The doomed marriage of Young Sheldon’s big bro unfolds in Chuck Lorre’s latest sitcom spinoff

Legendary sitcom producer Chuck Lorre still recalls the day he presented The Big Bang Theory to the television critics of North America. “I was in this room trying to convince you to be enthusiastic about The Big Bang Theory. You were not,” he deadpans. With the sitcom that introduced fans to eccentric physicist Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) turning into a massive hit and media franchise, “all’s forgiven,” says Lorre. “But I got to tell you, I’m doing it again.”

This time, following in the footsteps of Big Bang and its prequel series Young Sheldon, Lorre is introducing both loyalists and new fans to Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, where Sheldon’s oldest brother George Marshall “Georgie” Cooper Jr. (Montana Jordan) and his wife Mandy (Emily Osment) struggle with life’s challenges as they raise their newborn — all while sharing close quarters with Mandy’s parents, Jim (Will Sasso) and Audrey (Rachel Bay Jones).

After two shows dedicated to Georgie’s genius brother, what Lorre and the writers look forward to with Georgie & Mandy is surprising the audience with an expanded view of a character we thought we knew. “There’s a wonderful moment in the first episode where someone says something derogatory about his intelligence, and he responds to his father-in-law that he’s always been considered the dumb brother and he encourages it because people underestimate him,” explains Lorre. “It gives him an edge. So, we’re getting an insight into what it was like to grow up in a household with a prodigy and how he carves out a life for himself going forward.”

For those used to seeing Georgie as the butt of the joke, the new sitcom is something of an evolution for the character we met on Young Sheldon, where the comedy was more than often mined from Sheldon’s older brother’s immaturity. “It’s good to see how he’s growing up and becoming the man of the household,” says Jordan, who has played the character since 2017.

For Lorre, Georgie & Mandy is about showing how success and intelligence can take different forms. “I think one of the things we learned on The Big Bang Theory, in development of Penny’s character, was these different kinds of intelligence. Georgie is very much a part of that storytelling,” he says. “There’s different kinds of intelligence, and he brings things that Sheldon can’t bring, like empathy and compassion and enthusiasm and determination and grit that can ultimately lead to success.”

Osment, who reprises her role from the coming-of-age sitcom that she joined in the fifth season, believes the draw of the series — especially for those unfamiliar with its legacy — is its authenticity in depicting relationships. “It is about real people and a real family dynamic,” says Osment. “In the case of Georgie, you really show who you are as a person when you run into any sort of speed bump. He’s been coasting, living at home, being an 18-year-old, and this roadblock basically came into his life. It’s caused him to step up. And the two of them together are a very good team because, they do get on each other’s nerves, and she is trying to pull him along sometimes, but what a gift to be able to help someone come into their adulthood and him help her come into her motherhood.”

The title of the show — and the adult Georgie, played by Jerry O’Connell, that we met on Big Bang — has already revealed that this marriage is not one that will last forever. Nevertheless, Lorre wants viewers to root for the couple. “Georgie’s 19. He dropped out of high school. How smooth do you think this marriage is going to go?” he quips. “Yes, there’s some pessimism in the word ‘first,’ but there’s hope as well if you’re patient with us.”

And while viewers of the origin show always knew where Sheldon’s path in the prequel series was leading him, all the audience really knows about his older brother is that he ends up a twice-divorced tire tycoon. “We’re really operating on a much more blank slate here,” says co-creator Steve Holland. “We know a little bit about where adult Georgie ends up but very, very little. So, it’s really exciting for us because we have a wide-open field to tell these new stories in.”

And for fans of the multicamera format, the new series returns to its Big Bang roots. “We had an opportunity here to shake things up, flip it back to an audience show, and we also happened to have a cast that we’re very confident in, that will just shine in front of an audience and feed off of that energy,” says the show’s co-creator, Steve Molaro. Adds Lorre: “These are small stories. It’s a family show, and a family show is theatre.”

Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage airs Thursday, November 14, on CTV & CBS