On the one-year anniversary of the series finale of The Big Bang Theory, we explore what one more season of the iconic TV show could have looked like.

If you followed the show like I did, you may recall that the series said its final goodbyes one year ago today – Thursday, May 16, 2019 – after twelve successful and entertaining seasons.  Those of you who know me well have probably figured that I would drop in several TV references on this blog to a certain core group of my favorite shows.  I have already included several references on here to The Simpsons and The Office, and now The Big Bang Theory makes this list as well.

Although twelve years is an incredibly long run for a TV sitcom, reports suggest that the series could have kept going even longer if Jim Parsons (Sheldon) had not decided that the 12^th season would be his last, thus prompting the producers to wrap up the show.  Even as a fan of the show myself, I thought it was the right time to end it, as the overall quality had dipped as the writers ran out of good storylines.  However, as we approached this one-year anniversary of when the series finally ended, I started wondering what would have happened if the show had continued for one more season.

Here, I will explore how a hypothetical Season 13 of The Big Bang Theory could have gone with all the main characters.  In this scenario, Jim Parsons agrees to come back for a 13^th season, all the other characters are back as well, and for some strange reason, they ask me to create the storylines and write the episodes.  Now I know what you’re saying: “That would never happen.”  Yes, I know that, but it’s my scenario, so just go with it.  I’m not necessarily saying this will be as good as how the series actually ended.  This is just my way of wrapping up the series in an alternate universe in which the series had continued for one more season.

I am not suggesting that the show should have continued for one more season.  In fact, if they really were faced with the reality of either continuing the show without Sheldon or ending the show, then they absolutely made the correct decision in end it when they did.  No TV series should ever continue on if their lead character leaves the show.  Yes, that is a direct reference to The Office, which never should have kept their series going once Steve Carell left.  That would be like continuing The Simpsons without Homer, but I digress.  Again, this is just my scenario, where all the main characters are back for one more season, and I get to decide how it ends in this alternate reality.

Of course, one obstacle to creating a hypothetical 13^th season is how production would have gone in light of the coronavirus pandemic.  Well, in this scenario, although the characters are indeed forced to deal with this pandemic along with the real world, the actual filming of the episodes is somehow not affected.  Don’t worry about how that would have happened.  We lost all sense of reality anyway when Chuck Lorre asked me to write the whole season for him, so just work with me here.  We are also supposing I am able to edit the storylines on the fly to fit the current situation once the pandemic starts.

Also, since you have read this far, I assume that you don’t care about the potential of reading any spoilers to what happened on the actual show during its 12-season run.  After all, it’s been one year since it went off the air.  So, if you’ve never seen the show but you plan to later, just a heads up that this post contains massive spoilers.  So please don’t leave any comments saying, “Hey! Spoiler alert! I didn’t want to know what happens yet!”

So now that we have that all that out of the way, the actual series ends with Sheldon and Amy receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics.  Sheldon, planning to give a predictably self-centered acceptance speech, seems to have an epiphany, changes course at the last minute, and uses the opportunity to publicly recognize his friends.  Also in the actual series finale, Leonard and Penny find out they are expecting a baby.  So, this is where we pick up with Season 13 in my scenario.  (Cue Amy’s harp music as we enter alternate reality.)

In the season premiere, we find out that Sheldon and Amy are also expecting a baby.  This especially pleases Amy in light of Leonard and Penny’s news, as Amy has always dreamed of her and Penny being pregnant at the same time and going through the same stages of motherhood together.  From the show Young Sheldon, we learn that Sheldon does have children someday, so this news is still consistent in the show’s universe.  We also learn during the course of the episode that the child was conceived while the gang was in Sweden during the actual series finale in Season 12.  This leads Sheldon to feel the need to explain to Penny that this still does not mean the child will have Swedish citizenship.  Sheldon himself is pleased by the news, but is also a bit unnerved at his bathroom schedule being thrown off by Amy’s morning sickness, and tells her to get their unborn child under control.

One of the things that we need to fix about the way the actual series ended is that everyone ended up together with someone except for Raj.  Shortly before the series ended in Season 12, Raj had broken up with his girlfriend Anu.  This was the right call, as these characters were not right for each other.  However, I wish that the writers of the show had ended things in such a way to give time for Raj to actually end up with someone before it went off the air.  The show ends with the seven main characters being three married couples and Raj as the only one still single.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  After all, a large part of his journey throughout the show was his quest to find happiness in who he was.  And although one can certainly be fulfilled regardless of dating or marital status, this is TV, so we’re fixing Raj up for our final season here.  Someone who’s actually right for him this time.

During the final episode in Season 12, Raj does manage to score a date with Sarah Michelle Gellar to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Sweden.  But let’s face it, she was a celebrity cameo for their series finale; we’re not moving forward with her as an actual love interest.  Instead, we are bringing back the only lady throughout the entire run of the series who would even possibly qualify as a suitable special someone for Raj.  I am referring to Yvette the vet, who amazingly for some reason only appeared in one episode ever.  During the Season 7 episode The Locomotive Manipulation, his dog Cinnamon gets sick and has to be rushed to the vet on Valentine’s Day.  Yvette takes care of Cinnamon, appears to have some chemistry with Raj, and gives him her phone number.  We never see her again.  This is flabbergasting, and should have been pursued further.  So, we’re bringing Yvette back.

Early in our Season 13, we have an episode where Raj leaves his door open for a minute, and suddenly Cinnamon is nowhere to be found.  Raj is frantic and starts hanging up signs all over Pasadena.  Howard helps him look and tries to console him, saying that he’d be freaked out too if one of his kids was missing.  Raj tells him that it’s not the same.  Howard says, “You’re right, it’s not the same.  I have actual children, and you have a dog,” to which Raj overreacts and goes off looking by himself.  Eventually, he finds Cinnamon after an apparent run-in with a bigger dog leaves her with injuries – nothing too major, but enough to where Raj rushes her to the vet in a panic.  He meets Yvette again and pleads with her to save the dog’s life (even though the dog is relatively okay).  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you after the last time, but right now, I need you to save her life!  And I swear, I’m a good dog owner!  I’ll donate blood right now if that’s what she needs!”  Yvette reassures him that the dog the dog will be fine, and after talking for a while and working through why things never happened six years prior, the episode leads to the two of them dating for the remainder of the show’s run.

Meanwhile, President Seibert tells Howard that he will now need to work toward his Ph.D. in order to continue his employment at Cal Tech.  This upsets Howard, as he doesn’t think he should have to, and he wrestles with what to do.  Sheldon, having just won a Nobel Prize, feels like a has-been whose best days are behind him after losing a game to Leonard in 3-dimensional chess.  The other storylines during this season (until coronavirus) focus on Raj’s new relationship, as well as Penny’s and Amy’s pregnancies.  Penny constantly laments how she misses drinking to be able to tune out Sheldon’s boring anecdotes and fun facts.  Sheldon and Amy, along with Leonard and Penny, also discuss moving away from the apartment and buying a house as they each prepare for their respective childbirths.  However, they all decide to stay in deference to Sheldon because he still hates change.  On Valentine’s Day, Raj proposes to Yvette “Love Actually style”, as he has always wanted to do.  They get engaged, as do Stuart and Denise.  Penny gives birth to a baby girl, leading Leonard to look at his newborn child and remark, “You will be smart, and you are already beautiful.”

Then suddenly, the coronavirus pandemic hits Pasadena, which would have forced a radical re-write to the rest of the season in real life.  Since this is all in my hypothetical universe that I can create with the benefit of a couple months of hindsight, here’s how that would have gone.

Bernadette starts working long hours at the pharmaceutical lab trying to come up with a vaccine, leaving Howard to watch the kids by himself most of the time as he works from home.  With Raj and Stuart now both engaged in their own relationships, both guys use social distancing as the official reason they are no longer available to babysit, and Howard is left to fend for himself in watching the kids.  During this time, he considers leaving his job at the university to be a full-time dad, but has trouble with this, repeatedly lamenting, “I don’t know what I’m doing as a father!  I’m an astronaut!  I was in space!  I’m an engineer!  Is this what my life has come to?”  Bernadette helps him realize that this is the most honorable thing he can do right now for the family while she’s working on saving the world.  Finally, Howard, not keen on working toward his Ph.D. anyway, decides to leave his job at the university to focus on raising the kids full time.

As the end of the season approaches, Sheldon becomes more and more paranoid about catching coronavirus.  He will not venture out of the apartment for any reason and sprays Lysol everywhere when Leonard, Penny, or even Amy walk in.  Amy confronts Sheldon about what will happen when she goes into labor.  Sheldon confesses his unwillingness to take her to the hospital, “a hotbed of germs, especially now” and tries to get Raj to do it, so as to outsource this job to an Indian.  This of course makes Amy angry, but Sheldon says, “If you’re going to the hospital, at least one of us should stay behind just in case anything happens.  No need for both of us to die.”  Amy gets even more upset, marches out, and spends the night at Leonard and Penny’s, where during the night, she goes into labor.

Our final episode starts with Amy in labor, as both Leonard and Penny try to convince Sheldon to take Amy to the hospital.  When he still won’t leave, Leonard tells him, “You’re a selfish jerk, I took Penny to the hospital when she went into labor,” and Sheldon points out, “Yes, but that was right before the pandemic.”  Penny agrees to take Amy herself while Leonard stays behind to watch their own baby.  Amy remarks how it’s a good thing the elevator finally got fixed so she doesn’t have to walk down the stairs. Penny speeds wildly all the way to the hospital while Amy is distressed that Penny’s “Check Engine” light is still on.  Sheldon’s mother calls him to try to talk some sense into him, and tells him that she is praying a hedge of protection around everyone, but this also does not convince him to set foot outside the apartment.  He falls asleep and has another dream with Arthur Jeffries as Professor Proton.  However, Arthur is so disgusted with appearing in yet another one of Sheldon’s dreams that he walks out of the dream.  At that moment, an R2D2 robot rolls into the dream, and with an apparent voice of Stephen Hawking, convinces him that he needs to be there for Amy.  Although he says the same things everyone else has been saying all along, Sheldon listens to him because it’s Stephen Hawking as R2D2.  He instantly wakes up and rushes to the hospital (comically wearing a Darth Vader mask for protection the entire time) just in time to be there for the birth of their baby boy, Stephen Hawking Cooper.

The final scene ends with all the characters back at their respective homes chatting on Zoom.  Sheldon tells Penny to get out of his spot, even though he doesn’t live there anymore.  Penny tells Sheldon that he can take the Darth Vader mask off now, as he is still wearing it.  He does not, though, and the dialogue gradually fades out as we listen to one more final rendition of the show’s theme song to close it out.

So, does this make the ending of the show better?  Worse?  Other ideas to put into this additional season?  Feel free to let me know.  Or do you have no clue because you haven’t seen the show and you’ve been lost this entire time?  If that’s you, but this has inspired you to catch up and binge-watch all 279 episodes during quarantine, feel free to do that.  Don’t worry, I haven’t given away any spoilers from the actual series.

Bazinga.