The Big Bang Theory without Penny? Here's what the series would have been like... and you would have hated it!

An episode has already shown us what Sheldon and Leonard's life would have been like if their neighbor had never arrived

Image Credit: CBS

The Big Bang Theory, the popular CBS sitcom starring Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki, focuses on the daily lives of a group of young scientists who are passionate about nerd culture. Initially, their world is limited to their interests such as video games comics, and scientific research, but things change with the arrival of their charming and outgoing neighbor Penny, who is their exact opposite and has an intense social life. But what would have happened if Penny had never arrived in Sheldon and Leonard's lives? In fact, The Big Bang Theory answers this question through a character who appears in the seventh episode of the eighth season, Dr. Lorvis (Billy Bob Thornton). 

The man knows Penny for work reasons, but he misunderstands her kind attitude and is convinced that the girl is flirting with him. So, he shows up at her house with a bouquet of flowers to court her, only to discover with great dismay that she is already engaged to Leonard. Determined to win Penny over, the doctor begins to behave in a decidedly annoying and almost stalker-like manner, even going so far as to deceitfully lock Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj in his basement to have free rein with the girl. Not content, he also turns his "attention" to Amy and Bernadette, revealing himself as a person who harasses any woman who comes within range.

During the episode, it quickly becomes clear that this character actually reflects the main flaws of the protagonists of The Big Bang Theory, but exalted to the maximum power: for example, he is convinced that any woman who is nice to him is actually attracted to him, like Howard, he is socially awkward and falls in love easily like Raj and with Penny he shows an obsessiveness equal to that of Leonard. In short, in this ironic way (but, let's admit it, also a little disturbing), the authors of the series wanted to somehow show the audience what could have happened if Penny had never arrived in the lives of the kids.

Although he is a comical character, in fact, Lorvis is an example of the degeneration of all the negative traits, misogynistic behaviors, and prejudices that the protagonists had in the first episodes of The Big Bang Theory, which were then mitigated by the presence of the new neighbor. In fact, it was precisely the friendship with Penny that allowed them to "get out of the bubble" in which they had closed themselves and reflected on their problematic behaviors. All the characters eventually had the chance to grow, without completely forgetting the comical traits that made them so beloved by fans. It is easy to imagine that, if Penny had never arrived, they would have become just like Dr. Lorvis.

Source: Screen Rant