Posted in: CBS, TV | Tagged: Amy Farrah Fowler, cbs, chuck lorre, Mayim Bialik, The Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory: Mayim Bialik's Amy – From One-Off to Full-Time

When The Big Bang Theory premiered in 2007, it was mainly a testosterone-filled affair starring Johnny Galecki (Leonard Hofstadter), Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper), Simon Helberg (Howard Wolowitz), and Kunal Nayyar (Raj Koothrappali) with Kaley Cuoco (Penny) being the lone female cast member playing up all the stereotypes of male nerd culture. It wasn't until season three when Melissa Rauch (Bernadette Rostenkowski) and Mayim Bialik (Amy Farrah Fowler) were introduced to round out the final main cast and provide a female entourage for Penny until the series' end in 2019. Bialik's Amy was introduced in the season three finale, "The Lunar Excitation," and was originally intended as a one-off character, according to Jessica Radloff, author of the behind-the-scenes book of the series The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series.

In an excerpt (via EW), "The show really took off in the third and fourth seasons. In my opinion, what really cemented it is when it was pretty much equal men and women," casting director Ken Miller said, "Now Penny had a posse, too, and it really worked." "They decided after that summer break that I would be brought back, but they book you one episode at a time, which is not stressful at all!" Bialik said. "After my episode in the season three finale, I literally thought my character might never come back. I had been out of the industry for so long . . . it really could have gone either way."

Writer Steve Molaro recalled playing out the episode, "I didn't know how important it was going to be at the time when I came up with the idea of Sheldon being matched with Amy on a dating site. I thought it would be funny that Koothrappali and Wolowitz would fill out a dating profile and be shocked that a match was found for Sheldon. That's how it started; what it would grow into would reveal itself later. But [creator] Chuck [Lorre] was the biggest early adopter and proponent of Mayim. Even when we felt that the character may be polarizing—because some viewers weren't comfortable with the idea of Sheldon being involved with a female—Chuck was like, "I don't care, you put that face on TV!" We, in the writers' room, were into it, but we didn't know where it was going to go. We didn't know they were to have a second date or how that was going to play out and keep evolving through the years. But we went into it like we do with all additions to the show and all the characters: We're hopeful and trying to do our best to make it grow into something better and interesting; that was one of those that obviously did. But it took a little while to shake off the "female Sheldon" description and let her become her own person."

"There was some negative attention when I joined the cast because some people held Sheldon very near and dear to them and didn't want him to change or become a cheesy boyfriend," Bialik said. "To me, there was never a chance of that, and I think our writers actually handled that arc of him becoming more interested in romance very, very well."

"I know at the audition they said they needed a female version of Sheldon, basically, but that's untenable long-term," Parsons said. "There was no choice but to evolve the character. And at some point in season four—I don't know if something caused it or not—I remember saying to Todd, "I will not let this character go without a fight." That was notable for me, only in that I almost never disagreed with the writers. But at some point, I felt a certain way about working with Mayim that I was like, 'If for whatever reason we seemed to be weaning her off of this show as a character, I would go and talk to them.' I said this years ago, but I believe it even more now that one of the smartest things that the writers' room ever did was introduce Bernadette and Amy at a point where, as far as interests and storylines go, we did not need them yet. The writers did not let the well run dry before they were like, 'Oh God, should we adopt a kid? Should we bring in a monkey?' You know what I mean? They plugged these people in to see what was going to work and how it would work, and I thought it was genius."

For more, including how Bialik and Rauch didn't think they would last long on The Big Bang Theory and more, you can check out the whole EW piece here. The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series is currently available.

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