{"id":562972,"date":"2026-07-22T18:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/562972\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T18:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:35:09","slug":"stuart-fails-to-save-the-universe-review-a-playful-creative-romp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/562972\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Stuart Fails to Save the Universe’ Review: A Playful, Creative Romp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn a sea of perfunctory prequels and sequels, you have to hand it to a spinoff that actually comes up with a creative angle. Such is the case with \u201cStuart Fails to Save the Universe<\/a>,\u201d the third offshoot of \u201cThe Big Bang Theory<\/a>,\u201d which forms a useful contrast with its predecessors. The straightforwardly titled \u201cYoung Sheldon,\u201d a single-camera sitcom that ran for seven seasons on CBS before ending in 2024, wound back the clock to trace the childhood of Jim Parsons\u2019 breakout character as a prodigy in Texas; \u201cGeorgie & Mandy\u2019s First Marriage,\u201d airing its third season this fall, follows Sheldon\u2019s older brother in his time as a broke newlywed.<\/p>\n

\n\tCompared with such setups, which color within the lines of characters\u2019 existing biographies, \u201cStuart Fails\u201d takes a far more innovative approach. The HBO Max comedy \u2014 the first \u201cBig Bang\u201d spinoff to air on a streamer rather than on broadcast \u2014 does follow a figure from the juggernaut hit as he undertakes his own adventures. But Kevin Sussman\u2019s titular comic book store owner doesn\u2019t merely continue to tend to his small business in Pasadena, California. Instead, Stuart hopscotches through alternate dimensions in search of a way to undo a full-blown apocalypse. It\u2019s a far cry from a few nerds trading one-liners in an apartment, and productively so.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo pull off this hard genre pivot, \u201cBig Bang\u201d co-creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady have brought on sci-fi veteran Zak Penn (\u201cX-Men: The Last Stand\u201d) as a collaborator. \u201cBig Bang\u201d was always adjacent to science, of course; its protagonists were physicists and biologists in the professional orbit of Caltech, even if the show itself was more easy viewing than intellectually rigorous. But science fiction is new terrain, and from its first moments, \u201cStuart Fails\u201d takes infectious delight in sticking Stuart and \u201cBig Bang\u201d geologist Bert (Brian Posehn) in the middle of a \u201cFallout\u201d-style hellscape, complete with steampunk outfits, zombies and giant flying moths. You see, a couple members of the original \u201cBig Bang\u201d crew accidentally triggered the end of the world through some quantum something-or-other, and an alternate version of Stuart beams in from another timeline to say he alone can fix it.<\/p>\n

\n\tStuart and Bert then secure the show\u2019s driving MacGuffin, a machine that beams them into a new reality each episode, from \u201cBig Bang\u201d regular Kripke (John Ross Bowie) \u2014 here sporting the same Elmer Fudd-esque speech affect, but with a new day job as a bloodthirsty warlord. Stuart\u2019s ex Denise (Lauren Lapkus) completes the central quartet, who serve as a grounding baseline while their surrounding environs vary wildly around them. One moment, they\u2019re in a utopian society with no concept of private property; the next, they\u2019re in a world where everything is basically normal, except people evolved from cows so they eat grass and chew cud. Sometimes the gang are magicians. Sometimes they\u2019re centaurs.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe playful, clever tone of \u201cStuart Fails\u201d is underscored by a Danny Elfman theme song and a credits sequence that constantly swaps in new, jokey title cards to discourage skipping. (Plus, a literal \u201cdo not skip\u201d sign, with an arrow pointing directly at the button.) Run times as short as 15 minutes maintain a breezy feel, and the distance of \u201cStuart Fails\u201d from the original concept of \u201cBig Bang\u201d ironically makes it easier for familiar faces to drop in. I\u2019m forbidden from disclosing which \u201cBig Bang\u201d stars outside the main cast of \u201cStuart Fails\u201d make an appearance, but those who do can stop by for as few or as many cameos as they want, often while playing completely different people. One timeline\u2019s scientist, it turns out, can be another\u2019s horned demon. Of course, the constant change endemic to \u201cStuart Fails\u201d means sacrificing some of the comforting sameness of a \u201cBig Bang\u201d-style hangout. But the comic chemistry among the main players provides just enough \u2014 and besides, the thrilling potential of a constantly wiped slate is worth the trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a sea of perfunctory prequels and sequels, you have to hand it to a spinoff that actually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,150311,43559,282],"class_list":["post-562972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-stuart-fails-to-save-the-universe","tag-the-big-bang-theory","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}