...this bone"

https://tvline.com/2019/01/03/the-big-bang-theory-ending-jim-parsons-final-season-12/

"There is no negative reason to stop doing Big Bang. There are good reasons,” Parsons says in an Entertainment Weekly cover story (https://ew.com/tv/2019/01/03/the-big-bang-theory-ew-cover-winter-tv-preview/) on The Big Bang Theory's final season. “We’ve been able to do this for so many years, it doesn’t feel like there is anything left on the table. Not that we couldn’t keep doing it; the writers could still think of wonderful things for us to do. But it feels like we chewed all of the meat off this bone.” The 45-year-old Parsons also pointed out that "I'm firmly in my middle age now" and he'll soon become too old to pull off wearing T-shirts all the time

It's a cute thing to say.

I think Jim Parsons nailed it. The show peaked years ago, making future packaging of the reruns interesting to think about. Like both Bewitched and The Andy Griffith Show there is a specific point where the show jumped the shark, it was after season 5. That's not say there weren't good episodes in 6, but I think it was clear the best years were past after season 5. Season 6 is kind of a stand alone (hit and miss) after which the series episodes were much more miss than hit. Everything the series had to offer was given, we have dry well on our hands.

About time.

Seems to me like 5 years is a good run for most shows. Gives them time to find their footing, grow, peak, then end gracefully. Some shows just run way too many seasons. Financially I'm sure it makes sense to keep some shows going longer, but creatively I like 5 years. In the case of TBBT their success has made it very expensive to make. I don't know if they could afford to start paying them much more. I wonder who will be sitcoms first actor to get $2 million per episode and if Parsons stayed would it be him.

Yeah, I would say he's right. The whole point of the show were about a group of four guys whom were socially awkward nerds, and now they've transcended past that. Leonard, Sheldon and Howard are all married now. Some of them have kids now. Yeah, I would say its time.

It’s time to wrap it up. Anybody else besides me really dislike Raj’s new woman they were trying to set up an arranged marriage with? I’d rather stay single, please.

Long overdue. Seasons 1-3 were the funniest, 4-6 had a few jokes, a slight rebound for 7-8, and 9 had things going back downhill with the last hurrah in 10. Season 11 was flat, I've not yet seen any of season 12. And a 30 minute timeslot for a show that's actually 17 or 18 minutes for any number of episodes? That's ridiculous.

The show has always mocked people in science (e.g. Marie Curie, back when people really were telling women not to get into science but it's nothing like 1890 anymore...) as well as awkward nerds -- even Raj in season 1 or 2 is revealed to have his talking problem as being psychosomatic for a joke (and by season 7 or whenever was just ditched because the writers just didn't care about walking caricatured cliches they didn't care about), and the few bits of high school science tricks did fizzle out over time. The show still had some, but season 4 onward definitely changed the format - which was more widely well-received. And nobody cared about the three iterations of Amy between season 3 through 6 (had no interest in intercourse, then was drooling over men but not understanding why, then was drooling over Penny, then was drooling only for Sheldon.)

But being a sitcom, and sitcoms like sketch shows do parody people as part of the thrill... the issue isn't that a group of people is made fun of, that happens all the time. The show that plays pretend science and gets people to ditch their real science jobs just to play pretend - who then tell children not to listen to those saying not to go into science and to go into it but without addressing any real life issues... even though the only people who are hinting for anybody to go into the field are this show's writers, given its popularity and often derogatory stances just for cheap laughs, or at least laugh tracks when the audience isn't loud enough.