‘Young Sheldon’ finds the right equation for a heart-tugging series finale

Seventeen years after “The Big Bang Theory” made its debut, spinoff “Young Sheldon” has remained one of the bigger hits that network TV can still produce in this diluted day and age.

Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers about the “Young Sheldon” series finale. Seventeen years after “The Big Bang Theory” made its debut, spinoff “Young Sheldon” has remained one of the bigger hits that network TV can still produce in this diluted day and age. Yet the CBS comedy has seldom figured in the awards conversation, something that its emotionally wrenching yet satisfying series finale should remedy, but probably won’t. A master class on weaving comedy with grief and regrets, the two-part conclusion to the series, after seven seasons, dealt with the aftermath of central character Sheldon Cooper (Iain Armitage) losing his father (Lance Barber) as he prepares to head off to Cal Tech. That includes reliving his final exchange with his dad over and over, thinking about all the things he could have said – and wished that he had – but didn’t. The finale also revealed that the voiceover throughout the series by the older Sheldon (Jim Parsons, reprising his “Big Bang” role along with Mayim Bialik) actually came as he was writing his memoir, a middle-aged Nobel prize winner but still as persnickety as ever. Perhaps most interestingly, the arc of the later seasons of “Young Sheldon” also exposed him as a not-entirely-trustworthy source in regard to his father when speaking about him, usually not very charitably, during “The Big Bang Theory,” with George emerging as a much more sympathetic character as the show progressed. Series co-creator Chuck Lorre addressed the challenge in his end-of-show vanity card on the penultimate episode, saying when writing Sheldon’s backstory in “Big Bang” that he didn’t realize they’d be grappling with this challenge years later. (Both shows were produced by Warner Bros., like CNN, a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.)