Even Young Sheldon Couldn’t Fix TBBT’s Huge Injustice Towards Penny

Throughout its TV run of more than ten years, The Big Bang Theory has always had its main storyline revolving not only around Sheldon and Leonard, but also around Penny who made her first appearance in the first season’s episode 1 as the leading characters’ neighbor and later on became Leonard’s girlfriend and wife.

Having started as the show’s additional character that mostly served for highlighting Sheldon and Leonard’s nerdiness, Penny eventually turned into another lead with her own story and personal development that was actually never made in a right way.

Despite her essential role that was equally important as her quirky friends’ ones, Penny was still brutally snubbed by The Big Bang Theory’s creators when it came to her personal background.

Apart from the fact that the show never allowed her to succeed in acting and thus make her biggest dream come true, The Big Bang Theory also completely ignored everything that had something to do with Penny’s life before moving to Los Angeles and people she grew up with.

The show did mention some facts about the character’s past revealing that she’d been brought up on a farm in Nebraska and featuring her parents a couple of times, though, compared to how the series handled Sheldon and Leonard’s background stories, Penny got almost nothing to tell about herself to the viewers.

It becomes especially obvious when considering that Sheldon’s mother Mary was introduced in 13 episodes of the show and Leonard’s mother Beverly showed up in 16 episodes, but Penny’s mother Susan only got one episode in season 10. In his turn, Penny’s father was also featured in The Big Bang Theory’s earlier seasons, but still only a couple of times.

What’s even more striking here, everyone else’s personal background details got into the show much earlier than Penny’s parents finally showed up. Raj’s entire family, including his parents and sister, were constantly featured in the show, with the first ones mostly appearing in video calls and the latter being a frequent guest during several episodes in a row.

Howard’s mother also has been there all along, even though we can only hear her from another room, while Amy’s mother showed up on numerous occasions, despite the fact that Amy herself was introduced much later than Penny.

What disheartens the show’s lovers most here is that even Young Sheldon ’s finale couldn’t make it up to Penny’s outsider position proving that her own desires kinda meant nothing neither for the rest of the characters nor for The Big Bang Theory’s creators.

Now that both shows have come to their end, it’s clear that the overall lack of Penny’s background story was the first bad omen for the character’s future.