Lance Barber is set to reprise his role as George Sr. in an upcoming episode of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” which the show’s executive producers say is an “apology” for killing him off on “Young Sheldon.”
“[Barber] is going to be returning as George Sr. in an episode coming up, which we’re really excited about,” EP Steve Holland told reporters during a Warner Bros. TV press day. “It was so much fun to have him back on the set, especially after killing him off on ‘Young Sheldon’ — that was our apology.”
Barber starred as George Sr. in “The Big Bang Theory” spinoff series until just before “Young Sheldon’s” series finale, when his character died abruptly of a heart attack in the penultimate episode of the show’s seventh and final season. While tragic, George Sr.’s death was predestined, with his death and Sheldon’s entrance to Caltech happening when Sheldon was 14, as revealed in “The Big Bang Theory.”
Holland further revealed that Barber will return as George Sr. in Georgie’s dream.
“Georgie is thinking about his dad, and he’s sort of worried that his dad might be disappointed in him, and so his dad visits him in a dream,” he shared. “It came out of a conversation we’d had with Chuck [Lorre] even early on talking about the show, and Chuck had said about his own father that he still dreams about him, that he still visits him.”
“My father was disappointed in me too,” Lorre quipped.
Tackling George Sr.’s death was just one of the canon events tackled by “The Big Bang Theory” since “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” even by its title, addresses the fact that Georgie and Mandy eventually get divorced, which is also revealed in “The Big Bang Theory.”
As for whether there’s any other canon the CBS sitcom must follow, EP Steven Molaro said he hopes there’s not, admitting, “It’s very stressful to try to get that stuff correct.”
“I think we’re lucky enough that in this show, we don’t know that much about Georgie and Mandy and their relationship,” the EP explained. “Even from ‘Big Bang,’ there’s very little … we know at some point he becomes a tire magnate. And that’s kind of the only thing. [On] ‘Young Sheldon,’ we had lots of things and trying to figure out the timeline and when things were supposed to happen was breaking our brains.”
“Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS before streaming on Paramount+.
