Review: Stuart Fails To Save the Universe, "Spoiler: We Couldn't Get Green Lantern" | Season 1, Episode 9

The Big Bang Theory regularly gets slagged for “nerd minstrelsy”—trotting out offensive stereotypes of geek culture to be mocked, flattering its lowbrow audience that they’re better than these misfits. I watched the whole run of the series, and while the premise has those elements, something that lasts that long has to grow, and in growing, deepen the concept and the characterizations. The culture has come a long way, too, with “comics-obsessive” no longer reading automatically as “stunted adolescent” and “can’t get a girlfriend.” So now that we’ve reached the comics-verse where (it seems obvious in retrospect) we’ve always been headed, SFTSTU is going to show us its true colors. What do comics mean in a show where the sad-sack protagonist is marked as a loser for owning a comic-book store?

The answer is: Comics mean joy. Finally Stuart is in his element. Here problems can’t be solved with science or engineering. Conversely, someone who knows that they’re in the DC universe, which means the Flash can help, which means they have to get to Central City, is exactly the man for the job. But it’s not just that Stuart gets to be competent. It’s that he gets to be the protagonist the alternate-universe versions of himself have been insisting he become. He’s the hero. And for the first time, he’s enjoying himself.