“It seemed like a fun storyline.” Aarti Mann's character in The Big Bang Theory was so unpopular that she wasn't kept on the show for too long
Leonard's love interest in The Big Bang Theory was not well-received by fans. The character quickly became one of the most “polarizing” figures in the sitcom.
Over the course of its 12 seasons, The Big Bang Theory featured many characters. Some stayed longer, others made only brief appearances – much depended on the writers' ideas and the audience's reaction. Not every character in TBBT was warmly welcomed and one of the most controversial figures in the sitcom was Priya Koothrappali, Raj's sister.
You'd think she would appear more often, given that she's a close relative of one of the main characters. On top of that, she was also a love interest of another central character – Leonard. And that was one of the problematic aspects, though not the only one. Fans didn't like that she stood in the way of Leonard and Penny's relationship. Probably as a result, the storyline involving Leonard and Priya was ultimately dropped by the show's creators. This allowed more focus to be placed on Leonard and Penny.
Producer Stevve Molaro, in The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive Inside Story Of The Epic Hit Series, described Priya as Leonard's most polarizing love interest (via ScreenRant).
Uh, talk about a polarizing character. I wish I could tell you we thought about these things in advance like that; we didn’t. It seemed like a fun storyline that Leonard’s been dating Koothrappali’s sister. That was as much as that moment had. It was never, “Ooh, if Leonard was dating Koothrappali’s sister, then we’ll do X episode and Y episode!” That’s not how we did it. We were just desperate to find the next episode and that was it. And if something grew out of that, great.
Although the creators of TBBT thought the storyline between Leonard and Priya was fun, fans saw it differently. Their storyline only lasted 12 episodes before Priya disappeared from the show entirely, which seems to have had something to do with how vocal fans were in their dislike of Aarti Mann's character. Priya was like Emily from Friends.
However, ending her storyline didn't mean scrapping a bigger plan – as the producer revealed, there were no long-term ideas for the TV show, most of the plot was developed more spontaneously as the series progressed.
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