How old is new Sheldon Cooper in episode 1 compared to the series finale?

Time works funny on TV. With serialized dramas like “Lost” running entire seasons in just a few weeks, it was the writers struggle to figure out how to keep their main child actorknowing that he could hit his growth spurt at any moment. Weekly sitcoms are simpler because they usually take place in real time and the characters experience the changing of the seasons with the viewers at home. This allows children to age naturally on screen, even if it still feels too fast for comfort. (For example, Carl and Debbie in the movie “Shameless” went from innocent children to teenagers in the blink of an eye.)

While the early seasons of “Young Sheldon” followed the easy pace of a regular sitcom, with its child characters aging a year with each season, it changed things up in later seasons. Suddenly, the writers started extending the timeline so that Sheldon would stay 13 and 14 years old longer than usual. The result is that Sheldon begins the series as a 9-year-old (about the same age as actor Iain Armitage) and ends with Sheldon at 14 (although Armitage was now 16).

The reason they did this is because the “Young Sheldon” at the core of The Big Bang Theory's legacy had a clear expiration date from day one. The producers and writers always knew that George Sr. (Lance Barber) he was to die when Sheldon was 14 years oldand they knew that Sheldon would be transferring to Caltech when he was 14, too. The writers knew the series couldn't continue with Sheldon separated from his family and George Sr. living six feet under, so they delayed those canon events. as long as possible. Honestly, it's hard to argue with the results since Sheldon and Missy's (Raigan Revord) cast still managed 14 in Season 7. At least it's not something that requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.

Of course, “Young Sheldon” was just following in the tradition of many other sitcoms that got messed up over time, often to the point of absurdity. “That '70s Show” somehow managed to stretch the last four years of the '70s into eight seasons, to the point where the gang celebrated Christmas too often for it to make sense. A generation earlier, the hit series “M*A*S*H” spanned the three-year Korean War over 11 seasons, inviting viewers to assume that the war was so intense that it aged some of its main characters. three times faster than a normal person.

In addition, there are animated comedies that do not need to age the characters at all. Bart Simpson has been trying to get out of the fourth grade for 36 years at this point (though he recently turned 11 in the show's 36th season premiere), just like Stevie Griffin (who is technically my age, born in '98) is destined to be a baby forever. Animated comedies tend to embrace the floating timeline style, which leads to awkward moments where the characters' stories are constantly being updated to fit the times. This is how Homer Simpson, who started out as a baby boomer, is now a millennial, teen flashbacks show him behaving like a 90s kid.

Although not a comedy, “Stranger Things” is perhaps the best modern example of a television show fighting hard to fight the ravages of time. These child actors have aged nearly nine years entering season five, even though the characters themselves (many of whom hadn't yet hit puberty in season 1) are only about four years old. The show seems to be dealing with this a bit with its own fifth and final seasonwhich is supposed to be set 18 months after season 4, but the awkwardness is still impossible to ignore. “Stranger Things” is still a fun show, but because its long production times clash so closely with the canonical timeline, it makes it a lot easier to appreciate “Young Sheldon” for its consistent annual schedule. The Big Bang Theory spin-off may have been a little weak with its timeline in recent years, but it could have been a lot worse in this regard.