TBBT vs Young Sheldon: Nitpicks, Anomalies, and Historical Facts In An Evolving Universe, presented by Sheldon L. Cooper

[gentlespirit512]

I do have to ask—just out of curiosity, how far do you think the “memoir” piece goes?  Just YS or all the way to TBBT? Clearly I’m spending way too much brainpower on this, but it occurred to me. 

Edited May 14 by gentlespirit512
Too many words

[Driad]

I watched the drama MaryLand on PBS and started laughing at a serious scene between two British sisters that went something like this:
Sister 1: You went off to college and I had to deal with [family crisis]!
Sister 2: I never even heard about [family crisis] until years later!
Sister 1: We didn't tell you because [reasons]. So it's still your fault!
Familiar, eh?
 

[anna0852]

You know, as I think about it, Georgie asserting that Sheldon was wrong for going off to college and leaving him to look after Mary and Missy is kind of messed up. Sheldon was 14. What exactly was he supposed to accomplished by skipping grad school and staying in Medford? He’s too young to work, even by Texas standards. And if Mary is moping around about missing her baby boy, those emotions are hers to manage not Sheldon’s.

[Chit Chat]

13 hours ago, anna0852 said:

You know, as I think about it, Georgie asserting that Sheldon was wrong for going off to college and leaving him to look after Mary and Missy is kind of messed up

I may be forgetting how their conversation went, but IIRC, Georgie wasn't mad that Sheldon went off to college.  He simply wanted Sheldon to know that things at home weren't as rosy as Sheldon thought they were (after George's death), and that he stepped up to the plate and handled things, all the while protecting Sheldon from knowing just how difficult things were for their mom.  Please correct me if I'm remembering this incorrectly!!  :)  

[mammaM]

11 hours ago, Chit Chat said:

I may be forgetting how their conversation went, but IIRC, Georgie wasn't mad that Sheldon went off to college.  He simply wanted Sheldon to know that things at home weren't as rosy as Sheldon thought they were (after George's death), and that he stepped up to the plate and handled things, all the while protecting Sheldon from knowing just how difficult things were for their mom.  Please correct me if I'm remembering this incorrectly!!  :)  

I think you're right. It wasn't so much Sheldon was going to college, it was that once again everyone had to protect Sheldon, make things easier for him.

And....in regards to YS George Sr vs TBBT George Sr., just to stir the pot a little (I'm in a mood😂), just saw the season 10 TBBT episode where Sheldon and Amy visit Mary and tell her they're living together. Sheldon doesn't want to because of the religious lecture, he said he's heard it with his "sister about her boyfriend, my brother about his girlfriend, my father about his girlfriend".😂😂😂 discuss😂😂

[Dimity]

On 5/14/2024 at 7:57 AM, anna0852 said:

You know, as I think about it, Georgie asserting that Sheldon was wrong for going off to college and leaving him to look after Mary and Missy is kind of messed up. Sheldon was 14. What exactly was he supposed to accomplished by skipping grad school and staying in Medford?

That bothered me as well.   Sheldon was 14, even if the Coopers did protect him from some of the difficulties going on at home after George's death, this was on them not on him.  In that episode on BBT I felt that they scrambled to give a reason for Georgie being so resentful of Sheldon and it didn't quite ring true.  I think if they'd just focused on adult Sheldon being adult Sheldon that would have done it - dredging up grudges from his teen years made Georgie seem petty.

4 minutes ago, mammaM said:

And....in regards to YS George Sr vs TBBT George Sr., just to stir the pot a little (I'm in a mood😂), just saw the season 10 TBBT episode where Sheldon and Amy visit Mary and tell her they're living together. Sheldon doesn't want to because of the religious lecture, he said he's heard it with his "sister about her boyfriend, my brother about his girlfriend, my father about his girlfriend".😂😂😂 discuss😂😂

The explanation that the showrunners keep giving is that Sheldon was an unreliable narrator.  Which is just so, so stupid.  I totally agree he misinterprets things and gets a lot of stuff wrong but he also has an eidetic memory if he he related a conversation he can repeat it verbatim and also give you time, place and what he had for lunch for that day!

[HyeChaps]

And all the ingredients of a brisket recipe he heard as a little tyke

[gentlespirit512]

I think you mean photographic memory. 
 

Eidetic memory refers to the ability to vividly recall images from memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high accuracy for a short time after exposure, without using a memory aid. Photographic memory, though often used interchangeably with eidetic memory, implies the ability to recall extensive details, like entire pages of text, with high precision. Genuine photographic memory’s existence is debated and hasn’t been conclusively proven.

Maybe Sheldon uses it incorrectly. I’ve had a theory for a long time that his “smartness” is his ability to memorize, not his ability to think through concepts. I know that’s probably blasphemy, but it’s something I’ve wondered about.

[Dimity]

19 minutes ago, gentlespirit512 said:

Maybe Sheldon uses it incorrectly.

  Sheldon himself (or I should say the writers of course) uses the term eidetic memory several times in the course of the series.  From season three's Creepy Candy Coating Corrollary:

Quote

Leonard Hofstadter : Sheldon has kind of a photographic memory.

Sheldon Cooper : Photographic is a misnomer; I have an eidetic memory, as I've told you many times, most recently last year during lunch on the afternoon of May 7th. You had turkey and complained it was dry.

 

[gentlespirit512]

Sheldon has little respect for language arts as far as I’ve seen. I also doubt that the writers consulted the actual definitions before using the words. I think they have wiggle room if they choose to use it. I have seen clips that make me think they might. I’m not planning to be disappointed either way. They’ve done a fine job with what they have.

 

[Artsda]

On 5/3/2024 at 2:11 PM, Dimity said:

Quoting myself here to add that I am being irrationally angry about this.  For years now the show runners on YS have been throwing up their hands and insisting "Sheldon is an unreliable narrator". 

Well Georgie claiming he was the rock that Mary and Missy relied on after George died is now proving to have been a pointless way to build up Georgie and diminish Sheldon for the sake of one single episode.  Because how can Georgie be that rock when apparently the new series will not include any of the other Coopers?  Sounds like he will be no more a part of Mary and Missy's life than Sheldon was.

You can still be the rock and live in a different house. He's not in a different state like Sheldon is Sheldon left and never returned the state, whereas Georgie is like down the street. 

They're all still living in Texas so even if we may not see them, they'll still be interacting.

Edited May 17 by Artsda

[Dimity]

43 minutes ago, Artsda said:

You can still be the rock and live in a different house.

Definitely.  But it's going to be a lot harder to buy the Georgie is the rock when the spin off does not have Mary, Missy or Meemaw in it as far as we know now.

[Dimity]

@Wanda said:

Quote

In his mind he thought he caught his dad with a blonde. That would be a “mistress” to him. So if some blonde woman gave him an action figure he might have simply made the connection 🤷‍♀️ it could even have been Brenda giving Sheldon a birthday present back when he and missy were suspicious of their relationship, and he hadn’t yet learned about the standard gift giving exchange (I can’t remember the phrase he would use on BBT)

From my POV while Sheldon on BBT could be naive about  some things, he is not stupid and he's not a liar.  It's two separate realities - on BBT Sheldon is relating the Cooper home  and his childhood as the writers prior to Young Sheldon envisioned it.  When Young Sheldon came along they made some significant changes because otherwise - wow - not a family sitcom most of us would have wanted to watch.  Least of all for 7 years!

[Chit Chat]

3 minutes ago, Dimity said:

When Young Sheldon came along they made some significant changes because otherwise - wow - not a family sitcom most of us would have wanted to watch. 

And I'm glad they made those changes!  They were losing me when George was flirting with Brenda, and Mary was flirting with Pastor Rob.  There was too much tension in the air for it to be a comedy, and I didn't like it.  I'm glad they got them back on track as a happy couple.  

[Makai]

5 hours ago, Dimity said:

@Wanda said:

From my POV while Sheldon on BBT could be naive about  some things, he is not stupid and he's not a liar.  It's two separate realities - on BBT Sheldon is relating the Cooper home  and his childhood as the writers prior to Young Sheldon envisioned it.  When Young Sheldon came along they made some significant changes because otherwise - wow - not a family sitcom most of us would have wanted to watch.  Least of all for 7 years!

Same for me. It’s the very specific stories from BBT after YS was developed that bother me the most.  There was no need to create the three knocks origin or throw in the George and his mistress living together story if they didn’t have a way to handle them in YS.

The Tam retcon in particular makes me more critical of the other changes. Sticking with a BBT version would have made a stronger episode. Changing it makes me think they just didn’t care about telling a cohesive and emotional story and just went for an easy jokes too often. 

[Dimity]

11 hours ago, Makai said:

The Tam retcon in particular makes me more critical of the other changes. Sticking with a BBT version would have made a stronger episode. Changing it makes me think they just didn’t care about telling a cohesive and emotional story and just went for an easy jokes too often. 

I wondered why they brought Tam back at all if they weren't going to go with why he made Sheldon's enemies list!

On a related note - in the funeral episode Mary specifically says she was dating George when she was in senior high and he was about to be deployed to Vietnam.  Why on earth did they retcon this????  And it doesn't even make sense historically.  The last year George could have been deployed to Vietnam was 1972 -by the end of March 1973 the last ground troops had been pulled out - anyway that still gives us 3 years before Georgie is born.   So suggesting that Mary got pregnant just out of high school makes no sense.  So why??  Why did they bother to do this??

[Wanda]

5 hours ago, Dimity said:

I wondered why they brought Tam back at all if they weren't going to go with why he made Sheldon's enemies list!

On a related note - in the funeral episode Mary specifically says she was dating George when she was in senior high and he was about to be deployed to Vietnam.  Why on earth did they retcon this????  And it doesn't even make sense historically.  The last year George could have been deployed to Vietnam was 1972 -by the end of March 1973 the last ground troops had been pulled out - anyway that still gives us 3 years before Georgie is born.   So suggesting that Mary got pregnant just out of high school makes no sense.  So why??  Why did they bother to do this??

Mary got pregnant at age 24. That was said several times over the course of the show. 

On 5/17/2024 at 11:04 AM, Dimity said:

Definitely.  But it's going to be a lot harder to buy the Georgie is the rock when the spin off does not have Mary, Missy or Meemaw in it as far as we know now.

I’ll wager there will be a time jump for when the new show takes place. Allowing for Georgie to have stayed in Medford to take care of Mary and Missy until Mary was comfortable enough to sell the house and get on with their lives. Probably enough years for them to cast a cute little precocious kid as CeCe rather than a baby.

[kav]

11 minutes ago, Wanda said:

 

I’ll wager there will be a time jump for when the new show takes place. Allowing for Georgie to have stayed in Medford to take care of Mary and Missy until Mary was comfortable enough to sell the house and get on with their lives. Probably enough years for them to cast a cute little precocious kid as CeCe rather than a baby.

It has been said in an interview that the time frame will be a few months, so not very long.  They have said they want to use the same babies for Cece b/c they are so easy to work with and cute.

Edited May 19 by kav

[Dimity]

17 minutes ago, Wanda said:

Mary got pregnant at age 24. That was said several times over the course of the show. 

Thank you!! That's what I thought as well but I know I've been reading recently n various places that George was  much older than Mary and that she got pregnant right out of high school.  Which makes no sense at all based on everything that came before.  But, let's face it, that hasn't stopped the powers that be running Young Sheldon from flipping things when they think it makes a better story or joke.

[Driad]

Did they ever say why Sheldon got his name? In BBT, he once recounted an argument between his parents in which George said the name Sheldon was Mary's idea, but we don't know where it came from AFAIK.  (In the real world, Sheldon and Leonard were named for Sheldon Leonard.)

[Wanda]

On rewatch of Funeral, MeeMaw had a tissue up her sleeve. Great continuity with the BBT episode where she visited and Sheldon had her show off the tissue trick to Amy.

[Johannah]

I'd have actually preferred if most of the ep had the grown-up BBT characters.  I'd love to know what they are were doing and hope they still stay in touch regularly.  They could have skipped the whole baptism storyline.

I haven't read this entire thread, but did anyone notice the church sign?  "Sheldon Cooper baptism today.  It's a miracle!". Funny, but I noticed they didn't include Missy.  

[mammaM]

🎶Some day, we'll be together🎶🎶

This has nothing to do with the finale, but I was flipping channels (yes I still do that I'm old) and my favorite YS episode was on. The Nobel Prize on the radio. And I know it was just a massive Easter egg for TBBT but I loved seeing that cast as kids😂 Sheldon's a quark not a neutrino💗

[Makai]

On 6/1/2024 at 4:25 AM, mammaM said:

🎶Some day, we'll be together🎶🎶

This has nothing to do with the finale, but I was flipping channels (yes I still do that I'm old) and my favorite YS episode was on. The Nobel Prize on the radio. And I know it was just a massive Easter egg for TBBT but I loved seeing that cast as kids😂 Sheldon's a quark not a neutrino💗

I love that episode. I feel like it was the perfect execution of the concept of the show. I had really hoped the finale would be more like that episode and the Pasadena episode.