China's nanny state outdid itself on April 25 when authorities suddenly pulled "The Big Bang Theory" and three other popular U.S. television programs off Chinese streaming video sites. Keeping with their usual practice, regulators didn’t explain why they'd clamped down on the wildly popular programs (why should they?). Instead, the sites were left scrambling to respond to angry viewers, claiming that the shows had been pulled for familiar causes such as “violations of relevant rules” and "policy reasons."
That hasn't turned out to be much solace to "Big Bang" fans, who have stormed mainland microblogs for the last three days raging over what, precisely, is so offensive about a sitcom centered around a virginal physicist and his astrophysics-loving friends.
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