Although the cast of The Big Bang Theory have been busy since the iconic sitcom ended back in 2019, one star’s new AMC show stands out as the best project any of the main players have been involved in since its series finale. At one point in its history, The Big Bang Theory rivaled HBO’s fantasy hit Game of Thrones for the title of TV’s biggest show. As tough as it may be to believe, the CBS hang-out sitcom about a group of nerdy friends commanded a massive audience of 20 million at its peak.

Even though the show held on to many of these viewers all the way until The Big Bang Theory’s finale in 2019, the fortunes of its cast have been mixed in the years since. Breakout star Jim Parsons appeared in movies like The Boys in the Band and Spoiler Alert, but his biggest project was reprising the role of Sheldon via the narration of The Big Bang Theory’s prequel Young Sheldon. Johnny Galecki appeared in Roseanne’s spinoff The Conners, but since then, he seems to have retired from acting entirely.

While Kaley Cuoco’s small-screen efforts, such as The Flight Attendant, Vanished, Based on a True Story, and Harley Quinn, have all won her consistent critical acclaim, her movies Meet Cute and Role Play didn’t fare so well with reviewers. In fact, it is Howard’s actor, Simon Helberg, who has recently appeared in the best project taken on by any of the show’s main cast members, AMC’s satirical drama The Audacity. A dark comedy about a spiraling, narcissistic tech CEO’s downfall, The Audacity is quickly proving to be a huge critical success.

The Audacity Couldn’t Be More Different From TBBT, But Simon Helberg’s Characters Are Surprisingly Similar

The Audacity stars No Time To Die’s Billy Magnussen as Duncan Park, a CEO who has dubbed himself the “Inventor of the future.” When Park is hit with a massive scandal involving personal data misuse, he begins to blackmail his therapist, Sarah Goldberg’s JoAnne Felder, into helping him cover up his misdeeds. Helberg plays Martin Phister, the husband of Meaghna Rath’s Anushka, Park’s main ethics advisor. Since Anushka is also Park’s former mistress, it is fair to say that her ethical advice arrives a little compromised.

While Park is the malignant star at the center of The Audacity’s toxic workplace drama, everyone gets a chance to show off their worst side throughout the series. A satirical take-down of Silicon Valley culture, The Audacity is as unsparing in its depiction of Martin as every other character, doing for the tech industry what earlier shows, such as The Studio and Hacks, did for the entertainment industry. Its stellar reviews prove that critics agree.

Between The Social Network, 2022’s Super Pumped, the same year’s The Dropout and WeCrashed, 2023’s Dumb Money, and 2025’s Swiped, it would be fair for viewers to assume that another tale of another tech CEO’s rise and fall can’t be all that engaging. However, since The Audacity’s story isn’t based on a real Silicon Valley figure, the show can dismantle the industry’s problems without feeling like a straightforward biopic.

Instead, the series operates more like Succession or Industry, with all the dark humor and toxic drama this entails. At the center of all of this is Helberg’s killer turn as Martin, another piece of evidence that the former sitcom star can take the familiar nerdy character he played in his biggest hit and expand on this persona in fresh, funny, unpredictable ways. While it might have a far darker sense of humor than The Big Bang Theory, The Audacity is still the best show any of the main cast members have done since the series ended.