Young Sheldon Season 6 Proves The Show Doesn’t Need Jim Parsons’ Narration

While Young Sheldon needed Jim Parsons to narrate the spinoff at first, the presence of The Big Bang Theory‘s star is no longer necessary, and may even be hurting the prequel. Young Sheldon might be a spinoff of The Big Bang Theory, but the two shows have very different tones. The Big Bang Theory is a silly, over-the-top hangout sitcom with a traditional multi-camera setup and a laugh track. The Big Bang Theory’s characters are broadly drawn archetypes who often live through outlandish plots and only seldom face grounded, emotional storylines.

In contrast, Young Sheldon is a nostalgic, coming-of-age single-camera family sitcom. With no laugh track, Young Sheldon’s stories have more emotional stakes and less absurd, larger-than-life comedy. There is still a lot of silliness in Young Sheldon, but the spinoff has a hard-hitting emotional subplot in most episodes, whereas The Big Bang Theory’s sad stories, like Georgie fighting with Sheldon, only came around once or twice per season. This tonal contrast between the two shows has deepened over time, as Young Sheldon gained an increasingly unique tone, and The Big Bang Theory spinoff’s season 6 is its heaviest yet.

Whether it be Mary’s excommunication from the church, Mandy’s pregnancy, George Sr.’s affair and impending death, or Sheldon being betrayed by his colleague, Young Sheldon season 6 is full of dramatic stories. The Big Bang Theory spinoff’s plots have become dark in comparison to its earlier, sillier seasons and, as a result, the lighthearted narration by Sheldon’s adult self feels more out of place than before. The spinoff’s version of Sheldon has his own personality thanks to Ian Armitage, and stories like Dr. Linkletter double-crossing Sheldon after dating Meemaw justify the Big Bang Theory character’s foibles better than his own narration can.

Young Sheldon’s status as a more dramatic, less over-the-top series means the spinoff does not share the tone of The Big Bang Theory. Jim Parsons’ narration comes from the point of view of Sheldon’s adult self – a sillier, more exaggerated character whose detached observations feel strange in a show filled with teen pregnancy, infidelity, unemployment, backstabbing, and even death. While Young Sheldon season 6’s stories can justify a lot of Sheldon’s strange character quirks, his adult self narrating the spinoff does little to facilitate this. Instead, plots like Meemaw’s relationship with Linkletter organically show how The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon struggled to trust Amy.