The death of Sheldon's (Iain Armitage) hero in Young Sheldon season 5 will have ramifications on The Big Bang Theory's established timeline. CBS has purposefully been vague about the exact setting of its hit prequel comedy. While there have been pop culture indicators, not to mention birthday celebrations, Young Sheldon season 5, episode 18 is the first time that it will specifically reveal when its events take place as it coincides with the death of Foundation author Isaac Asimov.
Young Sheldon season 5's storytelling has been diverse thus far. Each member of the Cooper family has had their own plotline, with George (Lance Barber) dealing with marital and professional woes while Mary (Zoe Perry) and Missy (Raegan Revord) have a crush on the same guy. Meemaw (Annie Potts) now runs a thriving business but is going through a break-up. Finally, Georgie's (Montana Jordan) life is about to be more difficult after learning that he accidentally impregnated his girlfriend. As for Sheldon, the genius has a great social life at East Texas Tech, but the death of a personal hero will take a toll on him.
After taking another break following its milestone 100th episode, Young Sheldon returns with Sheldon dealing with the death of Asimov, who was also a special hero for his late grandfather. But more than that, this means that The Big Bang Theory prequel is giving fans a specific date as to when this particular episode is taking place, since Asimov's demise is publicly known to be April 6, 1992. When asked how this affects the show's pacing moving forward, co-creator Steve Molaro told TVLine that they're conscious of what this means to the sitcom. But, he also pointed out that Young Sheldon has leeway when dealing with timelines since it's being told from adult Sheldon's (Jim Parsons) perspective in the present day. Read his full comment below:
“It’s very obvious when Asimov died. You can’t bend the truth on that one. We’re in 1992 and we’re always conscious of [what we reveal], but we try to keep it vague. If someone doesn’t need to say it, then we don’t. We don’t need to say the exact month or year that we’re in, but we’re also not shying away from it.
Because these are stories being told from a present-day storyteller that take place about 30 years ago, there’s a certain amount of leeway [that we have]. It’s not like Adult Sheldon has decided to sit down and tell us one story a week that happened exactly 30 years ago. So you can have a stretch of stories that all take place over one week. We can slow things down when we need to, but also honor some sort of realistic timeline.”
For context, since The Big Bang Theory regularly referenced Sheldon's childhood in Texas, the show had revealed certain events from the character's past its spin-off now has to tackle. Otherwise, Young Sheldon risks creating more plot inconsistencies between the shows. Arguably the most important ones from that are George's cheating scandal and eventual death. Per The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon caught his dad having sexual relations with another woman when he was 13 years old. They never got the chance to talk about it as the next year, the Cooper patriarch died. Based on Molaro's quote, Sheldon is already 12 years old in Young Sheldon season 5. That gives the show about two in-narrative years to develop and execute George's tragic fate.
While it's true that CBS can work around this by stretching out Young Sheldon's storytelling and slowing down its pacing, Molaro and his team have another problem. Young Sheldon's child cast is growing up. Both Armitage and Raegan already look older than their respective Big Bang Theory prequel characters, because they are. While they play 12-year-olds in the sitcom, they're 14 now in the real world. Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before they no longer pass as early tweens, which would force Young Sheldon to catch up through their storytelling.
Young Sheldon airs Thursdays on CBS.
Source: TVLine