Howard and Bernadette are parents… again!
Howard and Bernadette are parents… again!
On tonight's all-new episode of The Big Bang Theory, the Wolowitzs welcomed their second child to the long-running CBS comedy and, once again, surprised fans with an adorably sweet out-of-this world name.
"Obviously, we've done a childbirth story before with Howard and Bernadette, so we're always looking for way to do things that are different and fresh than we've done in the past," executive producer Steve Holland recently dished to ET over the phone.
Despite the fact that tonight's episode centered around the arrival of Howard and Bernadette's newest family member, there were plenty of scenes starring the entire group as they rallied around the couple's big moment.
"I love those scenes where it's just the whole group sitting around talking and joking with each other, so this seemed like a great chance to do that before Howard and Bernadette become parents again, which would be trickier," Holland explained.
Howard and Bernadette spent the majority of the episode arguing about whether or not they should name their little boy Michael after Bernie's father, but the new parents of two ultimately settled on a compromise: Neil Michael Wolowitz.
"Early on, we thought it was nice for them to settle on Michael as a middle name," the showrunner recalled of the baby name brainstorming session they had in the Big Bang Theory writers' room. "Then we were sort of struggling to find a first name that we liked."
Holland said that the writers eventually settled on Neil because the name "seemed to check off a lot of boxes" for the couple.
"It was after Neil Armstrong, who was an astronaut like Howard. It was after Neil Gaiman, who was a comic book and Doctor Who writer and someone they're a fan of. And it was after Neil Diamond, which was a deep pull from earlier episodes that Howard is a Neil Diamond fan, so it just seemed really fun and it checked off all these boxes in a neat way for us."
Over the past two seasons, fans have never seen Howard and Bernadette's baby girl, Hallie, and this is because she's an homage to Howard's late mother, Debbie, a beloved character who was always heard but never seen.
So will little Neil ever appear on our screens, or is he going to follow in his big sister's MIA footsteps?
"I mean, it's possible to see the baby, but I'm not a fan of actually having babies on set," Holland answered. "It makes me feel terrible for them, so I'm not super excited to have someone haul their newborn twins and shove them in front of a camera. But certainly the babies and having two babies will be a part of some upcoming episodes for Howard and Bernadette."
The episode also revealed an additional sweet surprise: both Leonard and Sheldon have already been brainstorming their future hypothetical babies' names. (FYI. Leonard likes the name Elliot and Sheldon shocked the group by announcing he plans to have 15 kids. Yikes!)
With all this baby fever, we were curious to know if a third Big Bang Theory baby could be joining the group soon, but it sounds like fans will have to wait a while before Leonard and Penny or Sheldon and Amy decide to take the leap into parenthood.
"Look, it's hard for me to speak for season 12 when we're in the middle of finishing up season eleven, but if I had to give you an answer right now, it's that we've now told two pregnancy stories with Howard and Bernadette and it's hard for me to get excited about writing for another character being pregnant," Holland said candidly.
"But at the same time, these characters have to feel like real people and they're in relationships and married," he countered. "These are actual conversations that they would have and next steps that they would have, so we'll see."
The Big Bang Theory airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
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