An actress and producer who has been core to the TV industry for the entirety of her adulthood and then some, Sara Gilbert will soon say a potentially permanent farewell to the character of Darlene Conner as ABC’s The Conners joins all the other shows ending in 2025. She doesn’t appear to have “return to another classic sitcom” on her to-do list, but coincidentally enough, she did address how interested she might be in reprising her Big Bang Theory-verse role of Leslie Winkle.
In 2007, right around a decade after Roseanne wrapped up its bonkers ninth season, and three years before she started The Talk, Gilbert was invited by former Roseanne writer and TBBT co-creator Chuck Lorre to reunite with her former TV boyfriend Johnny Galecki for the then-new CBS sitcom. She first arrived in the second episode of the show, and returned a number of times over the years, with Leslie’s final appearance happening in Season 9 for Episode 200, along with Adam West and Stephen Hawking.
Sara Gilbert stopped by The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast and talked to host Jessica Radliff about working with Galecki and Lorre again, and shared her specific memories tied to the sitcom’s third episode, "The Fuzzy Boots Corollary” and its filthy double-entendre dialogue. When asked if fans could ever hope to see Leslie on the small screen again, and whether or not she’d wanted to return more in the early days, Gilbert said:
Yeah I would do more. I would have done more at the time.
It wasn't her call to make, in regards to how often she was meant to return as Leslie. As a strong-willed and brainy female character on par with the male leads, Vickie was a formidable force to reckon with, later shifting her bedroom interests from Leonard to Howard. But apparently her flash-in-the-pan personality wasn't the easiest to draw out and expand from week to week. As she explained:
I think the writers kind of hit a wall with the character, probably also because she leaves these dynamics quickly, you know, then kind of like, well, what do you do now? She’s wired like that, and she left, and then there’s no more story there, really. But yeah it was a blast, and I like to work, so I’m always happy to show up.
One always has to wonder. how many grains of salt should be taken with a gung-ho response like those above. Like, if someone walked in and interrupted the podcast interview by offering Sara Gilbert a recurring role on Max's Big Bang spinoff, would she actually take it? Or would she only be interested in appearing on a far smaller scale?
The new offshoot, titled Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, features Kevin Sussman returning for the titular role, with a trio of co-stars in John David Bowie, Lauren Lapkus and Brian Posehn as Barry, Denise and Burt, respectively. So far, no details have surfaced by way of potential guest stars, but I can't imagine this show existing without direct ties to TBBT proper.
While The Conners’ cast hasn’t necessarily been at the center of myriad casting notices as of late, the same can’t be said for The Big Bang Theory’s elite. Kaley Cuoco’s Peacock show was just canceled, although she has another new show in the works, AND she reunited with Johnny Galecki for a fun new commercial. Mayim Bialik and Simon Helberg will both be guest star veterans of Melissa Rauch’s Night Court by the time its current season will have wrapped.
And as far as their own potential interest in returning for the spinoff is concerned, Mayim Bialik is down for it, and Cuoco has sounded interested as well, though Jim Parsons might need some further convincing.
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