Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | July 24, 2026
I have very limited knowledge of The Big Bang Theory — I’ve seen maybe two episodes in my life, and I’ve never seen more than a few seconds of the spin-offs, Young Sheldon and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage. I have a deeply held bias against this universe, because what I have seen of The Big Bang Theory suggests it mocks nerds using stereotypes instead of celebrating them like, say, Community does. I have so much animosity toward The Big Bang Theory that, while I will let my teenage daughters watch Off Campus or almost any R-rated horror movie, I refuse to allow them to watch Young Sheldon. You have to draw a line, people!
The point is, I barely know anything about the universe, which probably makes me the wrong candidate to review HBO’s new spin-off, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe. But I kind of assumed that because it’s an HBO show, prior knowledge is not required.
I think I’m a little bit right and a little bit wrong. The pilot frontloads enough exposition that it’s not terribly difficult to figure out. Stuart, who owns a comic-book shop in The Big Bang Theory, also owns a comic-book shop in Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, only it’s set in an alternate apocalyptic dimension where there are giant moths that eat people, there are beggars and thieves, and Stuart trades comic books with his best friend, Bert (Brian Posehn), for cans of soup and creamed corn.
He soon learns from another character in the Big Bang Theory universe that the more famous characters in The Big Bang Theory created some sort of machine that opened up a number of parallel universes, and that Stuart and Bert have to find this machine and do something to it in order to set things right. And that’s the premise, except that it appears Stuart and Bert will be bouncing around different universes throughout the series in order to fix it, and will probably repeatedly fail until someone decides it’s time to end the show.
That, I understand. I have less understanding of the various characters (many of whom I assume are minor) who populate these different timelines, though they are broad caricatures and it’s fairly easy to catch up. But I will say this: Those broad caricatures actually work better in these alternate dimensions, because it feels less like a Big Bang Theory-style laugh-track sitcom and more like a … stoner comedy. Not a great one, mind you. But a watchable one.
People are killed in cartoonish fashion, and Stuart and Bert take it in stride. The villain is a character from the sitcom who I assume is just the really annoying character, because he’s the really annoying character in this one, too (his name is Barry Kripke, played by John Ross Bowie). Lauren Lapkus plays Denise, the love interest, and I appreciate that she’s probably being paid handsomely. The stakes ultimately aren’t particularly high, because even though these characters often die in one universe, I suspect they still exist in others. And no one, it seems, is in a particular hurry to save anything.
So, I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it, either. It’s a little too in love with itself, it winks at the camera way too often, and the characters — as is the case in The Big Bang Theory — aren’t really people. They’re cartoons. But in something like a stoner comedy, that feels less detrimental. Kevin Sussman has been playing Stuart as a sad-sack punchline for close to two decades, and there’s something almost poignant about watching him finally get handed a protagonist’s arc, even if the show keeps yanking it away from him before he can do much with it. He’s got a hangdog decency that survives the multiverse gimmickry, and when the series works, it’s usually because he and Posehn are just riffing at each other in a wrecked comic shop while the world ends outside.
Whether that’s enough to sustain a season, I don’t know. I’m not sure the show knows, either. I’ll keep watching for now, but I still won’t let my daughters watch it.
