We see it over and over again. While Emmy nominations are split between comedies, dramas and limited series, there’s certainly a lot more prestige attached to the dramas in the bunch. That’s true now, and it was true when Mayim Bialik was portraying Amy Farrah Fowler in Chuck Lorre’s popular series The Big Bang Theory. It took real work to portray those characters, but the actress recently confirmed more than one big show got the “oh that’s cute” treatment when it came to critical acclaim.
The Big Bang Theory was on the air from 2007- 2019, which meant it overlapped with some seminal comedies. For most of its run, its main competitor was doubtless Modern Family. The mockumentary sitcom on ABC had a similarly length run between 2009-2020, and the two shows were often compared. One thing they had in common? Mayim Bialik recently said on The Big Bang Theory podcast they weren’t getting real love for the insane effort comedies take.
When you think about the shows we were up against, we were up against Modern Family, and this was a time when sitcom was still kind of like, ‘Oh it’s a sitcom and that’s fun. And the fans love it.’ But in terms of critical acclaim there really was still a lot of conversation around that time.
In a lot of ways, comedy is significantly harder to do than drama. The improv is not something every actor is capable of (even if Parks and Rec's Chris Pratt makes breaking stuff look easy and hilarious) and bringing heart to a show like Modern Family or The Big Bang Theory while still keeping the audience laughing is a delicate balance. It’s one Bialik firmly believes she was born and bred into, whether or not her work has gotten the acclaim it deserves.
What gets critical acclaim? Is this JUST a sitcom and things like that. But I believe in the art; I believe in Chuck Lorre. I was raised on sitcom. That’s like Blossom. That was my life. So this format, it’s very special.
Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note The Big Bang Theory and its cast did land awards nominations during its tenure on the air, The Emmys included. Also Bialik herself won several Critics Choice Awards, and Online Film and Television Association Awards. She was additionally nominated for her work at the Emmys and at the SAG Awards, but particularly in later seasons the show fell off consideration.
At one point CBS' Kelly Kahl even called out the TV Academy for not having enough "respect" for the sitcom, which ultimately became the longest-running multi-cam series in TV history.
I think the heart of what Bialik is saying here remains true. Even shows like The Office or Seinfeld struggle when compared to prestige dramas like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. You can be the best or most popular sitcom on the air at a given time and you probably won't get nearly as much critical attention as a reasonably good drama or dramedy on network or cable. Just look at Game of Thrones. The last season of that show was not well-received, and it still landed more nods than any other season.
I think this probably has to do with the format network TV has to live within, and the general misunderstanding that dramas --particularly cable dramas-- are better TV simply because they are dark or live in a moral grey area.
To me, Chuck Lorre's comedy is an art form, and it's not easy to execute, much less find a combination that can last on the airwaves for a decade plus. It's only gotten harder in the current TV landscape, as Bialik's co-star Kaley Cuoco has noted. A good sitcom is hard to find these days, and I think that's why people keep gravitating back to the classics. I just wish we'd recognized how good we had it at the time.
