Where one door closes, another one may open. As fans prep for the upcoming series finale of The Big Bang Theory, which is set to air in May, a second spinoff of the hit CBS series may be underway.
CBS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl told Deadline in an interview published on Thursday, January 31, that the possibility of another spinoff wasn’t completely out of the question.
When asked at a TCA press tour whether he’d had conversations with executive producer Chuck Lorre and Warner Bros. on the matter, Kahl replied, “Nothing formal. The ball is in squarely in their court. If they want to talk to us about it, we are here to listen.”
Meanwhile, the cast of the long-running sitcom made an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday to discuss the end of the show after 12 seasons.
“Who’s gonna cry today, is someone gonna cry?” talk show host Ellen DeGeneres asked, to which Kaley Cuoco replied, “100 percent.”
The Critics’ Choice winner, 33, admitted that she recently started “bawling” while rehearsing a scene with costar and ex-boyfriend Johnny Galecki. “And the crew, all the camera guys and everyone came out and they were like, ‘We’re so glad you cried, because we’ve been waiting to cry.’” she said. “And then they all gave us this huge group hug and we all just cried for like 10 minutes.”
Holding it in, however, has been Jim Parsons, who conceded that he thinks he’ll break sooner rather than later.
“I haven’t cried yet. I have a very deep fear — seriously — that the most unexpected thing is going to happen, I’m going to absolutely lose my s—t,” the Hidden Figures actor, 45, said. “’Cause it really is profound, the amount of time of your life, and it’s, like, more than, I think, any of us can get a grip on and I’m worried something is going to trigger me, like, deep down something is going to be like, ‘Oh! I didn’t know that was there! That hurts.’”
The Young Sheldon executive producer, who also narrates the Big Bang spinoff, told Entertainment Weekly earlier this month why he felt it was time for the original series to end.
“It’s both as complex and as simple as just feeling innately that it was time,” he said at the time. “It speaks to a lot of things, none of them bad. There is no negative reason to stop doing Big Bang. It felt like we have been able to do this for so many years now, it doesn’t feel like there is anything left on the table. Not that we couldn’t keep doing it, but it feels like we’ve chewed all the meat off this bone.”
Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper, also said it was time for him to move on personally, adding, “I’m firmly in my middle age now. I don’t know how much longer I can wear [the T-shirts] without looking really long in the tooth.”
The Emmy winner is not alone. The rest of the cast told DeGeneres, 61, that they, too, were “falling apart” with various injuries: Galecki, 43, broke his hand, Cuoco had shoulder surgery days after marrying Karl Cook and experiencing vision problems, Parsons had a foot fracture and Simon Helberg joked that he got a paper cut.
The Big Bang Theory airs on CBS Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET.
