The Big Bang Theory's Sequel Stands For Everything The Original Show Didn't

Published Sep 29, 2026, 2:00 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While The Big Bang Theory succeeded precisely because the show was a throwback to traditional multi-camera network sitcoms, its HBOMax streaming sequel became a hit thanks to its fresh and innovative take on the genre. Sitcoms have been a staple of US network TV programming since the medium first rose to prominence. Early shows like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best shaped the sitcom genre, but sitcoms have always been in flux, reinventing themselves with every new decade. After the success of the lighthearted, family-oriented shows mentioned above, a comedy series inspired by ABC’s brutally tragic war drama Conflict sounded like an absurdly unlikely proposition. However, the resulting show, MASH, soon became the single most-watched network sitcom in TV history, and one of the most influential. Similarly, after family sitcoms like The Cosby Show, Family Matters, and Full House dominated TV listings in the ‘80s, the ‘90s brought a slew of hangout shows starring single young professionals like Friends and Seinfeld. These shows were shaped by the success of Cheers, and they went on to shape ‘00s hits like How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. While The Big Bang Theory’s first spinoff Young Sheldon dropped the hangout show setup in favor of a return to a warmer, more nostalgic family sitcom format, its HBOMax spinoff proved that the sitcom format is still innovating well into the 2020s. 2026's series Stuart Fails To Save The Universe is the polar opposite of the original show, but this is a surprisingly good thing for the comedy. Stuart Fails To Save The Universe Is The Antithesis Of The Big Bang Theory Image courtesy of MovieStillsDb Ambitious, absurd, and quite literally existential in its stakes, Stuart Fails To Save The Universe could not be a bigger departure from The Big Bang Theory in terms of tone, story, and style. Kevin Sussman’s title character, Stuart, is a perpetually unlucky comic book store proprietor. Viewers will recall him as an ancillary member of the Pasadena gang in The Big Bang Theory, never quite as close as Raj. Amy, Bernadette, Penny, Sheldon and Leonard, but always present in their social circle. In Stuart Fails To Save The Universe’s story, this side character is thrust into a main role when his mishandling of a device Sheldon and Leonard invented accidentally triggers a universe-wide apocalypse. Luckily, this isn’t a multiverse-wide extinction event, meaning Stuart and his accomplices, fellow Big Bang Theory alumni Kripke, Bert, and Denise, can hop from one reality to another in search of a way to undo the destruction of their universe. If that rundown all sounds very high concept and far-fetched, that’s because it is. With a big budget, plentiful visual effects, and an unapologetically ambitious central conceit, Stuart Fails To Save The Universe owes as much to sci-fi adventure shows like Fallout or Arcane as it does to The Big Bang Theory. Yes, the show remains a character comedy that features plenty of lowbrow laughs, but the scope of its story and nature of its humor is different. Stuart Fails To Save The Universe Shows An Ambition The Big Bang Theory Rarely Did HBO Max It’s ironic that The Big Bang Theory embraced nerd culture so wholeheartedly, featuring plentiful references to Game of Thrones, the Marvel universe, and sci-fi franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars, when the show itself could not have been less similar to these properties. Consistently, The Big Bang Theory prioritized simple, low-stakes storylines and character-centric writing over complex lore and spawning, epic plots. The very fact that the show made a running joke out of its very limited number of locations proves that The Big Bang Theory was a classic traditional network sitcom, whereas Stuart Fails To Save The Universe could not be more different. Like the earlier cult hit Rick and Morty, Stuart Fails To Save The Universe introduces entire new worlds and realities in each episode, telling ambitious, complex stories that rely on viewers having a passing familiarity with the sci-fi genre, unlike The Big Bang Theory’s more modest ambitions. Release Date 2007 - 2019-00-00 Network CBS Showrunner Mark Cendrowski