What’s the biggest sign you’ve got yourself a hit?
Well, there’s syndication. There’s DVD sales. And there’s anchoring your own new comedy night, which is where The Big Bang Theory finds itself with the new fall season.
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What was once a quirky Monday hit on CBS (DISH 243) is now a cultural juggernaut which CBS has seen worthy of transplanting to later in the week. Formerly part of a solid lineup which included Two and a Half Men and, more tenuously, Rules of Engagement, the network head honchos are using the fertile soil of an Emmy- winning season to help launch… The Shat.
For a person so connected with comedy, it’s surprising to learn that William Shatner has not yet played in a sitcom. So he’s decided to start with, of all things, one based on a Twitter feed and then an insta- book, $#*! My Dad Says. CBS has decided to use a show based on sci- fi obsessed physicists to establish the most world- famous object of geek fetish obsession in the history of history.
The great irony is that Thursday night comedy was always NBC’s territory; it was Cosby and Cheers and Friends and Seinfeld, one cultural marker after another. Now that the network is simply struggling to avoid a late- night implosion, CBS sees its opportunity to plant its flag on a night owned by the competition for generations.
But CBS is no stranger to comedy– this is, after all, the original home of The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, and Murphy Brown. Now a network on the rise, it actually had the choice between Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory to use as new- comedy graft. But with Charlie Sheen- related problems and, well, the fact that the half a man now has a driver’s license, the sun is setting on the Malibu beach house, and just beginning to reach full zenith above Dork Central. And with that comes introduction responsibilities.
