+- Shenny HQ (https://shennyhq.co.uk/dir)
+-- Forum: The Big Bang Theory (https://shennyhq.co.uk/dir/forumdisplay.php?fid=1)
+--- Forum: Mint in Box (https://shennyhq.co.uk/dir/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Thread: Wishful Thinking... (/showthread.php?tid=42)
RE: Wishful Thinking... - Trust No One - 09-29-2014
(09-25-2014, 04:04 PM)Louise Wrote: *deep breath**, okay, I'm going to try posting some actual Wishful Thinking in the wishful thinking thread, instead of more ranting:
I sometimes wonder about different versions of this show, and ways that the early seasons might've been reconfigured or tweaked. As enjoyable as the early seasons are, it's still fun to imagine something different.
Personally, I really, really, really wish this had been more of a workplace comedy about the guys being at Cal-Tech, and their various colleagues/friends/enemies, there. More of a university-themed show about the inner workings of the college. Of course, they might have to substitute a made-up university with a different name, if they were going to satirize it a lot, but that's fine. Although I love watching the four guys interact, it might've been interesting if there was a bit more separation between Sheldon-Penny-Leonard* as one "grouping" and Howard-Raj as another "grouping." To me, the S-P-L scenes and the H-R scenes have sometimes felt like two different shows spliced together. (Which makes sense when you recall that H&R were not present in the original unaired pilot.)
If S-L and H-R were colleagues but not necessarily close friends, then you could have Penny interact with Sheldon and Leonard, and you could have Howard, Raj, Leslie, Kripke, and Ramona as the "other" nerds who are sort of observing this situation from the outside, almost like it's a show they are watching, too.
How very meta, right?
It would provide variety; you'd have all these different overlapping circles of people. You could have different combinations of characters, not always "the gang." They could have fun together, but also have minor conflicts and rivalries which would be amusing.
Of course, if you really wanted to, you could dispense with Leonard entirely, or make him a minor character, and have Penny meet Sheldon some other way. There are lots of possibilites. Maybe she could be a receptionist, or work in the cafeteria. A campus has countless jobs. Personally, I don't mind early-seasons Leonard, much, but we're in the realm of pure speculation, so please chime in. Of course, being me, I would gladly watch "The Howard & Raj Show" all day long, but I'm trying to think of something that involves all the characters.
I find that my fave episodes are ones like The Jerusalem Duality and The Bat Jar Conjecture, which are, to some degree, about the guys' activities at work. Of course, I love seeing the guys play games and such, that's my favorite part, and you'd still have that, just not always located at S and L's apartment.
WPP pointed out, in the S8 thread, that there is too much "sitting in the apartment eating takeout" now, and no longer a sense of action and movement, with the show. A version of TBBT which was not so centered on S-L's apartment might've alleviated that. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the guys sitting around and talking about geek stuff, but they can do that anywhere.
I'm not sure if *anything* could've prevented this transition to crappy relationship themes, but a workplace comedy *might* be less likely to become overly centered on "sitting at home, eating takeout, doing nothing." Above all, it would place the emphasis firmly on the science, and on the guys as actual, working scientists.
Different groupings of people, different activities, different friendships and rivalries, different locations. (I don't buy this "we can't build any more sets" line. You built that depressing dollhouse where the H/B live, didn't you? And characters have gone to hotels, etc. TPTB are not exactly scrounging through the couch-cushions for spare change...)
Of course, this new setting wouldn't prevent them from trying to foist Amy and Bernadette on us. These "love interests" always come in the guise of female scientists
But this is the Wishful Thinking thread, so A and B are not invited to my wishful thinking, and they are not invited to my alternative version of TBBT. Yes, it's that easy!
I think this version of the show would be totally viable, especially if Leslie and Ramona (and Missy?) had a larger role to shut up these people who claim "not enough female characters."
And now it's time for Louise's Fantasy Dreamland to take over: we get to watch Howard slowly, gradually break away from his mother, realize that he can survive on his own, and either be roommates with Raj, or maybe just live in the same building as Raj, but have his own apartment
Personally, I would watch a solid 22 minutes of the guys playing Klingon Boggle, but I'm trying to imagine something that is commercially viable, yet also more pleasing to my preferences. A compromise between pure, fanfic-style fantasy, and the premise we've been given. Unfortunately, "crappy romcom" has proved to be the most commercially viable of all, but...again, we're safe within the walls of the Wishful Thinking thread
*I know Shenny shippers might not like thinking of Sheldon-Penny-Leonard as a unit, but they're often presented that way.
I would also be fine with a version of this show where the guys are students at the university, not employees. I like the idea of the characters being very young. It's endearing. I also like the "boy genius" or "child prodigy" aspect of it all.
Making the characters younger could've solved a lot of issues. It might be harder for the Canons to demand that everyone needs to grow up, settle down, get married, and buy a mini-van, if the characters were 20 years old.
So many great points Louise. Love the idea of a workplace comedy and how it can open up different pairings and interactions. Could not agree about the sitting around the apartment. I'm so done with it. I thought it worked on Seinfeld, but these writers are not on that level.
RE: Wishful Thinking... - devilbk - 09-29-2014
Sitting around the apartment also calls attention to all of S & L's toys that they are now ashamed of owning.
RE: Wishful Thinking... - Louise - 09-29-2014
Quote:So many great points Louise. Love the idea of a workplace comedy and how it can open up different pairings and interactions. Could not agree about the sitting around the apartment. I'm so done with it. I thought it worked on Seinfeld, but these writers are not on that level.
There will never be another Seinfeld. It is special. I also really respect Jerry for refusing to do a 10th season. Of course, he was already mega-rich at that point, but it shows some integrity.
(I'm not super-keen on S9 or the Finale, but it never truly jumped the shark.)
It's hard to compare TBBT to other shows. IMO it was always a bit more cartoony and whimsical and self-consciously "wacky" than other recent sitcoms, which makes the turn towards "serious" storylines all the harder to swallow...
People who don't understand Seinfeld seem to be sort of threatened and insulted by it, in a similar manner to people who don't understand/appreciate the early seasons of TBBT. Canons hate it when you mention Seinfeld in a debate.
Also, while there's a lot of arguing/screeching/yelling on Seinfeld, IMO it's so exagerrated that it has no sting and it rarely becomes truly unpleasant or unsettling. IMO those characters are reactive, not aggressive. They're sort of at the mercy of life's random mishaps and small injustices, and if they're hostile or angry, they're behaving that way out of frustration. Whereas, I find something like "Everybody Loves Raymond", or the conflicts in later seasons of TBBT, to be truly unpleasant and uncomfortable.
RE: Wishful Thinking... - queenoftheDales - 09-29-2014
I agree with the workplace situations as the basis of this show. It could be done and still incorporate all the characters (including Penny even though she isn't an academic) and situations from the earlier seasons. A Howard/Raj roommate or neighbor situation could have worked too. That formula has worked on other shows, no problem.
From the Promo pictures in the S8 thread, there are some scenes where the group is at the Angels baseball field. An episode like that could write itself. Frankly, I wished they had portrayed Sheldon as more athletically inclined in some way. I liked how everyone was surprised that Sheldon had football knowledge. Maybe it would bring Queen Penelope out of retirement; we need more Queen P.
I don't know if I'd had watch this show if the characters were any younger than what I assume Penny was in the beginning. (how big is the age gap between the characters anyways?
I never paid attention to exact ages, if they are even canon.) It never occurred to me that any of the characters need to settle down. I figured long-term relationships, marriage and babies were not on the ingredient list for this show and that's with the Lenny debacle.
RE: Wishful Thinking... - Louise - 09-29-2014
So, this is not a rant, more like a meditation on the nature of TV, and some ideas I've been pondering for a while:
One thing I strongly believe is that TV series need to let go of this idea that one season of a show = one year of real time in the lives of the characters. I don’t know where this idea came from, or when it became standard practice, but it is now so entrenched that seemingly nobody questions it, anymore. It causes all kinds of problems with continuity, plotting, characterization, everything. It’s extremely limiting in terms of storytelling.
As I mentioned in another post, I don’t need to watch the characters going through all the typical phases or stages of life. I don’t need to watch them *aging.*
If you think about it, the events of one season might equal no more than a few weeks or months in the lives of the characters. What we see on the screen is not *everything* that happens in their lives, it’s just a glimpse. I prefer this “slice of life” approach, rather than this “progressing through the years” approach. Not every story is a bildungsroman or coming-of-age story.
The TBBT cast were quite young-looking in S1. They still are, except possibly Galecki. If TBBT had ended after four or five seasons, and we were given to understand that this only represented a year or two in the lives of the characters, I don’t think anyone would be saying “gosh, these people look so old, this is so unrealistic.”
Yes, human beings age, and their aging becomes visible. Again, that’s why shows shouldn’t last for a decade.
Again, my mantra is that a TV series need not have a traditional “beginning, middle, end” type of structure. We pop into the characters’ lives, and we pop out again. We stop by for a visit, so to speak. We get a peek at what they’re up to, but only a peek. We do not need to watch their entire life’s trajectory from youth to middle-age. That approach is so literal-minded and limiting.
If the characters were made younger, and the show had ended after four or five seasons, there’d be none of this “OMG, these people are 38, put down your toys and grow up.”
There’s a type of viewer who demands to see things *happen*, and I’m not one of them. I’m fine with a “show about nothing.” I’m fine with being a fly on the wall and watching the characters go about their daily routine. I don’t need weddings, babies, or big, dramatic events. IMO that is a rather old-fashioned and unsophisticated style of storytelling. We should think outside the box and explore other formats, other ways of looking at the characters and their lives. Time can speed up or slow down as needed. I just want to watch "a day in the life."
Any show about young people, if it lasts too long, will start running into this issue of “why is nothing happening, when will they grow up, move out, get a job, get married, whatever.” It creates an artificial tension and sense of urgency which are frustrating and dissatisfying to the viewer.
Showmakers and viewers need to be less literal-minded about the passage of time. M*A*S*H lasted longer than the actual war. There is no reason at all for one season of a TV series to equal one year of real time within the show's internal universe.
Yes, it would be a trifle weird if absolutely nothing had changed in the lives of the TBBT characters after 8 years…but IMO, that’s why sitcoms shouldn’t last that long, in the first place. Four seasons is just about perfect. I truly believe that the long-running sitcom is a concept that needs to die. I would like to see the TV industry experimenting with different formats. I would especially like to see more mini-series: say, a show with no more than ten or twelve episodes of one hour each, and then done. The almighty dollar is the reason why shows drag on for eight, ten, twelve years.
There have been some long-running sitcoms that never truly jumped the shark, but they still hit some bumps and snags. I am not a fan of Niles/Daphne becoming an actual thing on Frasier, for example. That should’ve remained ambiguous.
We need new, fresh, flexible types of storytelling. “Once upon a time, some people grew up and lived happily ever after” is old hat. Viewers are becoming more sophisticated and the medium of television is changing. The weddings-and-babies crowd are on the wrong side of history, as the saying goes. They need to go read a Harlequin romance novel or watch the Hallmark channel and let the medium of television be more experimental and risk-taking, less bound by tropes.
ETA: I think it's almost impossible for a comedy to go beyond three or four years and not falter, a little. A show like Law & Order can go on and on because it's plot-driven, it has a very specific formula, it's a *procedural.* There's a new case each week, you can even swap-out the characters, because what matters is the framework. Comedies are more character-driven, so they have nowhere to go but inward. This is what I mean by a show that starts to cannibalize itself.
Quote:It never occurred to me that any of the characters need to settle down. I figured long-term relationships, marriage and babies were not on the ingredient list for this show
Exactly, Queen. And I'm not saying this should've been a show for or about teenagers, but they could've closed the age-gap between Penny and the guys. The only reason I'd suggest making the characters younger is to head-off this "you're too old to be flying kites and playing games, grow up and get married!!11!!" crap.
Because apparently, to the Canons, once you're 30 your life is over and you can't have fun any more
I dearly cherish the idea of Howard standing up and being his own man. Going straight from being controlled by his mother to being controlled by B. is not "growth"....
RE: Wishful Thinking... - Trust No One - 09-29-2014
(09-29-2014, 10:25 AM)queenoftheDales Wrote: I agree with the workplace situations as the basis of this show. It could be done and still incorporate all the characters (including Penny even though she isn't an academic) and situations from the earlier seasons. A Howard/Raj roommate or neighbor situation could have worked too. That formula has worked on other shows, no problem.
From the Promo pictures in the S8 thread, there are some scenes where the group is at the Angels baseball field. An episode like that could write itself. Frankly, I wished they had portrayed Sheldon as more athletically inclined in some way. I liked how everyone was surprised that Sheldon had football knowledge. Maybe it would bring Queen Penelope out of retirement; we need more Queen P.
I don't know if I'd had watch this show if the characters were any younger than what I assume Penny was in the beginning. (how big is the age gap between the characters anyways?
I also never really paid attention to the age gap queen. As much as I love Ship, I love good Ship and Ship that makes sense. Bad Ships do nothing for me. I never saw this show as a heavy Ship show. Just does not work well IMO.
RE: Wishful Thinking... - ricardo shillyshally - 10-01-2014
From what I've been reading about studio audience approval, laughter track maniulation,mostly older male writer team seperate to actors,etc. I wish they had some really funny comedians writing, and performing. I wish there was a revolution at TBBT. Sheldon plays CHE! They get rid of audience, and believe in themselves.
RE: Wishful Thinking... - BoxyP - 10-02-2014
Hey, I'm new here, and this thread's actually the reason I've decided to register, so I figured it would be appropriate to respond here first
I think my greatest wish, since we're going all out on this one, would be for a sort-of reboot, where someone from the olden days - preferably Penny and Sheldon (maybe tie it back to that time machine episode of first season), but I think Raj could pull it off and make it entertaining, too - manages to travel five years in time and ends up in the current timeline.
Honestly, I think Sheldon would be horrified by the older version of himself, Amy's boytoy manchild who can't even dress himself (and who has a snowball's chance in hell of winning that Nobel's prize), and Penny would kick her older version's butt for letting go the way she has since getting back together with Leonard.
Maybe something along the lines of:
"You know, I honestly didn't think you could become any worse, sweetie, but I see you've proven me wrong. At least now you just have no clue when you insult someone; seems that in this time, you do it on purpose, which, FYI, makes you a giant jerkwad."
"Ah, yes, that appears to be the unfortunate truth, although it seems to me that your propensity for imbibing alcoholic beverages in unhealthy quantities and engaging in ill-advised relationships purely for the sake of sating a primal urge to copulate has become your only driving force in your life."
"Hey, I'll have you know... oh, screw it, when you put it that way, I really am pathetic. No, what we need is a very good plan to make sure this never happens."
"Yes, I completely concur. The first step should be to determine when this change has begun taking place, and who the perpetrators are."
"And if I get to kick this Leonard's ass for turning me into this... pathetic drunk, then I'll call this a day well spent."
"Just so long as you extend the courtesy to whomever found a way to lower my IQ to the levels of the masses... good lord, I cannot believe I've just said that."
"Oh, trust me, it is on."
Then they'd figure out what the hell went wrong and make sure it doesn't take place.
Too bad TPTB are more interested in getting ratings and money than they are in the integrity of their own creation... Oh, well, at least we'll always have Shenny HQ and fanfiction. And old episodes, for those of us who can enjoy them without having them ruined by the new stuff.
RE: Wishful Thinking... - Louise - 10-02-2014
Quote:I think Sheldon would be horrified by the older version of himself.
It occurred to me: the idea that the characters have "grown" and that the changes in them are "character development" is a form of retconning. People are re-interpreting the early seasons in light of the later seasons, viewing everything from the early seasons as merely the set-up or the prologue to what comes later.
If this show had ended after S2, I don't think anyone would be saying "where's the growth? where's the change? why hasn't XYZ happened?"
Nobody could ever, ever, ever have predicted that the characters would turn out the way they have. I don't think anyone would watch S1/S2 and predict the current state of affairs. I really don't.
The idea that there's been a natural progression from S1 to S8 and that all of this happened organically and was part of some well-planned long-range plotting is false. IIRC, the showmakers have admitted on the record that they do not plan very far in advance at all and are making it up as they go along.
These were artificial changes, imposed by an external force, by fiat, for the purpose of making the show more commercial and more palatable to a wider audience.
You can only accept these changes as "growth" if you believe TPTB had some kind of master plan or some idea of where the hell they were going with all this, from the start.
I'm struggling to explain what I mean, here, but it's like a type of "confirmation bias" or self-fulfilling prophecy.
"Sheldon used to be cold, now he's more human" or "Howard used to be creepy, now he's sweet" make for nice, digestible, easy-to-understand sound-bites. An idea like that is a lot more user-friendly than "the characterization on this show is inconsistent" or "a TV show is just a commercial product and the makers can change it whenever they want."
What am I trying to say, here? It's a lot more comforting for the Canons to believe that there is method in the madness and that all these changes fit into some type of logical narrative, than for them to acknowledge that sometimes the writing just plain sucks, or that this show was changed in an intentional and calculated way in order to make more money.
If this show ended after S2, nobody would be saying "where is the part where Sheldon kisses his girlfriend, where is the part where Howard gets married?"
Hindsight is the only thing that would cause you to think that way. It's natural to want to impose order onto chaos, so instead of acknowledging that the writing is just plain sh*tty or that this is a malleable product which changes at the whims of TPTB, they apply a traditional story-structure to it.
"A*shole redeemed by the love of a good woman" is one of the oldest romance-novel plots in existence, and it's a lot more digestible than "quirky and edgy characters were de-clawed so as not to scare John Q. Public."
I don't know much about the Shamy, but I'd almost say it's an extremely twisted and degraded version of "Jane Eyre."
"Cold, haughty, aloof gentleman is humbled by falling in love with a plain and simple girl" is the theme of pretty much *every Regency romance novel EVER.*
And a very close relative of it is "promiscuous and immoral "rake" redeemed by the love of a good woman."
Sound familiar?
This is old, old, OLD stuff, told and re-told thousands of times.
TL;DR: what's happened on this show is not "growth" unless you're viewing the old seasons through the lens of the new seasons and you're ret-conning.
RE: Wishful Thinking... - BoxyP - 10-02-2014
I agree in this instance completely, Louise. While there has to be some sort of character progression to every well-crafted story - the character needs to start at a point A and logically, organically progress to point B, otherwise there's a stagnation that can very quickly lead to boredom and the character being completely two-dimensional, the evolution of this character CANNOT be into its complete opposite, but rather a version of itself that, whilst still holding what is essential to the character (Sheldon, for instance, whose scientific worldview has in the early seasons led to him being relatively tactless when he's only stating the obvious and his general bafflement of being driven by a need to have sex, which the other guys exhibit) has the sharpest of edges sanded away while still remaining true to itself (in Sheldon's case, that would have, for me, meant that he gains some awareness of how his statements should be phrased so that they don't make people angry, even if it's only after the fact in the sense of 'oh, I suppose that could have been misconstrued, Penny warned me about that'). I can accept stagnation of characters in sitcoms mainly because the whole point of them is to make the audience laugh, and it's hard to accomplish this if all of the things that are funny come from these sharp edges. Of course, then I stumble upon a well-written sitcom like Community (I'm watching season 1 and thoroughly enjoying it), which proves that, in this case, you can eat the cake and have it too.
And retconning is right (which is sort of amusing to me, as my idea for a perfect show actually was retconning the later seasons in-show by the characters themselves). Putting aside the condescension towards hard sciences (and, FYI, biology isn't a soft science, like Sheldon claims, thank you very much; soft science are economics and sociology, which are based on something so changeable as human behavior, while biology deals with a world that uses the building blocks of physics and chemistry and is thus 2+2 always equals 4 kind of science) that I think can be ignored in the earlier years, the show, I have a feeling, started out primarily as a clash between the sciency, geeky way of living and the more mainstream, street smart approach to life. Then the masses came, because Sheldon and Penny chemistry is irresistible, and there began the pandering to the masses that's led to the devolution of the show into ridiculous romcom cliches. Predicting the path the show has taken in recent years back in the beginning would have been really hard without the knowledge of who ended up being the viewers. Of course the masses won't argue that the original was better, because had the show stayed on course, they'd have left long ago (the same way that happened with Fringe), and of course everyone involved with its production won't say that it went to crap because that'd be admitting their own faulty approach to their creations (which, for me as a writer, is the ultimate betrayal of oneself and one's creation). Plus, there's also that disappointment that follows the realization of 'the show got ruined'. I've experienced this with more than one show out there (Bones is a prime example, used to be a gritty show with a very strong human element and gradually became which dead body is the goriest and how two-dimensional the characters can become), and it's left me wondering if spending so much time getting into a show that just constantly grew worse and worse was even worth it. So, it's much easier to accept change as the intended course of action by TPTB than to say 'I've wasted my time on something that's ultimately just low quality'.
As for TBBT growth??? Who the heck ever said that spouse, boring but relatively well-paying job, two point five kids and white picket fence is considered the be-all and end-all of life? For me, the guys were already grown up when the show started, because right from the start, they were self-sufficient, lived on their own (well, except for Howard, but even he earned his own money), generally weren't a burden on either other individuals such as their families or society, and even contributed to the betterment of the world with the various scientific advancements they'd accomplished in their professional careers. Which means that my question for the later seasons is: Who cares what they do in their free time?! If they want to play Halo and Klingon boggle, read comic books and discuss science fiction until they're old and grey, then that's their prerogative! Even Penny, who's sort of the most knowledgeable on what's the norm, would have been horrified by this. She moved to California so that she could be an actress, hello. If she'd wanted to marry and have kids, she would have stayed in Omaha, not followed her dreams to fight her way in one of the hardest professional environments out there. Normal shouldn't mean giving up one one's dream (acting, Nobel prize) and settling down into the average; normal should be striving for the best, no matter how hard it takes. Too bad that insults the lazy and the uninspired, who would be the ones happy with a show that deals with questions like who slept with whom and what arguments they had about it.
My wish, for the show, would be that SOMEONE finally gets the message through to TPTB that they've completely gotten off track and that well-written shows are the ones that become classics (Firefly, anyone), and that the mass-pandering ones become 'just another old sitcom'. Then they'd gradually phase Bernadette's manic controlling tendencies out, would make everyone realize how terrifyingly creepy Amy is, and how false to themselves the characters have become, all five of the core group. That'd actually get them the true character growth - characters figuring out that trying so hard to be something you're fundamentally not just leads to unhappy, tired people who strive for external validation instead of internal satisfaction.
Edit: oh, just saw how long the post got, sorry about that, I tend to go on and on when I start writing (on the bright side, I'm completely happy with being outside the norm, even if people stop reading what I've written. Take that, Leonard, you self-deprecating, self-doubting, self-pitying whiny excuse for a scientist
).