After seven seasons of the warm, family-friendly series, Young Sheldon has finally come to a quiet end. A popular spin-off for the hit show The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon explores the life of Sheldon Cooper before his emergence as a top university professor of quantum physics.
Since its debut in 2017, Young Sheldon has silently gone about its business bringing in a steady stream of viewers and filling in the gaps of Cooper’s childhood as a young genius. So, given its positive reception since inception until the final episode, why did the CBS hit come to an end?
Why is Young Sheldon ending?
The series finale sees Sheldon go from the town of Medford, Texas, where he attended high school at 9 and college at 11, to the California Institute of Technology, where “The Big Bang Theory” is set. The episode came and went without a media fanfare or much in the way of outcry from fans, despite the love the show has seen.
The reason behind the show ending is, as Sheldon himself might put it, simple mathematics. The story the creator, Steven Molaro, inherited from “The Big Bang Theory” was clear in explaining that Sheldon began attending graduate school at Caltech at 14 – the same year his father died.
“The premise of the show is that an exceptional young kid is thrust into a world where everyone is older than him. But as soon as Iain aged and Sheldon aged, he didn’t look that out of place anymore, even in college”, Steve Holland, an executive producer, said.
In fact, Young Sheldon already saw the end delayed once before, by holding both Sheldon and his twin sister, Missy (Raegan Revord), at the same age for two seasons. However, this could clearly not happen forever, and the writers decided that the show had indeed reached its natural conclusion.
The franchise will continue this fall with another spin-off. Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage will follow Sheldon’s good older brother George Jr. and his wife, Mandy as they raise their baby daughter together. Like The Big bang Theory, it will be a multi-camera sitcom shot with a live audience and will hopefully feature some characters from Young Sheldon, which can now be seen on Netflix.