CBSIt’s a great day for US Young Sheldon fans, as Season 7 has finally landed on Netflix. But in an ideal world, there’d still be a way for Young Sheldon Season 8 to happen.
The binge-worthy TV show wrapped up for good in May 2024, with spinoff Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage picking up the reins on CBS. The latter has already been greenlit for a second season, with fellow Big Bang Theory spin-off, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, also in development.
But are either of these two options what the people want to see? Not really. Instead, Young Sheldon became so popular during its seven-year run that it completely justified an eighth season.
However, unless George is miraculously resurrected and the Cooper family is brought back together in Medford, Young Sheldon Season 8 seems unlikely. That being said, there’s actually a legitimate reason why the original prequel could come back.
Young Sheldon Season 8 would have to move to California
It’s a reason that comes with sacrifice, though. For Young Sheldon Season 8 to make sense, it would have to be based in California, following Sheldon through his early days at Caltech.
CBSObviously, there’s pros and cons here. The big drawback is moving away from everything that made Young Sheldon the show we loved to watch, with Missy, Mary, and Georgie needing to become side characters in their own family story. George’s death has left a massive hole in the Cooper family for good, and as Georgie & Mandy is proving, it can’t ever really be fixed.
However, the move to Caltech wouldn’t be all bad. Sheldon’s first years there would likely mean we’d see (in real time) how he met each of the Big Bang Theory characters, taking us on the adventures we’d only heard about in passing or seen in brief flashbacks.
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It could also be an opportunity to flesh out the rest of the Coopers separately. Missy’s knee-deep in a teenage rebellion we’re not properly seeing explored in Georgie & Mandy, while Mary is obviously doubling down on her religious beliefs to morph her into the woman we meet many years later.
Then there’s Meemaw. June Squibb’s TBBT version is the total opposite of Annie Potts’ portrayal, and we’ve never really had an answer for how or why she changed so much. Georgie & Mandy is still showing her as a woman willing to risk her neck with the law, but what happened after?
Young Sheldon’s future is still up for debate
CBS never officially commented on the potential of Young Sheldon Season 8, and none of our cast or crew have flat-out ruled it out. Basically, it’s a “never say never” situation for now.
CBS“In the Big Bang universe, Sheldon goes to Caltech at 14. Even if we ignored that, the show is called Young Sheldon, and that’s not true anymore,” creator Chuck Lorre told USA Today.
“We got to watch this guy grow up, and it was wonderful. It’s heartbreaking to end, even though it was the right story decision. It just felt like the right time. But it didn’t make it any less emotional.”
That said, it still felt like an “ambush” for Annie Potts, who plays Meemaw. “This one was especially hard because I was completely unprepared. I was shocked. I mean, the No. 1 show on network TV, No. 1 on Netflix,” she told Variety.
“We’re, I think, all that people watch on TikTok besides a couple of recipes for pasta. It just seemed like such a stupid business move. Forgive me, but I don’t know. If a show is starting to drag or lag or have a lack of stories or whatever, then you kind of see it coming. We were totally ambushed by this. I was, anyway.”
Iain Armitage, who plays the titular character, agreed with Potts. “I totally get what Annie means. It’s also just hard in a really weird way that I can only really see if I step back and try and take a global view, which is hard… I definitely think we could have done a lot more,” he said.
Check out our Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage review and our interview with George Cooper’s Lance Barber. Also, find out how it copied Young Sheldon’s most upsetting moment, and how the spinoff addresses its most controversial change.