Stuart Fails to Save the Universe season 2 could be in trouble, as creators confirm there's 'no big picture' for future seasons

I've said it before and I'll say it again: new HBO Max spinoff Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is even better than original series The Big Bang Theory.

Sure, it's come under fire for its potentially AI-ridden title sequence and we've still yet to see Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki) make a return, but I'm having so much fun watching that I've barely given these minor issues a second thought.

We've been hopping from universe to universe at lightning speed, with each variant of Stuart (Kevin Sussman), Denise (Lauren Lapkus), Kripke (John Ross Bowie) and Bert (Brian Posehn) being richer and more hilarious than the last. The TBBT cameos we have had have been ridiculously left-field, and frankly, I love the fact that I cannot guess what on Earth will happen in the next episode.

Given how the concept of the show itself can be taken literally anywhere in space and time, it makes logical sense for Stuart Fails to Save the Universe to run for multiple seasons. But according to its creators, there's "no big picture" for any kind of future... no matter how much they might want season 2 to be picked up.

'This is chasing what seems to be fun and exciting to do'

"It would be great if I had the big picture," Chuck Lorre tells me. "Wouldn't that be swell? I don't. There's no big picture. This is just chasing what seems to be fun to do... the big picture would require a bigger person."

Zak Penn adds, "We purposefully wrote ourselves into corners. We like doing that and then saying 'How are we going to get out of this?' That was definitely part of the design of how the team writes and how they wanted to approach it. It makes it more fun not really knowing where we were going to be and how we were going to get there.

"Eventually, we figured some stuff out and came up with an ending. But [the show] was never designed to be 'Oh, we know where all of this is going.'"

Given how easy it would be to create Stuart Fails to Save the Universe season 2 — both from a narrative and production point of view — this news crushed me. But don't panic... I've decided to take matters into my own hands.

For now, I'm continuing on with the perhaps-delusional belief that we'll see a season 2 renewal from HBO Max within the next few weeks or months. So, I've pitched the team two ideas for future storylines.

The first is addressing the really big picture: use Stuart Fails to Save the Universe to address the existing problem of George Cooper being dead, and bring him back to life through an alternate universe. That way, Young Sheldon fans get the ending they really wanted.

"We'll definitely keep your ideas in mind," Penn says. "There are an infinite number of universes within this universe, so the universe that you're looking for is going to exist by definition. Whether it makes it to TV is another question."

So far, so good. But I hammer this home with another idea: explore the episode 2 universe that reveals film and TV's Christine Baranski is an AI overlord.

Bill Prady responds, "We'll have to see how the rebellion goes and what happens afterwards. What do they do to her afterwards?"

"She'd be tried," Lorre agrees. "Well there we go — there's something we can do if we get a second season."

Bingo. Over to you, HBO.

Jasmine is a Streaming Staff Writer for TechRadar, previously writing for outlets including Radio Times, Yahoo! and Stylist. She specialises in comfort TV shows and movies, ranging from Hallmark's latest tearjerker to Netflix's Virgin River. She's also the person who wrote an obituary for George Cooper Sr. during Young Sheldon Season 7 and still can't watch the funeral episode.