Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Young Sheldon: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Spinoff? Spinoff? Spinoff?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 10, 2018

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was dubious when the creative forces behind The Big Bang Theory announced that they were developing a companion series focused on the childhood of Sheldon Cooper, BBT's reliably obnoxious genius-nerd. With BBT fast approaching its likely conclusion—it has now been confirmed that the upcoming season will be the last—a spinoff looked like a calculated attempt to continue milking the cash cow that BBT has become for CBS, Warner and Chuck Lorre Productions.

But never underestimate the ingenuity of the House of Lorre. Working with BBT's head writer, Steven Molaro, the venerable sitcom impresario has created an entirely separate world far, far away from the familiar California apartment building where BBT is centered. They've peopled this new environment with an appealing cast of comic personalities, some of whom we've met in older incarnations on BBT and some who are entirely new. The voice of Jim Parsons, BBT's adult Sheldon, supplies narration, providing a link to the comedic universe that the original show's fans know and love, but Young Sheldon stands on its own. A surprise hit for CBS, the series has been renewed for a second season, which debuts on September 24, 2018, immediately following the premiere of BBT's final bow. Given the evidence to date, there's a good chance that Young Sheldon will be able to survive alone after BBT has finished saying its long goodbye.

Like an increasing number of Warner's TV productions, Young Sheldon is being released on Blu-ray through the Warner Archive Collection, which has done its customary superior work in creating a viewing experience better than broadcast.

It's 1989, and 9-year-old Sheldon Cooper is living with his mother, father, older brother Georgie and twin sister Missy in Medford, Texas. His beloved grandmother, whom he calls Meemaw, lives across the street and is a regular at the Cooper family dinner table. Sheldon's genius IQ is already evident, and he's speeding through the educational system so fast that he's already in high school, sharing classes with Georgie, to the latter's chagrin. Midway through the season, he begins attending college classes in advanced physics.

Also evident is the emotional detachment that still plagues the adult Sheldon, as well as his keen awareness that his intellect surpasses that of everyone around him. But the prickly sense of entitlement and the blithe dismissal of others' feelings have yet to develop. The young Sheldon retains a child's uncertainty in the face of everyday human phenomena that the adult version will brush off with a sarcastic remark. His diminutive stature and quizzical stare make behavior oddly endearing that, in an adult, would be annoying and offensive.

None of this would work without the right actors, and Young Sheldon has struck gold with every member of the cast. Young Iain Armitage, who was teasingly ambiguous as the kid accused of bullying a classmate on HBO's Big Little Lies, has captured just enough of Jim Parsons' adult portrayal to establish continuity, but he also adds a surprisingly sweet innocence that the character's adult version rarely reveals (and only in later seasons of BBT). Reagan Revord's Missy, who first appeared as a grownup in BBT's first season (played by Courtney Henggeler), displays a sardonic wit and dismissive superiority that are both hilarious and a hint of where the adult Sheldon learned some of his most annoying habits. Montana Jordan, the only recurring cast member whose Texas accent is the genuine article, captures Georgie's frustration at living in his brother's shadow, where he struggles vainly for his parents' attention with a constant stream of backtalk. (At one point, his exasperated father calls him a rodeo clown, to which Georgie replies that he'd love to be a rodeo clown.) Georgie's adult version didn't show up on BBT until the end of the most recent season, where's he's played by Jerry O'Connell with pitch-perfect continuity.

The adult casting is equally brilliant. The toughest job falls to Zoe Perry as Sheldon's born-again mother, Mary, because she has to retrofit an earlier version of the character into the portrayal so sharply etched by Laurie Metcalf in numerous BBT episodes. But Perry does have the advantage of being Metcalf's daughter, which makes the physical resemblance unmistakable, and she successfully translates the gestures and speech patterns created by Metcalf to the struggles of a young wife and mother of three challenging kids, with a husband who is often an overgrown kid himself. That husband is played by Lance Barber, who is painting on an almost-blank canvas, because George Sr. has died by the time we first meet Sheldon in BBT. (Given his ample girth and continuous beer consumption, it's not hard to imagine how that happened.) A football coach at his sons' high school, George Sr. often wears the befuddled expression of a man whose entire family is a mystery to him, but Barber finds unexpected emotional depth in a character who could easily be played as a stereotypical oaf.

Last among the adult regulars is Sheldon's Meemaw, a role that provides Annie Potts yet another chance to deploy the sharp-tongued wit she's been honing since playing Janine Melnitz in the original Ghostbusters. June Squibb played the character in a single episode in BBT's Season Nine, but here she's younger, far more energetic and dripping with attitude. She's as dismissive of her daughter's Christian faith as of her son-in-law's many shortcomings, but she dotes on her grandchildren, especially Sheldon, of whom she's quietly proud and whose regular disruptions of family routine provide her with an endless source of amusement. Sometimes, though, her favorite grandson catches her by surprise, as in Episode 7, which hinges on Meemaw's top-secret recipe for BBQ brisket and George Sr.'s increasingly desperate attempts to acquire it.

Young Sheldon continues BBT's tradition of notable guest stars, including Jason Alexander as Medford High School's drama teacher; Wallace Shawn as a college physics professor with whom Sheldon tries to play matchmaker with Meemaw; and a brief appearance by Bob Newhart as Arthur Jeffries, whose Professor Proton TV show was Sheldon's favorite as a boy and who later becomes his reluctant Obi-Wan on BBT.

Young Sheldon may be a BBT spinoff, but its style is a complete departure. It's a "single-camera" show, which means that it's shot and edited like a movie (and most contemporary TV), whereas BBT is a "multiple-camera" affair filmed (mostly) before a live audience. There's no laugh track, just the adult Sheldon's occasional narration amidst the sounds of the Cooper family as they cope with the challenges of a prodigy whose wide-eyed wonder at the world is equal parts childlike innocence and alien incomprehension. There are numerous references to Sheldon's future life on BBT, starting with the episode titles, each of which lists three items from that week's events (e.g., Episode 12, "A Computer, a Plastic Pony, and a Case of Beer"). I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me until the end of the season to notice—actually, my wife had to point it out to me—that these random trios anticipate the adult Sheldon's habit of repeating every door knock three times, which has been a running joke on BBT for eleven years. We haven't yet discovered the origin of that comical OCD compulsion, but I'm sure we will.

Young Sheldon: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Young Sheldon is shot digitally (on the Arri Alexa, if IMDb is to be believed), then edited and finished on a digital intermediate at 2K. The Warner Archive Collection has divided the twenty-two episodes of Season One between two 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-rays, and the results demonstrate the continued foolishness of the regular TV division's insistence on aiming for the lowest possible bitrates. Instead of BBT's typical averages, which hover at around 16 Mbps, WAC has achieved averages ranging between 23 and 27 Mbps per episode, simply by utilizing all of the available digital real estate. The result is a rich and satisfying presentation of Young Sheldon's detailed production design, which is filled with anachronistic touches like the Tandy 1000 computer from Radio Shack (which becomes a bone of contention in the Cooper household), as well as portents of things to come, like the Joker figurine that Sheldon uses in one of his experiments. Sharpness and detail are excellent; colors are fully saturated; and contrast and black levels are accurate. Young Sheldon already looked good in its 1080i HDTV broadcasts, but WAC's Blu-rays are a noticeable upgrade.

Young Sheldon: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Young Sheldon's 5.1 sound mix, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, provides a few more opportunities for sonic immersion than BBT's largely stage-bound events, where the most frequent sounds routed to the surrounds are audience reactions. The rear channels kick in when Sheldon has a strong emotional reaction (usually, terror or horror at some mundane occurrence, like the neighbor's dog entering his garage). The surrounds also provide subtle ambiance in distinctive environments like the high school classrooms and corridors. For the most part, though, the mix retains the front-oriented focus typical of TV comedies, with emphasis on the dialogue, which is always clear and distinct. The effective score is credited to Jeff Cardoni (Silicon Valley) and John Debney (Beirut), and the great theme song ("Mighty Little Man") was written and performed by Steve Burns, a familiar voice from Blue's Clues

Young Sheldon: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

They may be brief, but the behind-the-scenes extras that Warner has supplied with Season One are better than most. Both appear on disc 2.

• Young Sheldon: An Origin Story (1080p; 1.78:1; 9:45): In addition to Lorre, Molaro and the cast, this featurette includes John Favreau, who directed the pilot and who knows a lot about origin stories, having launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man.



• Sibling Revelry (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:04): The cast's three youngest members sit together and talk about themselves, each other, their roles and a variety of unrelated topics like bunk beds.

Young Sheldon: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Young Sheldon may have been reverse engineered to connect with the well-established BBT universe, but it's surprisingly fresh and original, and it may even appeal to former BBT fans for whom the earlier show has worn out its appeal. Its biggest enemy is time, as the creative team struggles to keep pace with the growth of the younger cast members. Will Sheldon's efforts to comprehend human emotion still be funny in a teenager? At what point will Missy's snark or Georgie's rebellion curdle from cute into obnoxious? The writers have a daunting task ahead of them. Meanwhile, both Season One and WAC's Blu-ray presentation are highly recommended.