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Stuart Fails to Save the Universe: Bowie on Returns, S01 Finale & More

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe star John Ross Bowie on the DC-centric penultimate episode, Season 1 finale, The Big Bang Theory, and more.

When Chuck Lorre, Zak Penn, and Bill Prady wanted to tap back into the The Big Bang Theory universe, they knew they had to ensure the journey was worthwhile without sullying the legacy already built by the original CBS sitcom. By tapping into fan-favorite characters like Kevin Sussman's Stuart, Lauren Lapkus's Denise, Brian Posehn's Bert, and John Ross Bowie's Kripke, the trio knew they didn't have to reinvent the wheel, but decided to put them in a new show that would not buck ANY convention, but rather embrace all of them in the sci-fi comedy spinoff, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe. In part four of our interview, Bowie spoke to Bleeding Cool about the awkward return to the sitcom stage in the fourth-wall-breaking season finale, "Spoiler: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience," the penultimate episode "Spoiler: We Couldn't Get Green Lantern," where our heroes play in the DC universe sandbox, and how the series organically spaced out the legacy characters' isolated returns of Kunal Nayyar (Raj), Kaley Cuoco (Penny), Melissa Rauch (Bernadette), and Mayim Bialik (Amy), and if it was ever in the cards in season one for Johnny Galecki (Leonard), Jim Parsons (Sheldon), and Simon Helberg (Howard) to return despite their characters' quantum entanglement device set the foursome on their journey. The following contains spoilers for the season finale.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe Star John Ross Bowie on Taking Big Swings in The Big Bang Universe, Seeing Legacy Characters

Bleeding Cool: In regard to the season finale, I feel like this is a mind screw. How do you guys just wrap your heads around the premise of the episode, the fourth wall breaks, the throwback to, obviously, The Big Bang Theory, in that sense of that sitcom setting, and then seeing your own curtain calls and playing out the other side and witnessing that part? How'd that go in your head?

Bowie: I have not wrapped my head around it yet. I reject the premise of your question [laughs]. I remember reading it, and going back and forth in the script, like, "Wait, what is that?! Hang on. Is that a typo?! Or that me playing me?! Oh, my God!" and then when we actually shot it, it was the only episode of the show where we had a studio audience, and we shot it on stage 25. We shot it on the old 'Big Bang' stage. It was old home week on a couple of fronts, but also there was this incredible sense of postmodernism.

I'm going to sound really pretentious talking about this, but there was something extremely metafictional about the whole thing and watching our stand-ins dressed like us come out and take bows, and they weren't quite photo doubles, but they were people who were basically our size and shape and our coloring. My stand-in's five foot eight, dark hair, blue eyes. You have salt-and-pepper hair and blue eyes; anyway, from a distance, it's very disconcerting to watch that happen. I loved it, though. I was so proud to be on a show that took such a swing, and with such beloved intellectual property too. I mean, I can't imagine another multi-cam sitcom going that far off the rails- maybe the famous 'Newhart' finale, but even that went to the "It was all a dream" conceit. This thing folded in on itself like some sort of John Barth short story; it was incredible. I really enjoyed shooting it.

This is a two-parter, so obviously, we got those from the original show back in certain respects. What was it like seeing Kunal, Kaley, Melissa, and Mayim, and just working with them again in that capacity? Was there room in the scripts to have Johnny, Jim, and Simon in some part, or was it just something that just never worked out, and maybe something for season two?

Everyone who was able to come back came back. There were scheduling issues, and all sorts of things, and having the "legacy" cast members come back was delightful, because they weren't playing the same old Penny and the same old Raj. They were wildly different versions of themselves, and that was really exciting to watch. You know, what does it look like when Kaley is the leader of a guerrilla revolutionary group? What does it look like when Melissa isn't just Bernadette; she's the Bernademon? It was really fun to see these old characters in new contexts, and I really think the audience is going to enjoy that, too. There's going to be traditionalists who are like, "That's not my show," and you can't please everybody, but I think open-minded and fun fans are going to really enjoy watching Raj as a sidewalk preacher losing his mind about the end of the world. It was delightful to see those guys again.

It's a brilliant show. I love every bit of it, and I thought, like, when I saw this penultimate episode, and it's like, "Wait, you guys are in The Flash's world, but you're being chased by Mr. Freeze?" Right when I was thinking about it [Bowie points repeatedly], like in the Leonardo DiCaprio meme pointing to the screen, it's like Kevin's character already knew what I was thinking right there.

That's the joy: there's stuff we can do on this show that, in a way, is too geeky for the original show. The hope is that this is the kind of show everyone is saying this kind of a talking point, but we really do believe the hope is that this show is the type that Leonard and Sheldon would have watched. There are these great, incredibly specific moments about which version of The Flash is this, what's his origin story, and who's the right villain for the job? Yeah, it was really fun to play in that space, and I'm so glad you picked up on that, and I appreciated that. I love your site, let me say, I love Bleeding Cool. I'm a fan.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is available on HBO Max and will return for season 2.

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