While Young Sheldon needed Dr. Sturgis to grow tired of its eponymous hero in season 6's plot, The Big Bang Theory's spinoff must now reverse this surprising character shift. Young Sheldon's title character can sometimes become a problem for the series. While its predecessor The Big Bang Theory was a traditional multi-camera hang-out show with a laugh track, Young Sheldon is a more nostalgic single-camera family sitcom with a narrator. This means that Sheldon's goofiness can sometimes feel over-the-top and ill-suited to Young Sheldon's more serious storylines, resulting in some episodes sidelining the character altogether.
While a look back on The Big Bang Theory's most popular episodes proves that Sheldon was the breakout character of that series, Young Sheldon has a surprisingly high number of dramatic plot lines that don't directly involve Sheldon himself. This resulted in Young Sheldon's season 6 finale sending the character to Germany for summer with his mother Mary to study abroad. In the process of getting Sheldon out of the picture, Young Sheldon season 6 subtly altered one of the character's closest confidantes. Now, season 7 needs to undo this unnecessary character change for the sake of the show's future.
As the sitcom spinoff returns to screens, the show must answer the question of why and when Dr. Sturgis turned against Sheldon. Young Sheldon season 7 must explain why Sturgis pitched in financially to get Sheldon sent to Germany when, until now, the supporting character had been a reliable mentor for the show's antihero. Sturgis wanted to get rid of Sheldon for the summer, but only a few episodes earlier he was helping with Sheldon's grant database, encouraging him academically, and praising him for finding clever workarounds. This inconsistent characterization is a problem for Young Sheldon since the show's titular antihero doesn't have many allies at work.
Sheldon was effectively sent to Germany when everyone in his workplace and hometown pooled their resources to get rid of him. While this is a somewhat mean-spirited gag in and of itself, it is Sturgis's contributions that ring particularly hollow. When Sheldon's mother Mary Cooper accompanied him to Germany, it was clear that this was because no one else was willing to babysit him for the summer. However, what made the character of Sturgis so likable in earlier seasons was his willingness to cope with Sheldon's foibles patiently. Although Sturgis occasionally had his spats with Sheldon, he usually got on well with the show's lead character.
Sheldon's other professional mentor Dr. Linkletter typically functions as a jealous rival to Sheldon, which means that his other mentor needs to be more supportive for the show to maintain a balance. While the character's social life is not as bad as Sheldon claimed in The Big Bang Theory, he still struggles to make friends and maintain relationships. Thus, without the support of Sturgis, Sheldon would just be a child prodigy who has few close friends and is hated by both of his adult colleagues. This would be too dark since, while The Big Bang Theory's spinoff does have its dramatic plot lines, Young Sheldon is still a light-hearted family sitcom.
