Young Sheldon,
Nine, Monday and Tuesday, 7.30pm
Apparently this is America’s number one comedy and it’s true I laughed out loud – once halfway through the second episode.
This is the prequel to the wildly successful The Big Bang Theory – an origin story of the awkward Doctor Sheldon Cooper and narrated by Sheldon himself, Jim Parsons.
This is nine-year-old Sheldon living in East Texas in the late ’80s and about to start high school for the first time. It isn’t easy growing up in East Texas when you are a once-in-a-generation mind capable of advanced mathematics – and science isn’t always helpful in a land where church and football are king.
And while the vulnerable, gifted and somewhat naive Sheldon deals with the world, his “very normal” family must find a way to deal with him. This is a fish out of water comedy, with mercifully, no laugh track.
It is sentimental-ish, nostalgic and not as smart as it thinks it is.
The stand-out is Zoe Perry as his mother Mary – though it’s little wonder you are left thinking “wow she has really nailed Laurie Metcalf’s (who plays the older Mary in TBBT) mannerisms, looks and accent” because she’s Metcalf’s daughter.
You want to like it, people all over America think it’s great right? But it all seems pretty stereotyped and one-note. Maybe it’s supposed to be the new Wonder Years – but Sheldon and his one dimensional family aren’t likeable enough for that.
– Tania Phillips
