I'm giving this series a 5 out of 10, but that's not because I don't like it. Quite the contrary: I find the setting and characters to be reasonably creative and the acting is usually quite on-point. No, what bothers me is the fact that this show's humour seems to only come in two forms: great and absolutely horrendous. Almost all the 'jokes' are passive-aggressive jabs by the characters towards each other or lame slapstick. Not that I'm against slapstick or anything, but in certain forms, and if it's repetitive like it is in this show, it gets on my nerves.
But what makes the humour so terrible at times are not the jokes themselves, but rather the unbelievably cringy laughter that they put over it. They put it over everything, even if the pointe of the joke hasn't been said yet. As soon as a character says or does something remotely unusual, they play that dumb laughing audio track over it. Because of this, I have a strong tendency not to laugh, and that's not what a comedy series should be doing. The jokes and their delivery should make me laugh, not the fact that there is audio of other people laughing.
That being said, oftentimes the humour is quite good. Albeit, most funny jokes involve the indisputably best character Sheldon, but from time to time Howard will say something very amusing, and his deep, 'fake-flirtatious' voice makes it even better. This brings me to arguably the funniest thing on the show: Howard and his mother. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at a sitcom as during the scenes where Howard and his mother 'talk'. Not only is the voice of his mother perfect, but the fact that they never show her adds to it because of the power of imagination. We simply have no idea what she looks like and only have Howard's horrible descriptions of her to go on, which conjures up very disturbing and in turn hilarious images.
I'd like to add some more things I disapprove of. Raj was funny at first, but it really feels like his behaviour is painfully repetitive, and it gets annoying because you almost always know what he's going to say which in turn means I rarely laugh at anything he says. The other thing is Leonard. I don't know if this was deliberate, but he is so f*cking cringy that it's really hard to watch at times. Obviously this was probably intentional, but it's still quite annoying.
All in all, the show has its merits, but ultimately fails in a lot of departments and could be a lot better if they cut down on the unfunny slapstick, repetitive jokes and autistic laughing audio track.
But what makes the humour so terrible at times are not the jokes themselves, but rather the unbelievably cringy laughter that they put over it. They put it over everything, even if the pointe of the joke hasn't been said yet. As soon as a character says or does something remotely unusual, they play that dumb laughing audio track over it. Because of this, I have a strong tendency not to laugh, and that's not what a comedy series should be doing. The jokes and their delivery should make me laugh, not the fact that there is audio of other people laughing.
That being said, oftentimes the humour is quite good. Albeit, most funny jokes involve the indisputably best character Sheldon, but from time to time Howard will say something very amusing, and his deep, 'fake-flirtatious' voice makes it even better. This brings me to arguably the funniest thing on the show: Howard and his mother. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at a sitcom as during the scenes where Howard and his mother 'talk'. Not only is the voice of his mother perfect, but the fact that they never show her adds to it because of the power of imagination. We simply have no idea what she looks like and only have Howard's horrible descriptions of her to go on, which conjures up very disturbing and in turn hilarious images.
I'd like to add some more things I disapprove of. Raj was funny at first, but it really feels like his behaviour is painfully repetitive, and it gets annoying because you almost always know what he's going to say which in turn means I rarely laugh at anything he says. The other thing is Leonard. I don't know if this was deliberate, but he is so f*cking cringy that it's really hard to watch at times. Obviously this was probably intentional, but it's still quite annoying.
All in all, the show has its merits, but ultimately fails in a lot of departments and could be a lot better if they cut down on the unfunny slapstick, repetitive jokes and autistic laughing audio track.