It’s not a stretch to say that the new HBO Max series Stuart Rails To Save The Universe is weird. Take four secondary characters from a hit show and drop them in different versions of the world where we first got to know them and see how they deal with it. Seems like a recipe for disaster. But what we get is a show that knows how weird it is, and still manages to not only keep the essence of the characters that we got to know on The Big Bang Theory, and still manages to give viewers big laughs along the way.
Opening Shot: A man in a hood stalks his way across a dark, apocalyptic hellscape. He passes a sign that says “Welcome To Pasadena.”
The Gist: The man in the hoodie is former geologist Bert Kibbler (Brian Posehn), and he knows that he can still go to the comic book store owned by Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman); it’s one of the few places still in business. He’s there to trade canned food he’s scrounged for an issue of Superman. Meanwhile, Stuart tosses garbage into a portal in the middle of the store that goes to some unknown place. Two customers (Josh Brener, Ryan Cartwright) literally battle over whether Hawkeye should be a part of the Avengers.
It’s obvious that something has gone very wrong in the world. Suddenly, another version of Stuart, one from a parallel universe, appears. He tells Stuart and Bert that three of his best customers who worked at Caltech — we all know who they are — invented some “quantum entanglement thingie” that went kablooey when Stuart was around, creating this hellscape that also has gigantic moths. If they can get to Caltech and find the machine, they can reset it and get things back to the way they used to be.
On their way to Caltech, at a very different kind of Rose Bowl flea market, Bert and Stuart run into Stuart’s former girlfriend Denise (Lauren Lapkus), who seems to be a part of a roaming militia. She’s currently with Gary (Tommy Walker), a broish guy who seems to be good with a machine gun. She doesn’t believe Stuart’s story about why they’re heading to Caltech, which is heavily armed. She and Gary eventually arrive at Caltech to help them out, but Gary doesn’t make it and the other three get captured.
When inside the building where Bert used to work, they find that someone else they know well has been held prisoner, but he’s also managed to figure out how the quantum entanglement machine works and can be reset. They also find out that this society has a Chosen One — none other than Barry Kripke (John Ross Bowie), who has no desire to have things set back the way they were.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Of course, Stuart Fails To Save The Universe is a spinoff of The Big Bang Theory; Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady are the show’s creators, along with Zak Penn. The series also has similar vibes to Quantum Leap, where the main characters are dropped into a different but equally horrifying version of Pasadena in each episode. Let’s throw some sprinkles of Black Mirror weirdness in for good measure.
Our Take: Listen, we didn’t need another standard sitcom spinoff of TBBT. We had 12 years of the original show, then seven of the single-cam spinoff Young Sheldon, and now the multi-cam spinoff of the spinoff, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage. If anyone has the license to take some chances with this bit of IP, it’s Lorre and Prady. And the best character from the TBBT universe to hang this kind of story on is Stuart, who spent the bulk of his time on the original show being about as sad-sacky as a person can get.
Sussman knows how to make Stuart be pathetic while being heroic, and the fact that he’s bouncing through these universes with the equally incapable Kripke and Bert is funny all by itself. And then we have Denise, who is basically there to not only be Stuart’s romantic foil but also be the only capable person in the group. It’s a good combination of characters who just happen to be written by the same people who created them and played by actors who know them very well.
Of course the situations are going to be hit and miss; we enjoyed the first episode better than the second, which is set in a world where people get zapped by some sort of alien obelisk if they’re not nice to each other. But what we enjoyed across both episodes was some of the surprise callbacks to the original series, and appearances of characters in a completely different (but not outlandish) context than how we’re used to seeing them.
Performance Worth Watching: As we mentioned, Kevin Sussman not only knows Stuart well, but can keep playing him as a bumbling sad sack even while he’s heroically trying — and failing — to get things back to the way they used to be.
Sex And Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Stuart, Bert and Kripke land back at the comic store, thinking everything is back to normal — but it’s not, by a long shot.
Sleeper Star: There are so many TBBT-connected guest stars in the first season, but we don’t think we can mention any of them, though others have.
Most Pilot-y Line: We’re so used to Kripke’s speech impediment that the jokes over people not understanding what he’s saying get old fast. The first time was funny, but by the second time we saw such a sequence, we started thinking that was too easy of a comedic crutch to lean on.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Stuart Fails To Save The Universe is a funny, and weird-in-a-good-way take on Big Bang characters that we only got to know via their interactions with the show’s Big 5 (or Big 7 if you count Amy and Bernadette). Plus, it’s a fast watch, with the episodes only taking 15-25 minutes.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.