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+---- Thread: SPOILERS: What fresh hell is this? - S9 (/showthread.php?tid=355)
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Nutz - 09-26-2015
I think Malero is still stuck in the Comedy of 13 - 17 year olds in The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101 and iCarly where of course there needs to be growth since a Teen Comedy is about "finding out who you are" but I just don't understand this thinking that an Adult Comedy has to show "growth" to be viable
MASH ran 11 years did any of the characters have any "real sustainable" growth?
Seinfeld ran for Nine Seasons, did they "grow" as individuals?
All In the Family, I Love Lucy (even with the baby) did they show character growth? HELL NO!
I'm have this reoccurring nightmare right now where TPTB decide to remake Gilligan's Island and Lovey spends her day shrieking at Thurston to "do his chores", Mary Ann is complaining that she needs some sugar from her sexy Toddler, but the Professor is to busy trying to get them off the Island, and Gilligan spends his days whining that he just can't catch a break with Ginger.
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Idle Miscreant - 10-01-2015
Interview with Mayim regarding Amy (and possibly Sheldon) dating others in upcoming storylines.
http://au.eonline.com/news/701770/mayim-bialik-talks-dating-on-the-big-bang-theory-are-there-shirtless-hunks-in-amy-s-future
I like this bit;
"I don't know who I would pick for Sheldon. I feel like, on the one hand I would love the contrast of a Penny type. I think that would be really good, for laughs, and for comedy. But as the person who plays Amy, that would be hard, too."
I like the way you think madam! Penny it is, then.
Very interesting.
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Tuesday Pajamas - 10-01-2015
Mayim talks about the type of guys Amy might date now she and Sheldon are over.
http://uk.eonline.com/news/701770/mayim-bialik-talks-dating-on-the-big-bang-theory-are-there-shirtless-hunks-in-amy-s-future
She also says that Sheldon might suit a "Penny type" of woman.
Maybe there's hope for the Amy character afterall.
She may come into her own, outside of the drab Shamy union which does little for either character. It definitely makes Sheldon creepy and infantile and manages to suck all the 'hot' out of Jim Parsons (quite some task 
). And Amy is sort of unshadowed by Sheldon in a way. Watch this space I say...
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Idle Miscreant - 10-01-2015
It does indeed do a disservice to both characters. And whilst I only care about Sheldon, it's still irritating to see a potentially good character (like AFF might have been, and was, briefly) go to waste.
After an interesting first year (although I fast-forwarded through the "girls night" scenes) for Amy's character, she went through a strange, Flanderized stage of faintly amusing panto behaviour in Season 5, then settled into "Put-Upon Girlfriend" for Seasons 6, 7 and most of 8. If she's going to stick around, which she is, though I prefer she wouldn't, she could at least be entertaining in her own plots, without ANYTHING to do with Sheldon.
There's loads of things they could do with her that don't involve being Sheldon's ball and chain. She's a scientist and fairly weird personality in her own right, and yet she's had bugger all to do on this show but be "victimised" and complain about Sheldon BEING SHELDON for the last 4 years.
Mother of god, if I have to see her be miserable with the chap she CHOSE to get into a relationship with, and for whom they destroyed his character to accommodate...
Because, and there's no other way to put this, she's fine on her own, but she RUINS Sheldon. Since they changed her character and made her starved for affection, very very needy, and the Woobie of the piece (bizarrely offset by her acts of sheer obnoxiousness and passive aggression) he's had to be dialed back to childhood, and made a complete arse, so that he can "learn to be a better person" just to make his girlfriend happy. They threw out his character's integrity for a plot device. I get why they did it (ratings, extended contracts, wanting to write for MB and MR) but it doesn't make it less upsetting.
When he's "Sheldony" around Penny it doesn't affect her emotionally. She knows his nature and just passes over his frequently rude (socially) or difficult comments. She's as strong as he is, she can take it, and flings it back at him. They're equals.
But Amy's nature is far more submissive, thus when Sheldon is just himself around her, he's painted as the villain, over and over again, and the villain which must "become good" in whatever Morality Play they're crafting here.
They should have put him with a character who liked him for who he WAS. So he didn't HAVE to change, and thus cripple the show. Or who didn't require traditional romance, or displays of affection. Someone who just got on with her own life, but loved him regardless. A big ole five like Penny, as we always say. But any number of similar characters would have done.
They're at an impasse now. They've turned Sheldon into the sort of person who can't function by himself. He's regressed (under the odd name of "growth") both in intellectual and emotional intelligence and subtlety to such a degree that he seems to need a full-time carer.
Sheldon of Season 1 knew when Leonard was upset, and tried to help. Sheldon of Season 3 put himself out and cared for Penny. He sang to her for heaven's sake. Sheldon of the early seasons was snarky and upstarty and eccentric, but he wasn't Rain Main. Now he's this oddly mawkish, alternately sentimental/rednecky character, who seems a lot LOUDER and more difficult to deal with than he ever was. All idiot, no savant, as we say frequently here. So. Considering that Seasons 5-9 is essentially a different show, and that Sheldon is a completely different character, aye, what ARE they going to do with him now that Leonard and Penny are married?
The original Sheldon would have happily got on with his work, occasionally escaping to terrorize the village, but otherwise he was content with his own company and work. He was CAPABLE of doing all manner of things, he just chose not to. Why would he bother to learn to drive, when Leonard and Penny drove him everywhere? Nonetheless, he DID teach himself to drive (and no, Amy didn't, where the hell did that come from?) and indeed even managed to get a speeding ticket taking Penny to hospital. Point is, he was fine, and indeed extraordinary, with his work, himself, his friends and his passions. There was utterly no artistic need to change him. But they did, and now look where the poor fucker is. And where the ratings will shortly be. And critical approval, and lasting artistic worth.
There is only one way to escape this impasse;
Sheldon must be returned to the contented, eccentric alien of S1-4. NOT the vengeful, angsty creature he is now - That is aggravating the audience. NOT the simpering boyfriend of Season 8 - That bored the audience. Ratings went down horrendously in Season 8. Actually, they started to drop after the Locomotive Manipulation midway through Season 7...It's been a spasmodic but certain decline ever since. Why? Because they're messing with Sheldon's original, intrinsic nature.
Return Sheldon to his old self, but HAPPILY. Move Amy on into a relationship (because sadly she has been written to "need" one, unlike her original Season 4 self) where she can express herself in a more interesting manner. I'd say break up Leonard and Penny, but I really can't ask for TOO much. But that relationship is terribly unnatural. And exhausting.
So I'll stick with my first request - Bring back alien, whimsical, self-sufficient, BRILLIANT, solitary, observer of humanity Sheldon. And let him live out the series with his dignity intact.
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Tuesday Pajamas - 10-01-2015
That's how I feel. Amy and Sheldon don't work. One is always dominant and the other submissive. She'll be grimacing at his hurtful behaviour one minute and yelling the next. In-between, Amy just patronises Sheldon talking to him like he's a little boy. She's very much 'School Teacher Amy' in a lot of scenes. Otherwise she's running around after him like a lapdog. They are on a pendulum. Its never equal. I suppose all the BB relationships are like that and maybe that's the reason I don't like ANY of the ships. Its a master/servant dynamic.
And it began when they started dating. Their best scenes were before Spitoon or shortly after. Then it was push pull drama for years. They had to put the cork in the bottle because they ran out of ideas of how to move Sheldon closer to normality without ending the story too soon. My prediction is they are going to keep them apart a long time, a lot longer than the shippers would like. Might be completely wrong, we'll see.
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Tuesday Pajamas - 10-02-2015
Mayim said
“I don’t know who I would pick for Sheldon. I feel like on the one hand I would love something like the contrast of a Penny type. I think that would be really good for laughs and for comedy. But, as the person who plays Amy that would be hard too. I like that on our show we do show other female scientists besides Amy, and we show different kinds of female scientists.”
Bialik added that maybe someone like the female scientist character Bernadette, played by Melissa Rauch, would be a better fit. “I think honestly that might be interesting to see Sheldon with more of a Bernadette type scientist.”
I know there are people who like the idea of a Bernadette-like match for Sheldon but I don't think there would be enough comedy, not like a polar opposite. Heart and Mind. Also I HATE Bernadette most of the time. She's is such a cartoon, the voice, the padded bar, the fake blonde hair, the bad acting. She's unnatural and I don't find her yelling funny in the slightest, so I see what Mayim is saying about Sheldon but I don't like Amy screaming at Sheldon so I don't think it would be an improvement having Bernadette doing it. I think Abby, Martha or Alice would be better. Not a scientist but a gamer, or sci-fi freak if we can't have Penny that is.
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Idle Miscreant - 10-02-2015
![[Image: raj-sheldon-play-rock-band.png]](http://images.tvfanatic.com/iu/s--w9cvSgGQ--/t_full/f_auto,fl_lossy,q_75/v1371135075/raj-sheldon-play-rock-band.png)
![[Image: sheldon-and-martha.png]](http://images.tvfanatic.com/iu/s--73fpYI8J--/t_full/f_auto,fl_lossy,q_75/v1371135083/sheldon-and-martha.png)
![[Image: 1567073.jpg]](http://static3.opensubtitles.org/gfx/thumbs/3/7/0/7/1567073.jpg)
![[Image: sheldon.jpg]](https://comentaseries.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sheldon.jpg)
![[Image: sheldon.gif]](http://www.cityoffilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/sheldon.gif)
![[Image: bbt-3x11.jpg]](http://s3.seriesregular.com/bbt-3x11.jpg)
Martha & Abby Appreciation Post.
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Tuesday Pajamas - 10-02-2015
I love both those girls. They knew what a "Green Lantern Lantern" was and wanted to play Rock Star. Girls after my own heart. I love the way Sheldon says "We've pulled" when Leonard comes through the door. So funny coming from him.
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Idle Miscreant - 10-07-2015
According to you chaps in the Grumblebox, there are murmurings in the relationship fandom that the declining numbers of viewers are due to the break-up being dragged on too long, and Sheldon and AFF not being "happy" and together.
I would like to point out, that Season 8 was almost unmitigated Shamyville McHappyland and the numbers were identical, and in some cases even worse than they are now.
So if you're going to quibble, if anything has turned viewers away (outside the general drop in television watching), it's "Shamy" itself.
8.01 The Locomotion Interruption ----------------- 5.5/17 -----18.08m
8.02 The Junior Professor Solution ---------------- 5.4/16 ----- 18.30m
8.03 The First Pitch Insufficiency ------------------ 4.8/15 ----- 16.38m
8.04 The Hook-up Reverberation ------------------ 4.8/15 ----- 15.94m
8.05 The Focus Attenuation ------------------------ 4.6/14 ----- 15.63m
8.06 The Expedition Approximation ---------------- 4.6/14 ----- 16.02m
8.07 The Misinterpretation Agitation --------------- 4.1/14 ----- 16.25m
8.08 The Prom Equivalency ------------------------- 4.3/14 ----- 16.5m
8.09 The Septum Deviation ------------------------- 4.5/14 ----- 16.90m
8.10 The Champagne Reflection -------------------- 4.1/13 ----- 14.61m
8.11 The Clean Room Infiltration ------------------- 3.9/13 ----- 15.49m
8.12 The Space Probe Disintegration --------------- 4.6/15 ----- 18.11m
8.13 The Anxiety Optimization ---------------------- 4.5/15 ----- 17.25m
8.14 The Troll Manifestation ------------------------- 4.6/16 ----- 17.09m
8.15 The Comic Book Store Regeneration ---------- 4.5/15 ----- 17.49m
8.16 The Intimacy Acceleration --------------------- 4.5/15 ----- 16.67m
8.17 The Colonization Application ------------------- 4.8/16 ----- 18.17m
8.18 The Leftover Thermalization ------------------- 4.4/16 ----- 16.13m
8.19 The Skywalker Incursion ----------------------- 3.4/13 ----- 13.35m
8.20 The Fortification Implementation -------------- 3.5/13 ----- 14.78m
8.21 The Communication Deterioration ------------- 3.9/15 ----- 14.82m
8.22 The Graduation Transmission ------------------ 3.6/13 ----- 14.63m
8.23 The Maternal Disruption ------------------------ 3.4/13 ----- 13.85m
8.24 The Commitment Determination --------------- 3.7/14 ----- 14.64m
(The late spike on 8.17 is almost certainly related to Leonard Nimoy.
He was widely known, thanks to the Napkin/Hug, as Sheldon's hero, and when he absconded, many folk would have tuned in to see how Sheldon would react. This is because the GP is presumably not aware of the lapse between taping and airing)SEASON 9
9.01 The Matrimonial Momentum ----------------- 4.7/16 ----- 18.20m
9.02 The Separation Oscillation ------------------- 3.8/13 ----- 15.23m
9.03 The Bachelor Party Corrosion ---------------- 3.7/13 ----- 15.03m
Not only were they "happy" in Season 8, Sheldon and Amy scenes were given the bulk of screen time. More than any other pairing, including Sheldon & Leonard, and Sheldon & Penny. So if you want to lay the blame anywhere, it's perhaps for throwing the friendships of the show onto the back-burner, and allowing the instant custard of "Shamy" to gloop away in a prime position.
As far as I'm concerned, the writers are doing the best they can with an awkward situation. Sheldon is the centre of the show, if he's thrown off balance, the whole thing goes off-kilter. Trying to drive the show with a wildly fluctuating, OOC Sheldon, must be about as difficult as Tom Hanks trying to fly the Odyssey whilst venting oxygen into space.
(Tom Hanks is such a talented fellow)
Sheldon is the problem. They seem to have worked this out. You CAN'T change Sheldon into a "proper boyfriend" without destroying his nature. So, because that's what Amy wants, apparently (although she didn't always...not sure what happened there) you either scupper a relationship or scupper the central character and thus the show.
In Season 8 they seemed to be hellbent on scuppering Sheldon. He was unrecognisable at times. And the ratings reflected it, or seemed to, in my opinion. They've been dropping since mid-way through Season 7. When they began to really tighten the screws on Vintage Sheldon, forcing him into a boyfriend Sheldon mould.
Now it looks like someone, somewhere (Lorre?) has realised this, and is trying their damndest to right the situation.
Why you have so much grumbling from General Public NOW, rather than then (although good lord there were some scathing comments about the ruination of Sheldon's character...but those have been around since Season 4, when the fucker truly disappeared) is because, I suspect, people were HOPING the show was going to get back to its roots of science, friendships and geekery, and what they got was a marriage, a break-up, and ongoing couple issues.
The main objections on social media were not "We want Shamy back", but "Enough with the boring relationships!" Ie, ALL OF THEM. Whether they're married, or fighting, or breaking up - it's all relationships. As Toad has pointed out, even the titles reflect this; The Matrimonial...The Separation...The Bachelor...And we know the plots for the next few episodes, and whilst there certainly seems to be some excellent notions as well (sword-fighting! Huzzah!), on the whole there's more relationship business ahead.
But I truly think that the main problem is Sheldon himself. He's had a few incredibly Vintage Sheldon moments recently, which we all got terribly excited about (well, some of us did *cough*) thinking the old deadpan, brilliant alien was returning, only for THIS to crop up;
![[Image: tumblr_nvswp8HWDc1ufum4to1_500.gif]](http://38.media.tumblr.com/ec3ac7d6c5ea32af6fd67c3b5c82d165/tumblr_nvswp8HWDc1ufum4to1_500.gif)
I know Jim is an adorable fellow, and a certain segment of the population likes this schtick, but as we frequently point out, this behaviour veers into Mr. Bean territory, rather than Blackadder. We want Blackadder Sheldon back. Otherwise I'm not sure even him being single again will save it artistically. He needs to return to the original Sheldon blueprint. That was a masterpiece of design and Parsons embodied it to perfection.
A last reminder, that in Season 3 the overall viewers were less (although now they're around equal with parts of Season 8) but the DEMO was considerably GREATER. Shouldn't they be trying to get back this demo? I mean, it seems to suggest that in Season 3 the show was more "hip".
Season 3
11 "The Maternal Congruence"--------- 5.6---- 15.58m
12 "The Psychic Vortex" ---------------5.7 ---- 15.82m
13 "The Bozeman Reaction" ------------5.2 -----14.99m
14 "The Einstein Approximation" --------5.4 ---- 15.51m
15 "The Large Hadron Collision" --------6.0 ---- 16.26m
16 "The Excelsior Acquisition"----------5.9 ----- 15.73m
17 "The Precious Fragmentation" ------ 5.9 ---- 16.32m
RE: What fresh hell is this? - S9 - Idle Miscreant - 10-07-2015
Just an idle thought prompted by poking around on other TBBT forums...
AFF not knowing about the ring, and thus that Sheldon had some intention of proposing eventually (although not necessarily on the night she broke up with him. He just said in the 9.06 account that he was going to propose, before she changed her feelings. He didn't specify WHEN he was going to propose. But I digress) is being treated as some sort of comedy of errors, with shippers clasping their hands together and exclaiming "If only she knew!"
But what would this change if she did? She broke up with him after, as Molaro himself said, a series of paper cuts spread out over 5 years. According to Amy, Sheldon spoke more to her in the few days since they were broken up, than in the last few months of their relationship. She knows he's in it for the long haul. She made plans with this in mind. A ring, and thus confirmation of what she already knew, is not going to alter her unhappiness with the relationship AS IT STANDS. And as it has been for years. Her complaints about him were frequent. It simply doesn't work, and she wanted out. (or rather, the writers etc)
It's not OOC at all.
The entire "humour" of the Sheldon/Amy relationship was repetitively based on the chasm which yawned between what Amy wanted and expressed, and what Sheldon actually thought was happening. The subtler humour of them being "on the same side against the normals" disappeared with Season 4. Indeed it was barely there to begin with. A handful of episodes, at best. We Nostalgic fans get accused of hanging on to the early years, but at least they WERE years, not mere episodes. (and no I'm not bitter
)Because the other type of humour started in Season 5. "Kiss me where I've never been kissed before." "What, like Salt Lake City?" "Nevermind." <paraphrased because I don't watch that season if I can help it>. Amy making an innuendo-laden joke, or an outright expression of her feelings on an emotional matter, and Sheldon completely missing the point, or blithely ignoring it. Over and over again.
They haven't communicated on the same wave-length since Season 4. And they were friends then. It should go back to that.
I do honestly get the theoretical appeal of the Sheldon/Amy relationship, or at least what some shippers WANT it to be, the two unusual sods against the universe, but it hasn't been like that for years. And to be honest I didn't really even see it in Season 4. They've changed the character of Amy too much over the years for her to be real to me. And Sheldon himself of course is all over the shop. But I have residual affection for Sheldon, regardless of how he's played, because of my immense respect for his Season 1-3 self. Amy I have no affection for, so she doesn't get the same "pass".
But the character had a bum rap from the start. She was brought in as a plot device, and now has served her purpose. They either have to strengthen her character and make her permanently INDEPENDENT of Sheldon's, or marginalize her, so she doesn't take screen time away from the folk who started this series, and got it up to 15 million viewers with NO HELP AT ALL. No syndication, no rom-com guaranteed audience, nothing but clever writing and delightful actors and an unusual idea.
The original 5 drew the crowd (the 15 million bulk of it). They should be the ones to end this parade.
Idle thought petering out...