I’ll be honest, I don’t actually like The Big Bang Theory series – mostly because I hate how the writers treat their own characters (and I am really disconcerted by Leonard, especially in recent episodes. He’s so skeezy). But my dad enjoys it and occasionally I’ll end up watching some episodes with him; the three that I ended up watching kind of squashed together in my head and I shook out this:
Penny Proton Season 2: Ep. 8 String Theory
Sheldon’s never been impressed by the reboot of the Professor Proton TV series, especially since the titular character isn’t even a professor! But there’s no way he’s going to reject being the scientific guest for the string theory episode.
Or, Penny makes a change, Sheldon takes a chance, and somehow they find love.
Sooooo, basically, maybe a year before the series starts, someone decides to reboot the Professor Proton series but decided that Arthur Jeffries is too old and unappealing to younger audiences. And, since they can just get a scientific consultant for the writers, they don’t need to have the new Professor Proton actually be a scientist themselves.
Enter, Penny – who decides, after the terrible serial killing gorilla horror movie that she’d rather do something that this isn’t going to get her fame so she’d rather have some self-respect – as the “daughter” of Professor Proton, exploring the world through science. And occasionally they have scientific guests when applicable, because… I said so.
Penny and Sheldon clash but not as badly as they do in canon – even if she’s not a scientist, she’s been acting as a scientist and that does give a new outlook on both sides. They’re a step closer to each other than they are in canon, and she’s nowhere near as unhappy (because she has a steady job which is fun, even if it’s not the glitz and glamour that she wanted), and Leonard doesn’t have that bullshit “dibs” (god, he’s soooo skeezy) so it’s easy for them to just kinda… click together.
I’m highly unlikely to write this (given my dislike of the show) but if I were, I’d want the following:
- Sheldon is a hilariously big hit (he basically is like a giant grumpy muppet) and becomes a recurring scientific guest – he knows enough about various fields that he can cover different topics.
- (Most of) the others also get tapped in to be scientific guests. In order to get over Raj’s “can’t talk to women” problem, the show uses puppets. Which is a thing because I said so. (In the same vein as Good Eats with Alton Brown on the Food Network Channel).
- Penny’s friends on the crew totally ship her with Sheldon (though some of them rare-pair ship her with Raj or Amy) and since most of them are also straddling that scientists-but-not line they do get along with the Big Bang crew.
- Arthur Jeffries occasionally makes cameos on the reboot (and he is also less depressed since he’s been reminded about how much good this show does even if it did cost him his career/marriage, and lately the show has become more respectable as a way to spread science knowledge to the masses. Fuck elitist scientists! This is the generation that grew up and were inspired by science on TV).
Basically, my brain saw so many problems in the episodes that I did watch that it was like… let me just solve these problems by nudging things slightly to the left or right and then I ended up with this. Also, I’ve been watching Star Talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson lately and Bill Nye is a frequent guest so…
Uh, here’s a fic rec because it’s the only TBBT fic I’ve ever enjoyed enough to reread: The Paladin Protocol by SpaceAnJL
JackSGreyson Says 