"The Big Bang Theory" :D

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No... he shows signs of being a sensitive new aged guy... There are a couple episodes where he ends up in bed with people... BI at most...

Why does it need to be straight or gay? Human sexuality, like autism, is a spectrum

By " signs of being gay" I meant his semi dating of Stuart.

My point remains valid

For the same reason that he 'needs' to be Aspie or Entie.

How is it the same reason? do people get dx as gay?

I think that was sarcasm. Neither issue has to be all-or-nothing. Some people are asexual/not interested in any kind of sex at all and, for them, that’s normal. Most things come in varying degrees.

I voted yes.
Sheldon has already become something of a positive role model for us Aspies. By handling it right, the writers could really make Sheldon a symbol of Aspie pride. Handle it wrong, and it could doom the show to cancellation, as with the case of Ellen DeGeneris coming out of the closet turned her show into just one boring lesbian joke after another.
But my wife and I agree, the show we want to see is Sheldon and Amy finally having sex!

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I voted no, because I feel the whole persona of Sheldon is an incredibly shallow and cheesy caricature of what a majority of sitcom-fans might accept as a "lovable nerd". There's no depth to it, just like anybody else on the show he's nothing more than the punchline of the same tired jokes over and over again. It's a waste, because the cast and especially Parsons are great.
But the material is just as shallow as the characters.
That's why a diagnosis can't work in this show. It wouldn't have any emotional impact, what's the point of putting a caricature like Sheldon in this situation? The writers have simply not put any effort into giving their characters more depth than "shy Indian guy", "hot dumb blonde with a heart of gold" and so on. How should they handle a Sheldon diagnosis thing?

The reason I voted no is because the writers state that he's not an aspie.

You’re right. That’s how it is with all sitcoms. It’s the nature of the beast. Priority-One is selling the commercials, and
if the audience isn’t properly entertained, the show is history. It can’t be any other way. It's better just the way it is.

But you can give the cast at least a bit more to work with, or maybe go for more than the same recyced joke over and over again...what about 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, Community and so on? I get your point, but it's just that Big Bang is particulary lazy in terms of writing and the way they treat the semi-autistic quirks of the main character.
The whole show is based on Penny being the person the audience is supposed to identify with, while all the nerds are basically the punchine of jokes that have been around for decades, which is acceptabe to watchers as long as their antics can be considered adorable and they get approval from the hot girl.
That way the "normal" audience can laugh at the weird guy through Penny without feeling bad for it, while peope considering themselves to be nerds can say "Yeah, I'm Sheldon, which means smarter than anybody else.".
So it's not about the limitations of sit-coms. In fact, there have been a few productions that showed how you can get away with much more than people expect and push it far beyond setup-->punchline over and over again.

Just look at the last Big Bang episode, where the guys went full blown Star Trek. There's nothing wrong with making the most obvious jokes here. But there's so much more potential to episodes like this. Instead, they've found a formula that works a long time a go, and watchers still suck it up. And now Sheldon is the poster boy for semi-autistic characters on TV?
It's alright to write a mediocre sitcom for a major network, but to take an issue like autism (even in the non-serious context of a comedy character)?
My problem is not that Big Band is formulaic, but that they never truly got away from "laugh at the nerds", they never made an effort to give the main characters any credibility. It's perfectly acceptable to find anything Sheldon and his buddies do to be competely ridiculous. That's why a diagnosis can't work. We were never supposed to side with Sheldon he's the punchline.

Not really. I think Penny is the joke half the time. It's like an ink-blot test -- you see what you're able to see.
It'll take more than one show to make people aware of neurodiversity, and to accept people who are a little different.
Whole chunks of the world are still struggling with relatively simple issues, like race and sexual orientation.
I wouldn't put such a big burden on one little sitcom. I think they've done enough, and done it well.
(This glass if half-full.) Let someone else carry the ball from here.

So we agree for similar but different reasons that , NO, Sheldon should not be diagnosed.

I know what you mean, and of course there are many watchers who like and identify themseves with Sheldon and his buddies and laugh at Penny. On the other hand, the geeky adventures of them are somehow always portrayed as "different" from a normal lifestyle, they're what the audience is supposed to laugh at. So if the gang dresses up as Star Wars characters, the punchline is simply that they look ridiculous in these outfits, they never take the next step, which would be immersing the characters and story in the Strar Trek theme and make fun of things within the reference instead of simply laughing at the set-up. You know what I mean? Which is something you simpy can't do if you want a big audience.

I don't know if you've watched it, but take 30 Rock, which was way more cartoonish and out-there than Big Bang. The same with Community's theme episodes. They pulled off a lot of crazy stuff, because the characters were all-in and no matter how ridiculous these shows get, the audience is supposed to be as immersed into these crazy things as the characters. They don't laugh at them, but with them. That's my main point about TBBT, the writers put all the effort into packing as much jokes as possible into each episode, at the expense of making the characters relatable.

So I think you could nail a story arc involving an autism diagnosis if the show could handle a different tone. But not with a laugh-track multi-cam setup. Just don't see how they could pull this off, since every semi-human moment so far ended with a stupid Sheldon punchline about how much smarter he really is.

I don't know. I always thought that it was all about us Aspies and geeks laughing at ourselves.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

You're right. That's why it works so well.

However it gets tedious after a while.

ruveyn