TBBT was a solid sitcom. That was its appeal. It was not a clever reflection on post-docs, scientists vs engineers, Aspergers, or any of the geek culture aspects it had bolted on.
I did 'only' a masters in physics. I shared a flat with 4 other physics students. One of us had diagnosed aspergers. One of us had to drink heavily to quell his social anxiety before his parents put him on a train and we picked him up at the other end. We all poured scorn on engineers. So i wanted to love TBBT. I really did.
The fact is I never saw myself or my friends in TBBT. 2 examples:
I never understood their finances. Students / post-docs / junior lectureres never have any money. I remember eating pickle out of a jar with a spoon a couple of times because we had no money. We never did take away. We rarely ate out apart from at the university. Much of the comedy in our house came from the terrifying experiments in cooking. Raj had rich parents, but where was the financial turmoil for everyone else?
I never understood how "broadly" geeky they were. We all had our own "geeky interests" and would pour hours of our free time into them. (The warhammer geek, the coding geek, the role-play geek, the video editing geek, etc). And we had interests in common (physics, computers, girls). But TBBT group all seem to have a vague interest in all things geeky. They have a general liking of geek culture, the conventions, the sci-fi, the memorabilia. Sheldon was perhaps the exception to this with his love of trains, but even that seemed to be something that was presented only opportunistically rather being a constant visible presence in his life.
So I enjoyed TBBT for its characterization and the characters responses to the awkward situations that the writers came up with. But it will always feel like any opportunity missed to me.
A good sit com, but hardly irreplacable.
