So most geeks out there have probably seen The Big Bang Theory by now. A show about four geeky geniuses and their friend of average intelligence, Penny. I love the current dynamic and characters of the show, but the unaired pilot was much different in many ways, to the point of not even being picked up originally. First, let’s take a look at the original non-geek girl.

Amanda Walsh, very cute if you ask me! She played the character Katie, who would later be replaced by Penny in the final aired pilot. Their characters had some pretty notable differences. Katie was a pretty tough girl, and actually kind of mean at times, but she wasn’t a completely unlikable character. Now, I’m gonna say right now that I prefer Penny, and some of the lines between the two characters in the pilot were used word for word, but I wouldn’t have hated it completely if they decided to go with Katie.

Next, I’d like to cover the second female character, Gilda.

I’d like to note that it’s very difficult to find a picture of Iris Bahr that looks anything like her pilot character, and now I have a picture of Larry the Cable Guy on my hard drive. The sacrifices I make for some geeky observations!

So as I was saying! Iris Bahr portrayed the character Gilda, the super geeky female friend of Leonard and Sheldon (The only two characters to make it into the finished series). I loved this character, and I’ve seen similar characters who show up in the finished series, so she still lives on in spirit! But she was indeed unique, a high-strung girl who tries to be an alpha female wrapped up in a geeky exterior. She very much seemed like a sexually liberated female Urkel.

Now, I didn’t notice any real changes in Leonard’s character, other than the fact that both Leonard and Sheldon practically live on money they make at the sperm bank. But Sheldon had some very noticeable changes.

Sheldon is my favorite character, because I constantly find parallels between him and myself, except I’m so poor at math I’ve left a number of explosions in my wake. The first thing I noticed about Sheldon in the pilot is that he has a sex drive. He’s donating to a sperm bank, hides big butt porn, and had sex with Gilda. Holy shit this Sheldon is like… actually kind of creepy.

Yes, I know this version of Sheldon is a bit more normal, but he’s not normal enough. This early Sheldon character’s personality is almost uncanny valley. He’s so strange that the idea of him embracing these normal human things is just a bit awkward, and a whole lot creepy. Then again, it could just be the shock of seeing a different kind of Sheldon after being so used to the final version of him. I mean going from neurotic about human touch, to big butt fetish, is a huge leap.

So that’s all for my observations of the pilot, I honestly didn’t think it was bad, but I don’t think it holds a candle to the final show. And without Howard and Raj, it just seemed like something was missing. I’m just glad this isn’t the show we got, even though I didn’t hate it. Now I leave you with the original title card for the show:

And the original themesong:

She Blinded Me With Science

Yeah, that was the original themesong.

If you want to watch the pilot yourselves, it’s all over the internet, even YouTube. Go, watch, be horrified or amazed (or both)!

Tags: Big Bang Theory, geeks, howard, leonard, penny, raj, sheldon, TV