Season 1
The Big Bang Theory is an American situation comedy created and executive produced by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady and centered on five characters living in Pasadena, California: roommates Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper, both physicists; Penny, a waitress and aspiring actress who lives across the hall; and Leonard and Sheldon's equally geeky and socially awkward friends and co-workers, mechanical engineer Howard Wolowitz and astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali.
Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon (Jim Parsons) are brilliant physicists, the kind of "beautiful minds" that understand how the universe works. Wizards in the laboratory, but socially inept outside of it, none of their genius helps them interact with people, especially women.
All this begins to change when a beautiful, free-spirited beauty named Penny (Kaley Cuoco) moves in next door, who aims to teach them a thing or two about life.
Sheldon, Leonard's roommate, is quite content playing Star Trek 3D chess or Klingon Boggle with their ever-expanding universe of socially dysfunctional friends, including fellow Caltech scientists Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) and more.
However, Leonard sees in Penny a whole new universe of possibilities... including love.
Created by Chuck Lorre (Two and a Half Men) and Bill Prady (Dharma & Greg), who also serve as executive producers along with Steven Molaro (The Class) and Eddie Gorodetsky (Two and a Half Men), The Big Bang Theory stars Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch.
The series is from Chuck Lorre Productions, Inc. in association with Warner Bros. Television.
Broadcast Notes
Season 1 premiered in South Africa on M-Net on Wednesday 9 January 2008, at 19h00. Only the first eight episodes of Season 1 aired before the show went on hiatus on 27 February 2008. This was because production on the show was halted in the USA on 6 November, 2007 by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike and only resumed on 17 March, 2008.
Season 1 resumed on M-Net on Wednesday 18 June, 2008, with Episode 9. There are 17 episodes in the first season, which was shortened from an initial order of 22 episodes due to the WGA strike.