The Big Bang Theory is one of the longest-running and most popular sitcoms ever. It has had a tremendous impact on the genre and even on a pop culture as a whole. So, those unfamiliar with its history might find it hard to believe that, at one point, the series was on the verge of failure before it even began.
But it's a true story. Initially, CBS outright rejected The Big Bang Theory. They did not see any promise in the original pilot's concept, and all they offered the creators was another chance to produce something that met the network's standards.
What did they dislike about that pilot, though? Well, suffice it to say, they disliked a lot more about it than they liked.
There is only one key element that The Big Bang Theory inherited from its original, unaired pilot: the duo of Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons as Leonard and Sheldon. The network bosses appreciated their character concepts and the actors' performances, as did the audiences later on.
Everything else was vastly different from the TBBT we know today. Instead of Penny, Howard, and Raj, there were the supposed female leads, Katie (Amanda Walsh) and Gilda (Iris Bahr). And they weren't well-written, even by sitcom standards, where characters can be somewhat ridiculous.
For example, Katie was meant to be streetwise and tough as nails, but we first encounter her sitting on the street, crying and homeless after being dumped by her boyfriend. Her so-called 'toughness' amounted to having a particularly abrasive personality, even for a sitcom – and even for TBBT, a series with a core premise that there exist people in the world willing to remain in Sheldon's company and call him a friend!
The humour in the pilot was also rather cruder and of lower quality than in the final product.
Even the series co-creator Chuck Lorre later admitted that the original pilot was terrible and that CBS was entirely right to reject it. Thankfully, the network granted Lorre and the rest of the crew a second chance, allowing them to create the TBBT we all know and love.