The (early) life story of Sheldon Cooper made it easier to figure out when to end Young Sheldon.
While addressing reporters Tuesday on Stage 19 of the Warner Bros lot, executive producer Steve Holland explained why the decision was made to wrap up the comedy in its seventh season on CBS.
“There are certain things we know happen in Sheldon’s life at 14,” explained Holland. “We started talking about the future of show, and what it looked like. This is the right time for this story to come to an end, knowing that at 14, he goes off to Cal Tech. It felt like the right time to end it strong while it was on top.”
“Can’t we just leave it at I’m tall and cool and I look like Jim [Parsons] now?” quipped star Iain Armitage, who plays the title character first created by Parsons in The Big Bang Theory.
The executive producers, which include Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro, also reflected on how the top-rated single camera comedy almost didn’t happen, had it not been for the discovery of the precocious Armitage in 2017.
“It’s important to say that we wouldn’t be sitting here, had not eight years ago, Iain’s mom sent us a video of him doing a scene that Steven and I wrote that we never intended to shoot,” said Lorre. “This guy killed it. And if that had not happened, we wouldn’t have gone forward. It’s the miracle of casting Young Sheldon. It was one we understood was likely not going to happen but it did. And this family blossomed around him.”
Actor Lance Barber, who plays Sheldon’s dad George, was asked if he’s surprised that he’s still standing after seven seasons. In The Big Bang Theory, it was revealed that Sheldon’s dad died when he was 14.
Spoiler alert for Season 7?
“I had my fingers crossed from the beginning that I would make it to the end whenever that came,” he told reporters. “We know the history of George. Personally for me as actor with a character like this, I have this legacy, I get to see what life brings. I never got the inclination that the end was coming anytime soon, nor did I fear it.”
The producers wouldn’t address the possible spinoff. In January, Deadline reported that CBS is closing in on a straight-to-series order to a multi-camera spinoff of Young Sheldon from the series’ executive producers and WBTV. The new series will center on the characters of Georgie Cooper and his fiancée Mandy McAllister, played on the show by Montana Jordan and Emily Osment, respectively.
“We are just ending this show,” Holland told reporters. “That’s really been our whole focus.”
Lorre admitted that he’s not sure what the Young Sheldon audience is hoping for from the series finale, nor does he want to guess. “That’s a level of hubris,” Lorre said of trying to write for the fans. “Assuming we know what the audience wants is ridiculous, how can you possibly know that? It gets in the way of doing a good job. You do what you feel is appropriate for the characters, the tone of the show. You do stuff that touches you, then you hope someone agrees with you. I don’t know any other way to do it.”
The seventh-season premiere of Young Sheldon airs Thursday at 8 p.m.
