Prime time’s top-rated sitcom, “Young Sheldon,” kicks off its seventh and final season Thursday, Feb. 15 (8 p.m.) on CBS — and series executive producer Steve Holland said these last 14 episodes will cover a lot of ground.
“Obviously, going into this last season and knowing where we wanted to leave the family and also knowing there are some big milestones ahead, there were [plot points] we wanted to make sure we hit,” Holland told The Post.
“We don’t have massive story arcs on this show, but there’s a little bit more of a through-line this season.”
“Young Sheldon” premiered in 2017 and centers around kid genius Sheldon Cooper (Iain Armitage) growing up in East Texas with his family: parents George (Lance Barber) and Mary (Zoe Perry), twin sister Missy (Raegan Revord), older brother Georgie (Montana Jordan) and grandmother Connie (Annie Potts), aka “Meemaw.”
It’s a prequel to “The Big Bang Theory” (2007-2019), which followed the adult Sheldon, played by Jim Parsons, who also narrates “Young Sheldon” — co-created by Chuck Lorre, who also co-created “The Big Bang Theory.”
Explore More
(Zoe Perry’s mother, Laurie Metcalf, played the adult Sheldon’s mom in “TBBT.”)
“We’re aware that ‘Big Bang Theory’ fans like those little Easter Egg moments, so there’s definitely going to be some of those coming up,” said Holland. “There are some ‘Big Bang’ references I think people will be excited to see and we’re excited to put them in.
“Knowing this was our last season, we each had a personal list of things we wanted to acknowledge or make reference to or hide in the background — and I think ‘Big Bang’ fans will have a lot to look forward to.”
Primarily, these last 14 episodes of “Young Sheldon” — the series finale airs in May — will focus on the Cooper family in the show’s late ’80s/early ’90s universe, with an occasional nod to its CBS predecessor.
“Knowing this was the final season there were definitely some big events we knew we wanted to hit and characters we wanted to see again,” Holland said.
“It’s tricky,” he said. “I know, even online, there’s been some speculation of, ‘Well, these things have to happen’ and I’m not saying if you’ll see them or not. The things that happened in adult Sheldon’s life happened to him and they will be addressed.
“We’re not going to ignore those events that happened,” he said.
Last season ended with a tornado that destroyed Meemaw’s house — and Sheldon and Mary in Germany, where Sheldon was spending the summer studying.
Meanwhile, Georgie and his older fiancee, Mandy (Emily Osment), welcomed their baby daughter, Constance (named after Mandy’s confidant, Meemaw).
There’s been talk of a spinoff series featuring those characters — but nothing official yet.
“I’ll say that [a reported spinoff] didn’t really change anything for what we were going to do this season,” Holland said. “We’re ending this show as strongly as we can — and hypothetical shows in the future didn’t affect any decisions we made this season.”
Holland said an eighth season of “Young Sheldon” was not in the cards.
“We talked a lot about what the show could look like moving forward; there are things we know that happen in Sheldon’s life, like when he’s 14 he goes off to Caltech,” Holland said. “But we love the show and we love the cast and we love these characters, and we started to feel like, for this show, this was the right place to end it.
“To go on longer would have been personally rewarding but it wouldn’t have been fair to the show.
“This felt like a great time to bring it to a close.”
ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3V7j2tmam1fmru1sdGtmKKmnZq7tXvYqKynn12otaa4w6ilZquVlsCwuoxwZJ%2BdkanCs7HSZpmin12Xrq%2BzjK2fnqeirnqmrdKtnKtllZy0tHs%3D