Review: Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, "Spoiler: Gary Dies" | Season 1, Episode 1

Welcome to our coverage of Stuart Fails the Save the Universe, which is certainly a maximalist spinoff of The Big Bang Theory if ever there was one. As always, this first review is free for all, but subsequent reviews will be exclusively for paid subscribers. Support the site and join the conversation.

A certain columnist for my local newspaper always seems to start his work by riffing on the futility of writing about his topic. What is the point of writing about Lucinda Williams at this historical juncture? How foolish am I for trying to saying anything about Kendrick Lamar? That kind of thing. This throat-clearing typically takes up all his first page column inches; he’d get to his subject sometime after the jump. As I’m sure you can imagine, I have a lot to say about The Big Bang Theory, sitcoms in the year of our Lord 2026, Chuck Lorre, and the like. But it seems especially inappropriate to pile that onto any one review of this unassuming little show, which gets in and out in under 30 minutes and wears its unpretentiousness on its sleeve. 

Of course, that very unpretentiousness could be construed as a defense against criticism. So please forgive me for announcing in advance: I’ve watched all of BBT and Young Sheldon, I’m generally a Chuck Lorre enjoyer (love Mom, like Dharma & Greg and George & Mandy, haven’t seen much of the other shows), and at first glance, Stuart has a good heart. I’m rooting for this plucky little … HBO show.

But I also need to announce in advance that the existence of this show raises many questions, and at least prospectively, wouldn't be worth covering simply because it's there. We're talking about it because it's simultaneously such a familiar and unpredictable thing, a stranger in a strange land, a castaway from the network shores salvaging bits and pieces of the sturdy craft that carried it so far. Can such a creature live? As the show unfolds, week by week, we'll try to chart some of that territory.

Our first episode both sets up the premise (Quantum Leap meets Legends of Tomorrow season 3) and take us through the first of the alternate realities we’ll be visiting, each spoofing a beloved geeky genre. This week it’s post-apocalyptic dystopia, complete with giant bugs, zombie hands clutching at unwitting passersby from underground, and a dictator surrounded by armed minions. Civilization collapsed at some point in the recent past, and Pasadena is now a Mad Max-esque wasteland, but Stuart’s comic book store is still open. Sure, an argument over whether a really good archer can be a superhero gets you stabbed and your body dumped in an interdimensional rift, but you can still get Batman #608 for just a few precious canned goods.

Turns out things weren’t supposed to be this way, and a glitchy alternate-universe Stuart visits to give his counterpart a quest: Reset the quantum thingy that the BBT crew unwisely invented, and set things right. Our heroes set off for CalTech through the makeshift bazaar that has sprung up in the shadow of the Rose Bowl, where they run into Stuart’s ex Denise, now hanging with buff bandit and ex army dude Gary. (No worries—we know from the episode title what happens to him.) Their efforts to gain access to the armed compound of CalTech by clinging to the underside of entering trucks go south immediately, of course, and the captured invaders are imprisoned in Bert’s old geology lab with Raj, who has figured out what’s happening and written down instructions for resetting the machine. They also meet the Grand Caliph of San Bernadino, a medal-bedecked Barry Kripke, who exploited the power vacuum left by the collapse of civilization to create a world where he gets girls. And he’d like to add Denise to his harem. If only the rebels could get to the dimension resetting machine!

Having earlier deprived us of an exciting stealth action sequence to enter the fortress, the show now gives us a bona-fide slow-motion combat sequence set to the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” (a needle drop I will never complain about). Bert creates grenades by putting potassium and water in two-chamber bottles, and the boys rip out the separator and lob them at Kripke’s storm troopers, striking super-cool poses all the while. What they accomplish with explosives, Denise matches with guile, first chatting up her captor (turns out she’s heard of his gut-focused wellness podcast) and then pummeling Kripke with a computer keyboard after cajoling him to untie her. Unfortunately (and one gets the feeling much of the SFTSTU experience will be like reading this childhood favorite), Kripke shoots Raj who succumbs before he can help reset the machine, leaving Denise and Stuart to follow his densely-scribbed cartoons while Bert grapples with Kripke. When the machine comes to life, the three surviving men are zapped away, and Denise is left behind, crouching behind a table. 

After a teaser for next week—sure seems like Pasadena has been restored and even improved, but those green lights in the back of their necks hint at some sort of Matrix situation—we get to the real heart of the matter: An MST3K-style closing credits sequence, pushing forward through the innards of the quantum machine, passing through doors and fields, full of sparks and chips. The mad scientists pulling the strings of the show are going to put these characters through the gauntlet of sci-fi tropes and subgenres, and they will be our surrogates in snark and scenario-solving. That’s the kind of show this is.

So how should we judge whether it succeeds? As a sitcom with a season arc, SFTSTU also has an ongoing story—judging by episode 1, putting the world aright and finding Denise in the various realities. I have a soft spot for Stuart, who is perhaps my favorite BBT side character, mostly for Kevin Sussman’s comic performance. He’s a sad sack, self-aware, unassuming. They couldn’t have picked a better character for me to be invested in his emotional well-being. His anxiety about Denise here at the end of episode 1 hits hard; “can’t lose her again,” he mutters to no one in particular, and that perfectly expresses the crushing anxiety of a second chance.

But I have to imagine that for most viewers, the quality assessment will focus on clever riffs and nerdy references. And while I wouldn’t say this is super-funny, it is at least amiable, and got better for me on second viewing. People who are used to Lorre’s laugh-track shows might have a hard time adjusting to the rhythm, but for me, the little reaction shots (Bert’s thumbs-ups as Stuart makes optimistic overtures to Denise, Stuart’s eyeroll when Bert opines on how kosher cannibalism might work) are deployed with assured timing. The throwaway lines are better than the big setups, but the only really big swing is the “Sabotage” sequence, and that works great. 

I’m not going into the remaining episodes expecting greatness. I expect unevenness with the trope-of-the-week format. (MST3K was uneven, too.) But I do hope for some surprises and some imagination. And if they turn out to be thin on the ground some weeks—well, none of these episodes is going to steal more than 25 minutes of your one wild and precious life. But as long as we're at it, we'll dig into those larger questions—about BBT as a cultural force and critical punching bag, about the images and tropes in which it trades, about the zombie afterlives of these "classic" properties, about the possibilities for television comedy right now. Let's meet back here next week, and see what happens.

Stray observations

• YMMV, but I think John Ross Bowie is pretty neat. (This is residual goodwill from my beloved Speechless.) I’m glad Kripke is along for the full series ride. Best lines: “Twoubadours sing of my mewcy”; “Wats, my weign is ended.”
• I wonder how much more Stuart backstory the series will drop. For instance, we learn that he has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and was surprised how much he enjoyed Celine Dion in Vegas.
• Guest stars and cameos will undoubtedly be thick on the ground as we go forward. This week: Penn and Teller at the Rose Bowl bazaar, where Penn juggles mutant critters (two is easy, but try adding a third), and Teller passes the hat.
• Batman #608 (October 2002) is the first issue in the “Hush” arc, written by Jeph Loeb with pencils by Jim Lee. It’s selling at $10-15 currently, if you’re wondering about the Fancy Feast exchange rate.
• Stuart tells Raj that his alternate universe said he was the Chosen One. Well, he didn’t use those exact words, but “he implied chosen.” (Bert: “I did not get that at all.”)
• “Sorry, I’m covered with people.”