Why is the Big Bang Theory so popular?

Let me start this off by saying I'm major geek. I watched all 10 seasons of Smallville, I love Psych, I have the complete series of Avengers: EMH and X-men: Evolution, a rather large collection of comic books, several sci-fi novels including Star Wars: Planet of Twilight, not to mention all 6 Star Wars films, and Superman I-IV, and I know exactly what System 32 is, so it's not that I don't get the show. It's more that I don't see the appeal. BBT, is one of the lamest shows I've ever watched. The jokes are predictable, I don't care a bit for the characters, the plots are uninteresting. The last episode I saw was the one where they were on an Amtrak, and I didn't laugh once. And I see captioned screen caps of the episodes all over Facebook and Twitter but none of them are funny. Is it all the pop culture references that gets people interested? Certainly it can't be the jokes, plots and characters.