even if it was difficult for both of them to show it. While The Big Bang Theory was more interested in Bazingas jokes and really niche Star Trek jokes, “Young Sheldon” took an in-depth look at how Sheldon Cooper came to beand on the people who formed it.