Stuart Fails To Save The Universe? More like Big Bang continues to fail Raj

The far-fetched, genre-shifting premise of Stuart Fails To Save The Universe attempts to give four of The Big Bang Theory’s side characters richer lives and storylines than those they had on the original series. The sci-fi comedy props up the introverted underdog Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman), who, tasked with stopping a multiversal doomsday, brings Denise (Lauren Lapkus), Bert (Brian Posehn), and Barry Kripke (John Ross Bowie) along for the ride. As the quartet hops between dimensions, series co-creators Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, and Zak Penn essentially say, “See, these people are more than their pop-culture obsessions, poor fashion senses, and caricatured way of speaking!” Their roles expanded from B-plots and guest appearances so they can be more fully realized. And yet, Stuart fails to extend the same courtesy to a character who played a vastly more prominent role on The Big Bang Theory. 

Big Bang star Kunal Nayyar briefly pops up as astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali in Stuart’s sixth and latest episode, ranting and raving about collapsing galaxies on a Pasadena street corner. No one takes him seriously, though—not even Stuart and Denise, who’ve spent the entire series seeing realities blink out of existence. The couple hears, but doesn’t heed, his warnings, dismissing him just like the show’s powers-that-be. Nayyar appears in two Stuart episodes (so far), and they each, in their own way, remind us just how poorly The Big Bang Theory always treated his character. The spin-off continues the tradition of making Raj—the franchise’s only protagonist of color—the butt of the joke. 

For 12 seasons of The Big Bang Theory, Nayyar’s ace comedic timing was put in service of countless harmful, racist jokes, and Raj remained a relatively irksome, one-dimensional hodgepodge of broad South Asian clichés: an exaggerated accent, multiple subplots involving arranged marriage, social awkwardness, his friends exoticizing India as a land of snake-charmers—you name it. The guy couldn’t even talk to women if he wasn’t drunk for half of the show’s run. And in the end, his most genuine connections were with his pet dog, a phone app, and, of course, Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg). I particularly loathe the season-five punchline Amy (Mayim Bialik) uses to pacify Penny (Kaley Cuoco) following what she thinks was a drunken hookup with Raj: Amy likens the coupling to Russian ruler Catherine The Great allegedly participating in “interspecies hanky-panky” with her horse. Amy, in her heightened, socially-awkward-sitcom-character way, is trying to assuage Penny’s guilt over sleeping with a friend who’s also a friend of her ex Leonard (Johnny Galecki). But anyone unfamiliar with the character’s dating history (or the show’s similarly retrograde treatment of Penny’s active sex life) would be forgiven for thinking that The Big Bang Theory is equating “shagging a little Indian boy” with bestiality.

To make matters worse, Big Bang‘s series finale brings everyone’s story to a satisfying conclusion—everyone’s, that is, except Raj’s. Howard and Leonard have fulfilling families and careers, while a happily married Sheldon (Jim Parsons) earns a coveted Nobel Prize alongside his wife, Amy. As for Raj, always portrayed as the true romantic-at-heart among the show’s men? He ends up alone, working two jobs at Caltech and the Griffith Observatory, and his biggest accomplishment involves sitting next to Sarah Michelle Gellar at the Nobel ceremony.