Season one or two are actually pretty decent. As the show continued, it doubled down on the minor stereotypical qualities of each character and made that feature their entire personality. It’s a pretty normal outcome for any television show, particular across comedy and sitcoms, when the qualities in question are “has autism/aspbergers” and “doesn’t know how to treat people like they’re human”, it quickly becomes a show focused on punching down. Before long, the plot breaks down to the more socially competent characters “fixing” nerds and nerd culture as it continually reinforces the stereotypes that the first couple seasons, sure, poked fun at, but in equal measure challenged the validity of.
At some point the show stopped being a comedy about nerd culture and shifted to actively mocking, not even nerd culture, but the entire culture around academics and intellectualism. It shifted to bullying, validated on your television screen, by showing you time and time again how horrible these socially awkward nerds are, and how difficult they make life for others.
And after all that it is full circle back into no, they didn’t challenge the validity, they abused the tropes so s thoroughly that it became known as one of the worst shows in history
Glad someone said it.
Season one or two are actually pretty decent. As the show continued, it doubled down on the minor stereotypical qualities of each character and made that feature their entire personality. It’s a pretty normal outcome for any television show, particular across comedy and sitcoms, when the qualities in question are “has autism/aspbergers” and “doesn’t know how to treat people like they’re human”, it quickly becomes a show focused on punching down. Before long, the plot breaks down to the more socially competent characters “fixing” nerds and nerd culture as it continually reinforces the stereotypes that the first couple seasons, sure, poked fun at, but in equal measure challenged the validity of.
At some point the show stopped being a comedy about nerd culture and shifted to actively mocking, not even nerd culture, but the entire culture around academics and intellectualism. It shifted to bullying, validated on your television screen, by showing you time and time again how horrible these socially awkward nerds are, and how difficult they make life for others.
And after all that it is full circle back into no, they didn’t challenge the validity, they abused the tropes so s thoroughly that it became known as one of the worst shows in history