The Big Bang Theory started out with a core group of main characters comprising of Leonard, his friends, and next-door neighbor Penny. The show chugged along while focusing mainly on those characters for several seasons, but as Leonard and his friends, thanks to Penny, started taking an interest in the world outside of video games and comic books, the series started including more and more supporting characters to add variety to the plot.
Many of these characters were great, but sometimes they didn't get as much screen time as they deserved. Here are 10 such supporting characters that deserved more time onscreen than what we ultimately got to see.
Stephanie Barnette
One of the first girlfriends Leonard had, and dare we say it, his best yet, including Penny. Leonard has always been an insecure guy, and his relationship with Penny was a roller coaster ride of believing himself unworthy of her, to agonizing over her dating other men, to their long rocky road to marriage, to their subsequent domestic life where Penny routinely belittles and orders Leonard around, something that gets frequently joked about.
Stephanie, on the other hand, was a sweet and caring girlfriend who struggled with her own self-esteem issues. She was very understanding of Leonard and Penny's friendship and was willing to talk about the issues between herself and Leonard in an effort to solve them and make their romance work. In a lot of ways, Stephanie-Leonard was the best example of what a mature relationship looks like.
Lucy
Raj always got the short end of the stick when it came to romance, despite being rich, smart, and deeply in touch with his feminine side. Raj's main problem was his issues with anxiety when it came to dating, and in Lucy, he finally found a woman who was just as insecure and anxiety-ridden as himself.
Lucy and Raj showed a lot of promise, because they understood each other's anxieties better than others. Both could have helped the other become less nervous in groups, and developed a relationship based on mutual understanding and care. instead, Lucy just gave up on Raj midway, and Raj went back to being alone and miserable.
Emily Sweeney
If Lucy was good for Raj because she understood his issues with anxiety, Emily was good for him because she was strong enough for both of them. Emily was beautiful, smart, successful at her job, and with her own weird interests in death and cutting that she was secure enough to share with others.
In a lot of ways, Emily was actually out of Raj's league, and yet she still cared about him, and was a loving and supportive girlfriend. Being with her would have made Raj more confident and happy, and yet once again, a relationship that was shaping up into something special was cut short when Emily abruptly exited the show.
David Gibbs
David was a guy Amy briefly dated after breaking up with Sheldon, and he was quite possibly the nicest character on the show. He spoke about his relationship with his ex not with any bitterness, but only with loving regret.
He was a huge fan of Leonard and Sheldon, and instead of getting angry at Sheldon crashing his date with Amy, David was giddy with joy at meeting his idol, and actually encouraged Amy to get back together with him. The show needed more of David's cheerfully understanding nature.
Leslie Winkle
Leslie was the closest thing to a female nerd the show has ever offered, and her scenes of intellectual superiority over an infuriated Sheldon were some of the highlights of early seasons.
Leslie was a popular character for a time, and she was even promoted to series regular for a bit. But then her appearances grew more and more sporadic until she basically dropped off the map, and we only got to see her again for one-off scenes, like as a guest at a wedding or working at Caltech.
Alex Jensen
Sheldon's assistant-turned-Penny's nemesis was a cute, intelligent Caltech student who hit on Leonard and earned Penny's wrath, as well as Sheldon's mild annoyance. But apart from that incident, Alex was part of a very important storyline. After Sheldon made inappropriate comments regarding Alex's body, she filed a workplace harassment complaint against him.
It was one of the very few times that Sheldon's habit of saying inappropriate things was not swept under the rug by the others or dismissed as part of his quirky charm. Instead, the incident was a real opportunity for Sheldon to grow as a person and curb his extra-frank nature. But then the whole arc was brushed off unceremoniously, and Alex was rarely seen again.
Althea
There are significantly few people of color in the cast of the show. Althea was a nurse who made occasional appearances as Leonard and Sheldon's exasperated contact at the hospital.
She was smart, sassy and practical, and a part of one of the funniest scenes in the entire show, when she helped Howard deal with the robotic arm that had a vice-like grip on his nether regions. We would have loved to see more of her.
Melissa "Missy" Cooper
As we have seen from the spinoff Young Sheldon, Missy and Sheldon had a much closer relationship than the original show let on. So it makes sense that as adults, the two would also have a more significant bond than we got to see.
Grown-up Missy is a beautiful and confident young woman who has her own unique way of handling Sheldon, and she takes no guff from her brilliant twin. She brings out a side of Sheldon we would have liked to have seen more of.
Stephen Hawking
There have been a lot of celebs playing themselves on the show, and Stephen Hawking tops the list, as a real-world science celebrity who made infrequent appearances as one of Sheldon's idols with a surprisingly sassy side to his nature.
It would have been cool to see the gang join forces with Hawking on a project and compete with each other to win his approval while he pokes fun at their antics.
Mrs. Wolowitz
We heard Howard's mother plenty of times, but we never got to see her, save for a brief overhead shot during Howard and Bernadette's wedding. And then the actress who voiced the character passed away, and we never got to put a face to the voice that managed to be one of the funniest parts of the show without once being visible.
We wonder if the showrunners ever intended to show the face of Mrs. Wolowitz before the actress's untimely demise.