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

[SnapHappy]

10 minutes ago, SusannahM said:

I thought of this post while watching the BBT marathon.  We've just gotten to the episode where Sheldon relates the story of how one Thanksgiving Uncle Carl is KBB (killed by a badger).  It would certainly make for a holiday episode with a difference if they ever decide to include this one!

And where in the family tree is Uncle Carl?  Do we assume George's side of the family, or somebody else on Mary & Connie's side?

I would love to see a complete family tree of the Coopers and the Tuckers.  I think the writers owe us that!!  *LOL*

[babyhouseman]

Last night YS show reminded me of Sheldon on BBT saying, Mom smokes in the car Jesus is okay with it but we can't tell dad.

[Yeah No]

I feel like they should retitle this show "Young Sheldon's Family" because lately it's less and less about Sheldon and more about his family.  The show is now even finding ways to get Sheldon out of the picture so the episode can concentrate on everyone else but him.  I feel like they've put Sheldon on hold.  It might be deliberate or a realization that they've gone about as far as they can go with the character.  But I would have expected more wacky Sheldon-esque hi jinx from him in keeping with the original character.  I feel like the more young Sheldon ages the less he feels like he could actually grow up into the same Sheldon we knew on BBT.  I realize this show was based on the character and not necessarily going to be exactly the same, but if they're going to have Jim Parsons do voiceovers and go to the extent of recreating the history of Sheldon's family as described on BBT they could have done things a little differently.  Young Sheldon is definitely more rational and lacks a sense of humor while BBT Sheldon can be wildly eccentric and funny to watch.  I might have actually expected more of a "nutty professor" character for him than the one we have on this show.  And I would have expected young Sheldon to be showing signs of becoming more like older Sheldon as he grows up.

I have to admit that I'm getting a little bored with the show.  I didn't feel that way until this season.  I'm not going to stop watching it or anything but I am a little disappointed in the way it's been going this season.

[Tom Holmberg]

On 1/14/2022 at 11:37 PM, Yeah No said:

I feel like they should retitle this show "Young Sheldon's Family" because lately it's less and less about Sheldon and more about his family. 

No, it should be re-titled "Old Meemaw."  If it was about his family, Missy would get more than two lines per episode.

[treeofdreams]

I am happy with the trend, because I find Sheldon the least interesting character on the show.  He has been locked into an annoying, humorless character with no nuancing. I would much rather see stories about the family.  Yes, to more Missy, too.  And change the Meemaw storyline to make her just more wacky and less...whatever she is now; give her some funny adventures with Reba.  Dale - out please.  And Dr. Sturgis, more in.

Edited January 16, 2022 by treeofdreams

[Driad]

Meemaw as we saw her on BBT was bitter and nasty.  On YS it may make sense to show that she has the potential to be that way, but I don't want to see the whole process.

[treeofdreams]

51 minutes ago, Driad said:

Meemaw as we saw her on BBT was bitter and nasty.  On YS it may make sense to show that she has the potential to be that way, but I don't want to see the whole process.

I don't either.  There is a whole time span between Young Sheldon and BBT where something might have happened to make her that way, but for now, and for Young Sheldon, she can be different and funny.

[Gummo]

I've tried imagining Annie Potts delivering Meemaw's lines when I see that BBT episode in reruns -- it comes off much better.

[OlderThanDirt]

I recently saw an episode of BBT where Sheldon referred to his father and the blond bartender as having a relationship but I can't find any reference to that on line or on YouTube. I find that much more believable than an affair with Brenda.  I still think they are setting up Brenda and the principal although I wonder where Billy's little sister disappeared to. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by OlderThanDirt

[SusanM]

26 minutes ago, OlderThanDirt said:

I recently saw an episode of BBT where Sheldon referred to his father and the blond bartender as having a relationship but I can't find any reference to that on line or on YouTube.

Interesting!  I saw it referenced numerous times in the past but the only place I found it on a quick search just now was here which is a transcript of the episode The Herb Garden Germination Season 4, episode 20.  That's a very well known quote yet it wasn't even in the IMDB page for that episode.  Weird.

Edited January 18, 2022 by SusannahM

[OlderThanDirt]

Thank you that was it. The reference to buying his affection with action figures makes it sound like more than a one night thing.

[SusanM]

8 hours ago, OlderThanDirt said:

Thank you that was it. The reference to buying his affection with action figures makes it sound like more than a one night thing.

There's also another episode where he talks about his mother having a talk to his brother and his sister about their respective romantic partners and then says she had the same talk with his father about his girlfriend "that one had some bad language in it".  So, yeah, George, according to BBT didn't 'just' slip once, he had a girlfriend, possibly more than one,  that Mary and the kids knew about.  Not sure if they'll go down that particular road on YS but George cheating and having girlfriends is pretty well established on BBT.

Edited January 19, 2022 by SusannahM

[shapeshifter]

15 minutes ago, SusannahM said:

There's also another episode where he talks about his mother having a talk to his brother and his sister about their respective romantic partners and then says she had the same talk with his father about his girlfriend "that one had some bad language in it".  So, yeah, George, according to BBT didn't 'just' slip once, he had a girlfriend, possibly more than one,  that Mary and the kids knew about.  Not sure if they'll go down that particular road on YS but George cheating and having girlfriends is pretty well established on BBT.

Makes me wonder if the YS writers had this backstory info at the beginning of the series. Or were they told to take it in another direction? 

[shapeshifter]

From S05.E13: A Lot of Band-Aids and the Cooper Surrender:

1 hour ago, Spartan Girl said:

That moment with Mary and George was nice.

I would like George and Mary to decide to spice up their romance with a little role playing in which Mary wears a blonde wig and maybe some of that make up that she didn't throw out. Then when Sheldon sees them in the bedroom, he thinks it's another woman.

And they live happily ever after until his heart attack.

[SusanM]

13 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

And they live happily ever after until his heart attack.

That's the thing.  They can mess with Sheldon's memories of his childhood if they want - although it's so weird that they do seem to be changing some things but still heavily hinting that the marriage is in trouble and George may cheat so why bother? I mean why not just have things happen the way TBBT said they would? - but I digress.  They can change the details of the cheating, or not cheating and the marriage breaking down, or not breaking down but they are still left with the fact that George is doomed.  And if my math is right he has at best 2 more years.

[vibeology]

15 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

From S05.E13: A Lot of Band-Aids and the Cooper Surrender:

I would like George and Mary to decide to spice up their romance with a little role playing in which Mary wears a blonde wig and maybe some of that make up that she didn't throw out. Then when Sheldon sees them in the bedroom, he thinks it's another woman.

And they live happily ever after until his heart attack.

Except it's not just one story. Sheldon also talked about one of his dad's girlfriend's buying him toys to win him over. He remembers his dad shooting the TV on Thanksgiving because he was upset with the score. He remembers his dad skeet shooting Mary's plates off of the roof of his house. 

There are things that Sheldon could be confused about, but I don't think he got that many things wrong. 

[Bort]

11 minutes ago, vibeology said:

He remembers his dad shooting the TV on Thanksgiving because he was upset with the score.

Interesting thing about that one, it’s the only George story Sheldon has told that gives us a specific date for that event happening: Thanksgiving 1993. And if my uncle had a gun, he’d have shot the tv too. Boy, was he pissed about that Cowboys game.

[SusanM]

15 minutes ago, vibeology said:

There are things that Sheldon could be confused about, but I don't think he got that many things wrong. 

This is what confuses me.  There were so many anecdotes about Sheldon's family that he revealed throughout the run of BBT that I totally can understand them deciding not to incorporate into YS.  But they do seem to be going down the path of an unhappy marriage and an unhappy George so they aren't completely handwaving away what Sheldon says he experienced growing up.

I am thinking that if they do have George lose his job then it would set the scene for George doing stuff like shooting the TV and Mary's plates off the roof too for that matter.  But man if they decide to have George go down this path the next few years are going to get dark.  I don't want that in a sitcom.

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, vibeology said:

Sheldon also talked about one of his dad's girlfriend's buying him toys to win him over. He remembers his dad shooting the TV on Thanksgiving because he was upset with the score. He remembers his dad skeet shooting Mary's plates off of the roof of his house. 

There are things that Sheldon could be confused about, but I don't think he got that many things wrong. 

I had forgotten these👆. Was this aired in 2016? Due to chemo and surgery that year, there are lot holes in my memory, and I have not been rewatching the series.
Were they written into the script in such a way that it could be easily retconned to Sheldon also using "my dad" to refer to someone Mary married after George died?
 

4 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Interesting thing about that one, it’s the only George story Sheldon has told that gives us a specific date for that event happening: Thanksgiving 1993. And if my uncle had a gun, he’d have shot the tv too. Boy, was he pissed about that Cowboys game.

That might not be too dark of an episode. 
Maybe even potentially LOL-ish. 🙃

[Bort]

31 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Were they written into the script in such a way that it could be easily retconned to Sheldon also using "my dad" to refer to someone Mary married after George died?

Mary never remarried, Sheldon’s friends all called her Mrs. Cooper on Big Bang Theory.

[shapeshifter]

57 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Mary never remarried, Sheldon’s friends all called her Mrs. Cooper on Big Bang Theory.

Oh, right!
They'd have to have voice-over Sheldon explain at the end of YS that he had referred to his widowed mother's live-in boyfriend as "my dad," which sounds unlikely, but there've been a lot of unlikely things on YS. Still, I imagine such a retcon would rival HIMYM for hated ending reveals.

[Guest]

On 1/19/2022 at 7:46 AM, shapeshifter said:

Makes me wonder if the YS writers had this backstory info at the beginning of the series. Or were they told to take it in another direction? 

The episode where Sheldon talks about Mary lecturing everyone (included George) about living together before marriage aired in January 2017. Young Sheldon was announced  as in development two months early. The story of why Sheldon knocks three times also aired right around the time YS was in development.  They could have walked back the stories about George is they wanted to. Instead the wrote two of the more damning stories. 

6 hours ago, SusannahM said:

This is what confuses me.  There were so many anecdotes about Sheldon's family that he revealed throughout the run of BBT that I totally can understand them deciding not to incorporate into YS.  But they do seem to be going down the path of an unhappy marriage and an unhappy George so they aren't completely handwaving away what Sheldon says he experienced growing up.

I am thinking that if they do have George lose his job then it would set the scene for George doing stuff like shooting the TV and Mary's plates off the roof too for that matter.  But man if they decide to have George go down this path the next few years are going to get dark.  I don't want that in a sitcom.

It’s also possible that those instances will just be something that happens off screen. The show runner has talked about how Young Sheldon is being told by a much older Sheldon looking back on his childhood with newfound understanding after being a father himself. TBBT Sheldon has a very unyielding perspective on his childhood which colors the way he talks about them. He also describes adult Georgie has a complete failure which couldn’t be farther from the truth. 

46 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Oh, right!
They'd have to have voice-over Sheldon explain at the end of YS that he had referred to his widowed mother's live-in boyfriend as "my dad," which sounds unlikely, but there've been a lot of unlikely things on YS. Still, I imagine such a retcon would rival HIMYM for hated ending reveals.

That really wouldn’t work since we see Sheldon reacting to his mother having a boyfriend in season 7. It’s clear that she hasn’t had a serious boyfriend before that point. Certainly not one Sheldon would call dad on TBBT. 

Edited January 29, 2022 by Guest

[Gummo]

Sheldon on TBBT is often a classic 'unreliable narrator.' One example is the episode where adult Georgie confronted him about Sheldon not realizing what was really going on at home while he was studying in Europe.

In addition, his narcissism and unworldliness often leads to him misinterpreting people's feelings and attitudes. And sometimes even events. And if that's true for adult Sheldon, how much more true would it have been for young Sheldon?

Also, I wonder if TBBT Sheldon didn't sometimes exaggerate the "hickness" of his family to make himself look better by comparison.

[SusanM]

I think they can have a lot of fun on YS having Sheldon relate something through his own perspective while we, the audience, actually see what happened in real time so to speak. But that can only address some of the Sheldonian things that were said about his family life on BBT.  Notable to me is that there were numerous times when Mary Cooper described her other two children, and her husband as being "dumb" or other words meaning the same thing! 

One I saw the other day was when she was telling Leonard's mother why she believed God sent her a brilliant son - she prayed to a bobble head Jesus to send her a child smarter than his "dumbass daddy".  YS did a lot of work to make George way more likeable than the way he was usually talked about on BBT, which I don't have a problem with - but if they start going back and taking actual incidents and retconning them to make them misinterpretations on Sheldon's part I will not be impressed.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Gummo said:

Sheldon on TBBT is often a classic 'unreliable narrator.' One example is the episode where adult Georgie confronted him about Sheldon not realizing what was really going on at home while he was studying in Europe.

Exactly. I’m always a little surprised when people feel like the George we see is extremely inconsistent with TBBT because every character we see is inconsistent with what Sheldon says on TBBT. It’s was deliberately written into his character from just about day 1. Sheldon doesn’t have an accurate view of anything and his takeaway is almost always wrong. Just his inability to understand sarcasm can be used to explain some things. 

To me the nonnegotiable aspects are that Mary and George have major relationship issues and there is another woman involved. We’ve already seen that happening. That at some point the family becomes aware of the other woman and it threatens to break up the marriage. George leaves the house for a least a little while and Sheldon walks in on George and another woman in what he perceives is an intimate moment. There are a lot of ways that can play out and still be true to what Sheldon has said. To me the antidotes like plate shooting or tv throwing don’t need to be shown on screen.

10 hours ago, Gummo said:

Also, I wonder if TBBT Sheldon didn't sometimes exaggerate the "hickness" of his family to make himself look better by comparison.

Good point. Sheldon has been shown to be extremely manipulative. He has a very black and white world view but still has no problem outright lying when it benefits him. Like when he shut off the power to the entire apartment building to try and get Leonard to agree to start helping him again or when he rented his old room and was the perfect tenant until the trial period ended. 

9 hours ago, SusannahM said:

Notable to me is that there were numerous times when Mary Cooper described her other two children, and her husband as being "dumb" or other words meaning the same thing! 

To me they have stayed consistent with even though they haven’t had Mary directly call them dumb. In the first season Missy asks about if she’s smart and Mary says that she has beautiful hair. Georgie has dropped out of school. I have no trouble believing that she does think they are all dumb.

Georgie is business savvy and they are both people and street smart but neither of them are particularly smart based on standard measures of intelligence. 

9 hours ago, SusannahM said:

YS did a lot of work to make George way more likeable than the way he was usually talked about on BBT, which I don't have a problem with - but if they start going back and taking actual incidents and retconning them to make them misinterpretations on Sheldon's part I will not be impressed.

To me it just depends on how it is written. They have a lot of wiggle room. They’ve already made it clear they are not going to ignore it entirely so retconning it wouldn’t make much sense. People who don’t want the show to go that direction are already unhappy. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by Guest

[SusanM]

30 minutes ago, Dani said:

I’m always a little surprised when people feel like the George we see is extremely inconsistent with TBBT because every character we see is inconsistent with what Sheldon says on TBBT.

That's a good point.  And it's also worth remembering that the Cooper family as written on BBT, aside from Mary, were never written to be "real".  It was only the last couple of years of BBT when YS was in the pipeline and then on the air that they firmed up some of the stuff we now know about the family.  There is no way, for instance, that the Georgie we meet when Sheldon and Amy get married is the Georgie we hear about in earlier episodes.  Don't get me wrong I am really happy they make him a successful businessman not the mouthbreathing idiot Mary and Sheldon talked about!  I just wish they'd done the same thing with Missy.  Instead the last time we see her on BBT she's pregnant and not happy about it, separated from her husband and clearly not in a good place.  That sucks to me.  I want a HEA for Missy!

[Bort]

Missy could still have a happy ending. The Missy we saw at Sheldon’s wedding was, yes, not happy with her life but that was also her second child and she would go on to have four total. Could very well be that she divorced that husband and found a much better second one. We don’t know how things turned out for her yet, is my point.

[SusanM]

3 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

We don’t know how things turned out for her yet, is my point.

Absolutely!  I guess I was just hoping since they clearly made Georgie a success when they showed  him on BBT they could have done Missy the same courtesy.  But you're right, I will live in hope that we hear more about afterBBT Missy's life and that's it's a good one.  For the record I also wouldn't mind if we find out at some point whether Leonard and Penny have a boy or a girl 😀.

[Bort]

For that matter, I would also like to know how many children Sheldon and Amy had. Sheldon wanted multiples of three. I can see Amy going for three, but no more than that.

[SoMuchTV]

1 hour ago, kariyaki said:

For that matter, I would also like to know how many children Sheldon and Amy had. Sheldon wanted multiples of three. I can see Amy going for three, but no more than that.

I could have sworn that was mentioned in a voiceover, but I don't remember how many, and I don't know if they were done having kids at that point.  So I guess I have nothing to add :)  Maybe someone else will remember.

[SusanM]

@SoMuchTV I am positive at one point narrator Sheldon says something about his children, so in the plural for sure, but I don't recall if he ever specifies how many he has.  I do know he says Amy let's him name one of them Leonard 😀.

[Browncoat]

4 hours ago, Dani said:

Georgie has dropped out of college.

High school.

[Bort]

3 minutes ago, Browncoat said:

High school.

And college. The poster was talking about the backstory given on The Big Bang Theory.

[anna0852]

5 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Missy could still have a happy ending. The Missy we saw at Sheldon’s wedding was, yes, not happy with her life but that was also her second child and she would go on to have four total. Could very well be that she divorced that husband and found a much better second one. We don’t know how things turned out for her yet, is my point.

Until proved otherwise I like to think Missy ended up with Raj for her third and fourth children. 

[kwnyc]

Sheldon also mentions in one of his adult voiceovers that Missy is loved by her family and friends and enjoys her life. (But he has a Nobel Prize, so he wins!)

[peacheslatour]

41 minutes ago, kwnyc said:

Sheldon also mentions in one of his adult voiceovers that Missy is loved by her family and friends and enjoys her life. (But he has a Nobel Prize, so he wins!)

Typical Sheldon. Like when his mom was trying to explain to him that there are other ways of being mature other than being smart. The whole idea gobsmacked him.

[SusanM]

I've noticed in the discussions of individual episodes of this show that Mary is not generally very well liked.  I can't help wondering why the writers of YS went down that route.  Mary is the only person from Sheldon's family that watchers of BBT actually know - she appeared in numerous episodes over the years while most of the other living Coopers got 1 or 2  at most. 

Mary was a little self righteous still but was still very likeable.  The contrast between her parenting and Leonard's mothers for instance made for some great episodes - and made most of us watching go "I'd pick Mary please" in the which mother would I want contest.

Yet on YS the writers seemed determined to cast HER as the unlikeable parent and George as the one you'd want in your corner.

Not sure if this is intentional on their part or not but it's starting to really get me annoyed.

Edited February 27, 2022 by SusannahM

[shapeshifter]

20 minutes ago, SusannahM said:

I've noticed in the discussions of individual episodes of this show that Mary is not generally very well liked.  I can't help wondering why the writers of YS went down that route.  Mary is the only person from Sheldon's family that watchers of BBT actually know - she appeared in numerous episodes over the years while most of the other living Coopers got 1 or 2  at most. 

Mary was a little self righteous still but was still very likeable.  The contrast between her parenting and Leonard's mothers for instance made for some great episodes - and made most of us watching go "I'd pick Mary please" in the which mother would I want contest.

Yet on YS the writers seemed determined to cast HER as the unlikeable parent and George as the one you'd want in your corner.

Not sure if this is intentional on their part or not but it's starting to really get me annoyed.

I/we could enjoy TBBT Mary in part because she was an older "character" character. She was often OTT and made mean or unsensitive comments about everyone, but she didn't appear that often. 
And that kind of behavior doesn't look as cute on a younger woman, especially one who is helping to formulate the beliefs of her minor children.
I think they could have made YS Mary funnier instead of irritating. But that would have meant demeaning the main female character of the show even more.
Her character feels like a weakness in the show to me, but I don't have a perfect solution. They kind of need her to be like she is, and realistically, they couldn't really have the lion's share of the screen time featuring child actors. 
Still, I think they should have made Mary more of a punchline than she is.

ETA from the episode thread:

10 hours ago, ButterQueen said:

Mary just makes me tired with her self-righteous self.
I need more Annie Potts.

They should have given MeeMaw more screen time and had Mary in the background played by a lesser actor.
Then there could be some YS series finale voiceover about how Mary became more and more like her mother, MeeMaw, over the years, as humans tend to do.

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by shapeshifter

[SusanM]

26 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Still, I think they should have made Mary more of a punchline than she is.

I think what it comes down to is they didn't want to make George the man we were told he was from BBT, which frankly could have been awesome - but for whatever reasons they opted not to so they pruned away some of the rough edges and made him likeable.  I guess by doing that they figured they needed to make Mary less appealing.  I dunno. 

In the parenting dept I think they do do a fairly good job of showing parents out of their depth with a Sheldon and also they do have a nod now and then to Mary being the one doing most of the work on the home front. 

It's the way they've made George the nice guy and Mary by contrast ends up being a bitch that is just sticking in my craw.  

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by SusannahM

[anna0852]

I like to think the writers plan for the YS Mary to evolve to BBT Mary because of George's death. Losing her spouse is bound cause some personality changes.

[SusanM]

1 minute ago, anna0852 said:

I like to think the writers plan for the YS Mary to evolve to BBT Mary because of George's death. Losing her spouse is bound cause some personality changes.

I wonder if the plan is to keep YS going after George dies.  I mean most sitcoms do tend to stay on the air as long as they can - there are notable exceptions of course but usually that's because the star of the show says "enough".  I don't see that happening with YS. 

It must be weird for the actor playing George to know that his character may end long before the show he's on does!

[treeofdreams]

What I find interesting about the difference between YS Mary and BBT Mary is that by BBT  she has learned how to manage Sheldon instead of baby him - she has become a "Sheldon wrangler", as it were.  There were several episodes that highlighted this.

[SusanM]

14 minutes ago, treeofdreams said:

What I find interesting about the difference between YS Mary and BBT Mary is that by BBT  she has learned how to manage Sheldon instead of baby him - she has become a "Sheldon wrangler", as it were.  There were several episodes that highlighted this.

We catch glimpses of this on YS but not often.  In BBT it's made clear that pretty much the only person Sheldon will listen to is his mother.  They do occasionally reference this as being something ingrained from childhood but you wouldn't know it based on the relationship they have on YS!  IMO she isn't the pushover with him that some posting here see but she certainly isn't the authority figure you see on BBT either.

Edited February 27, 2022 by SusannahM

[shapeshifter]

17 minutes ago, treeofdreams said:

What I find interesting about the difference between YS Mary and BBT Mary is that by BBT  she has learned how to manage Sheldon instead of baby him - she has become a "Sheldon wrangler", as it were.  There were several episodes that highlighted this.

3 minutes ago, SusannahM said:

We catch glimpses of this on YS but not often.  In BBT it's made clear that pretty much the only person Sheldon will listen to is his mother.  They do occasionally reference this as being something ingrained from childhood but you wouldn't know it based on the relationship they have on YS!  IMO she isn't the pushover with him that some posting here see but she certainly isn't the authority figure you see on BBT either.

Yes and yes.
In an alternate universe
(or in a reimagining of YS 20 years from now, which is even less likely IMO)
Mary is the Sheldon Wrangler. 

 

[HyeChaps]

This program will certainly finish by the time Sheldon goes abroad, still in his teens.

 

[Bort]

Sheldon didn’t spend any significant time abroad, he was in Germany as a “visiting professor” which sounds to me like a few weeks at most. 

[SusanM]

It will be interesting to see how they deal with the Cooper family after George dies.  I definitely agree that Mary will have to change - that's just inevitable.  Likely will work full-time and depend more on her mother than she does now.  On BBT Georgie claimed he became the man of the family - we shall see how true that actually was as this directly contradicts everything we were ever told about Georgie - so he may be just as reliable a narrator of things past as we've seen Sheldon to be!  Regardless I think one thing they will have to do to keep the show going is make it clear that Sheldon stayed pretty close to home through his teen years.

[rmontro]

On 2/27/2022 at 11:40 AM, treeofdreams said:

What I find interesting about the difference between YS Mary and BBT Mary is that by BBT  she has learned how to manage Sheldon instead of baby him - she has become a "Sheldon wrangler", as it were.  There were several episodes that highlighted this.

I've been wondering about this.  In the regular episode threads, there are a lot of complaints that Mary always gives Sheldon whatever he wants, she always gives in to him.  But in BBT she is the only one who can control him.  Is this just poor writing on Young Sheldon, or does something change?

[treeofdreams]

51 minutes ago, rmontro said:

I've been wondering about this.  In the regular episode threads, there are a lot of complaints that Mary always gives Sheldon whatever he wants, she always gives in to him.  But in BBT she is the only one who can control him.  Is this just poor writing on Young Sheldon, or does something change?

Perhaps it is becoming a single parent that made a difference.  Having to raise three children/teenagers on her own might have strained her patience enough that she changed, especially since now she had to pay more attention to all three of them, and didn't have George to  help out with the other two while she focused on Sheldon.

[SusanM]

1 hour ago, rmontro said:

Is this just poor writing on Young Sheldon, or does something change?

I speculated that it was the writers way of giving the George character a more positive spin then he got from the way he was referenced on BBT.  Making Mary a stronger parent who was more assured in her dealings with Sheldon would probably have happened if they'd wanted to keep giving us the "good old boy" George persona they'd built for him on BBT.