Entertainment
With 832.7M Hours Watched, This Sitcom Spin-Off Is the Greatest Weekend Streaming Binge
For every successful sitcom, there’s a attempt to make a spinoff of said sitcom. Friends led to the ill-fated Joey. How I Met Your Mother eventually gave birth to How I Met Your Father, which deserved far better than it got. Cheers was one of the rare success stories, launching three different spinoffs including Frasier. A recent sitcom, Young Sheldon, proves that sitcom spinoffs can still be a major draw. Young Sheldon drew in 832.7 million hours of viewing in 2025, per FlixPatrol; that’s a truly impressive feat that speaks to the popularity of the series and its parent show, The Big Bang Theory.
Young Sheldon, true to its name, focuses on the younger years of Big Bang Theory‘s breakout character, Sheldon Cooper (Iain Armitage). Sheldon’s status as a child prodigy often brings him into conflict with his family and others, as he struggles to figure out his place in the world. This often leads to humorous moments, but also some truly heartwrenching ones that make Young Sheldon more than an extension of The Big Bang Theory.
‘Young Sheldon’ Expands Upon ‘The Big Bang Theory’ In Surprising Ways
One of the biggest draws of Young Sheldon is how it explores the different dynamics within the Cooper family. Sheldon often butts heads with his mother, Mary (Zoe Perry): this is mostly due to the fact that she’s a devout Baptist, while he’s an atheist. There’s also Sheldon’s conflicts with his older brother Georgie (Montana Jordan) and his twin sister Missy (Raegan Revord), as they both resent the attention Sheldon gets for his intellect. Yet there are also some heartwarming moments: Sheldon connects with his father and grandmother, even if they don’t understand everything he talks about, and has a rivalry turned friendship with fellow child prodigy Paige Swanson (McKenna Grace). While The Big Bang Theory often played off Sheldon’s relationship with his family as mere jokes, Young Sheldon dug deep into their dysfunction and was all the better for it.
Throughout Young Sheldon, episodes would feature narration from Jim Parsons as the adult Sheldon reflecting on his past life. It wasn’t until the series finale “Memoir” that audiences learned the truth: the entire series is Sheldon narrating his own memoir. Executive producer Steve Holland hinted that this was part of the series from the beginning, as it would allow Sheldon to come to terms with his family.
“That’s also maybe some way of Sheldon dealing with his grief about his dad as a young adult is to focus on the bad things. But now that he’s older and has kids of his own, he realizes how unfair he’s been to his dad over the years. So that’s a little bit of the conception of the show — that older Sheldon with kids is looking back on his family in a slightly different light than he did in his early twenties.”
Thanks to ‘Young Sheldon’, More ‘Big Bang Theory’ Spinoffs Came to Life
‘The Big Bang Theory’s Saddest Episode Is Also One of the Sitcom’s Best
Howard leaned on his friends when he needed them most.
‘Young Sheldon’ Launched a Fleet of ‘Big Bang Theory’ Spinoffs
Young Sheldon isn’t the only time that the world of The Big Bang Theory has expanded. In Seasons 6 and 7, Georgie ends up meeting forecaster Mandy McAllister (Emily Osment) and having a baby with her; the two eventually end up marrying each other. This led to Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage, which chronicles the ups and downs of its titular couple. Like Young Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory, Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage has become a ratings success, and a third season is on the way.
Another Big Bang Theory spinoff is set to debut later this year on HBO Max with Stuart Fails to Save The Universe, which has arguably the most bonkers plot of any series set in this world. Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman), the hapless comic book store clerk who runs the Comic Center where Sheldon and his friends frequent, apparently triggers a universal apocalypse when he breaks one of Sheldon’s inventions. Young Sheldon is worth firing up this weekend, as it proves that sitcoms can find new life in spinoffs.
- Release Date
-
2017 – 2024-00-00
-
Iain Armitage
Sheldon Cooper
-
