HBO Max's The Big Bang Theory Sequel Is The Perfect One-Night Weekend Binge

Published Oct 1, 2026, 11:16 AM EDT

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

The Big Bang Theory has a sequel series on HBO Max, and it has now emerged as the perfect one-night weekend binge for a few reasons. HBO Max's library of TV shows is filled with exciting comedies. That includes both classics like Friends, and more recent releases. On the latter, shows like Steve Carell's Rooster have soared on the streaming service.

In the middle of those exciting comedy shows on HBO Max is The Big Bang Theory and its larger franchise. The original series ran for 12 seasons, airing on CBS from 2007 to 2019. While the hit show might have ended, the network knew the potential it had in continuing the franchise. As such, multiple The Big Bang Theory spin-offs have been released.

In fact, the first of them was released before The Big Bang Theory had even ended. It was the prequel series Young Sheldon, which focused on Sheldon Cooper as a child, played by Iain Armitage, with original Sheldon star Jim Parsons serving as the show's narrator. After that, the second spin-off and prequel, Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage, was released following the end of Young Sheldon in 2024.

All three shows are available on HBO Max. That said, the latest The Big Bang Theory spin-off, and the franchise's only sequel series thus far, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, is the comedy series that has emerged as the perfect one-night weekend binge right now for fans of the hit franchise. Different from the others, Stuart takes the full-on sci-fi route.

Stuart Fails to Save The Universe Is A Shocking The Big Bang Theory Sequel

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe brings back four recurring characters from The Big Bang Theory, with Kevin Sussman leading as Stuart Bloom alongside the return of Lauren Lapkus as Denise, Brian Posehn as Bert Kibbler, and John Ross Bowie as Barry Kripke. While all previous three shows in the franchise were comedy series, even if some had scientific elements to them, none come close to the Stuart Fails to Save the Universe's mix of sci-fi and comedy. The show takes regular The Big Bang Theory characters and sends them on a quest to fix the multiverse.

It is all due to Stuart messing with an advanced quantum device created by Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter and Howard Wolowitz. This leads to the group jumping across several different universes throughout season 1, including the DC Universe, where they meet a version of The Flash, Jay Garrick, and more. As such, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is a unique series in The Big Bang Theory franchise. That said, it builds on the connection the audience has developed with so many characters over the years, and its different universes allow cameos from Kaley Cuoco as Penny, Kunal Nayyar as Raj Koothrappali, and many more.

Why HBO Max's Stuart Fails to Save The Universe Is The Perfect One-Night Weekend Binge

Colin Remas Brown/©HBO Max/Courtesy Everett Collection

Now is the perfect time to finally watch Stuart Fails to Save the Universe on HBO Max if you have not done so already. The reason for that is due to how season 1 finally finished airing. Stuart Fails to Save the Universe debuted on HBO Max on July 23, with the season 1 finale, "Spoiler: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience," arriving on the streaming service recently, on September 24. As such, all 10 episodes of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe season 1 are available on HBO Max, allowing viewers to binge the whole season.

In addition to that, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe's episodes are quite short. Season 1's longest entry has a 26-minute runtime, while the shortest episode comes in at just 16 minutes. Put together, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe season 1 has a total runtime of 203 minutes, aka 3.4 hours. This makes the first The Big Bang Theory sequel series a perfect one-night binge as the weekend approaches, and with Stuart Fails to Save the Universe already renewed for season 2, it is better to be all caught up.