‘The Big Bang Theory’ creator opens up about Penny’s early character arch

The Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lore reflected on Kaley Cuoco’s character Penny’s evolution throughout the 12 season series and her character arch in the early episodes.

Lorre and former Warner Bros. Television Group chairman Peter Roth joined host Jessica Radloff on the very first episode of The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast to discuss the show’s journey from its unaired plot to earning Emmy nominations.

During the discussion it was revealed that Penny was not in the original pilot.

However, both Lorre and Roth agreed her appearance improved the first episode and made the socially awkward scientist Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) characters easy to understand.

Lorre admitted that the first episode of the series was still "deeply flawed" particularly when it came to Penny. He shared that it took The Big Bang Theory a while to get the character right.

"Even after the second pilot, we had so many episodes to go before we started to understand that there was a brilliance to Penny’s character that we had not explored," he said. Lorre described her in early episodes as a "goofy blonde who says foolish things."

Discussing how the character was more than just a "dumb blonde", he explained that she brought "intelligence" to the story and the series. "A kind of intelligence that was alien to them, an intelligence about people and relationships and family."

He revealed that the show’s core idea was that while extremely intelligent, Sheldon, Leonard and their scientist friends didn’t understand how to interact with other people. But Penny did.

"She brought a humanity to them that they were lacking. And that took a while to figure out," Lorre said. "In the beginning she was sadly one-dimensional in many ways, but the gift of a TV series that starts working is you get time to learn."

The Big Bang Theory was named the longest-running multi-camera series in television history with 10 Emmy awards out of 55 nominations throughout its run.