Season 8 Musings

[Louise]

I think I hate Expedition Approximation and its ilk more than I hate Stag Night, and that is really, really, REALLY saying something.

The idea that Howard's sexual behavior is inappropriate has a (small) grain of truth to it, the idea he's irresponsible, lazy, and professionally unsuccessful does not, and him being micro-managed by B. is intolerable.

Congratulations, Season 8, you've outdone yourself. The awfulness just increases exponentially. If you'd told me that things could get worse than Stag Night, I *truly* wouldn't have believed you. If there's some type of un-Emmy ( or anti-Emmy), I think this seasons gets it, from me.

I think Singing, Letter, and this season are the new trinity of JTS, for me.

So, a Very Merry Un-Emmy to you.

[Idle Miscreant]

It's certainly been an interesting season, insofar as they finally destroyed Sheldon, Penny and Howard, thus completely alienating Sheldon fans, Penny fans, Howard fans AND Shenny fans, both romantic and platonic. That's QUITE A LOT of alienation going on.

As a side note, they managed to piss off the subset of Leonard and Lenny fans as well, by sidelining their ship in favour of the GooGooGaga Ship Shamy.
Additionally, the audience (and NOT the hopped up studio audience) is fed up with relationships, and yet they throw down the finale, and suddenly we have TWO engagements, thus two weddings ahead, a married couple and another couple.
No friendships to speak of. No Sheldon & Penny, no Howard and Raj. No Leonard & Sheldon. Just date-night clothes, and beige and endless marriages unto a conventional white-picket fenced death. And increasingly unrecognisable characters.

I don't know what this show is anymore. But it's not The Big Bang Theory. I'd thought the next few episodes were getting back to Vintage, but now I know the finale, I can't bear to watch them. And I was looking forward to the bastards!

Given that there will eventually be 6 (or more) years of this Friends remake (although it's not a romcom, more of a romdram), 1 year of transition (S4), and 3 years of the show as it was originally conceived (and the 3 years that is on the merch, and that everyone quotes, and that wins all the episode polls, and was critically acclaimed...etc.), we have to decide whether to rename these first 3 years as something completely different, or to rename the latter 6 or 7.

We generally call them the Jar Jar Binks years, but at least kids liked Jar Jar Binks...Kids don't care about four couples and relationship plotlines that are common to every single romcom. And neither do geeks and artists, apparently.

But nevermind, there are plenty of women in the world who fancy Jim Parsons, and who think Season 1-3 Sheldon was "an emotionless robotic arsehole" and depressingly prefer this gormless, low IQ toddler Sheldon, and want him to lose both his pants and the last vestiges of his identity (and asexuality) as quickly as possible so he can get into bed with a woman who bears utterly no resemblance to the original character he was interested in, but is now just a female Leonard, and a convenient stand-in for all the women who weren't very popular at High School, and are somehow still obsessing about this in their twenties to fifties, and are treating AFF's "capture" of Sheldon as some kind of personal success. Nevermind that this has ruined both Sheldon AND the show in the process.

Just keep writing for them, like you've been doing all season.

And while you're at it, you can rewrite the description of the show on all the IMDb and film sites, because it no longer matches the content.

The Housewives of Ameriky have loved Season 8, and they're going to love Season 9 even betterer! And that's where the bloody money is, isn't it.

Although compared to Season 2 & 3's 100%...


Incidentally, if we seem angry here, it's because of course we bloody are. We loved this show and its characters. We admired the creators. People don't write rants out of apathy, or about shows they only MILDLY enjoyed. Love topples into hate quite easily, particularly when a sense of betrayal's involved...

Good thing it's only a TV show eh!
It's the fucking principle of it all...

[Nutz]

More WTF logic from BBT

It's o.k. For Leonard to cheat on Penny (when they were dating), but it's not o.k. that Penny was in bed naked with Raj (when they weren't dating)

It's o.k. That Leonard has a pattern of cheating on girlfriends "when he feels lonely" (Priya being in India, and Leonard being on the Hawking expedition) but it's not o.k. For Penny to marry Zach as a lark, when Leonard was dating Priya.

[Idle Miscreant]

RATINGS

Well it's not just us folks, I fear the public has become somewhat disenchanted.
Here's the last few episode ratings. The all-important 18-49 Demo, and Same Day.

SEASON 8
8.18 The Leftover Thermalization --------------4.4 ----- 16.13m
8.19 The Skywalker Incursion ------------------3.4 ----- 13.35m
8.20 The Fortification Implementation ----------3.5 ----- 14.78m
8.21 The Communication Deterioration ----------3.9 ----- 14.82m
8.22 The Graduation Transmission --------------3.6 ----- 14.63m
8.23 The Maternal Disruption -------------------3.4 ----- 13.85m
8.24 The Commitment Determination ------------3.7 ----- 14.64m

It's not brilliant news for CBS...considering they advertised both 8.20 AND 8.24 as though Sheldon was finally going to have sex with AFF.

They might want to reconsider the appeal of this. Or lack of. And whether it was worth so violently changing Sheldon's character in the first place to accommodate this relationship. Perhaps they need the original Sheldon back, as "boyfriend Sheldon" isn't bringing home the bacon.

The Demo is particularly damning, if you compare it to a midway chunk from Season 3;

SEASON 3
"The Maternal Congruence"--------- 5.6---- 15.58m
"The Psychic Vortex" ---------------5.7 ---- 15.82m
"The Bozeman Reaction" ------------5.2 -----14.99m
"The Einstein Approximation" --------5.4 ---- 15.51m
"The Large Hadron Collision" --------6.0 ---- 16.26m
"The Excelsior Acquisition"----------5.9 ----- 15.73m
"The Precious Fragmentation" ------ 5.9 ---- 16.32m

The Finale was also advertised as Leonard and Penny potentially getting married, so they might want to reconsider that one as well.

For those graph fans lurking out there, here is one comparing the unique mentions of Research to Romance, essentially, over the seasons;
http://astrodataiscool.com/wp-content/up...Plot1.jpeg

And here is another charting the IMDb ratings (more valuable as a sign of quality than the Nielsen ratings) over the seasons. There may be some correlation;
http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0898266

I don't want the show to tank. I bloody love the characters (well, five of them, plus a number of guest stars). The actors are charming and the writers are brilliant. But the direction is atrocious! And I don't mean Mark Cendrowski's work. I mean the destruction of Sheldon, and the slow plod towards the altar of normalacy, and the abolishment of the worth of the individual.

So, liberate Sheldon from AFF permanently (either by getting rid of the character altogether, or give her something other to do than hound Sheldon. Let her hound Stuart or Kripke. Or god forbid, just be Sheldon's FRIEND), and give him his old soul back. Liberate Penny from Leonard at the same time, and return Penny to her previous vitality. Let Leonard discover he doesn't need a woman to validate his existence. Either break up Howard and Bernadette, or, if CBS decides to renew MR and MB's contracts, then stop Bernadette bullying Howard, and let Howard play with his goddamn friend Raj again. Similarly, let Sheldon and Penny learn from each other, as they once did in the early years.

Season 2 and 3 are the highest rated critically, and they are almost entirely Sheldon & Penny centric. Season 8 has been the lowest rated critically, and it has been overwhelmingly "Shamy" centric. There is a connection here.

This will fix your show, CBS. Critically and financially. The two additional girlfriends didn't increase the ratings in Season 5. They came in regularly in Season 4, and the show slumped then. In Season 5, syndication kicked in, bringing more fans to the show via the reruns of Seasons 1-3. It is not worth destroying your characters (Sheldon, Howard and now Penny) for the sake of a loud minority audience of "shippers".

I hope you're taking notes, imaginary CBS person.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

IGN gave the Big Bangs Season 8 a slightly tepid reception.

It's sad that they made reference to mostly Shamy episodes, and seemed to enjoy the Prom episode. Can you actually imagine anyone in their 30s and 40s going up to the rooftop of their building to pretend to be back at their Proms? And thinking that this was a really fun thing to do?

My biggest Gripe is there's not a mention of Intimacy, the only episode I'd rewatch.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2015/05/14/th...n-8-review

This reviewer seems to think they should "push the relationships forward" completely oblivious to the fact that holding them back, is all the writers have at their disposal with these terrible couples.

[Louise]

If had a magic wand, I would do away with this entire show except S1, S2, maybe half a dozen episodes from 3, and a few scenes/moments from 4. Beyond that, the only things of value to me are the machine-kissing scene, the phone-peeling scene, and the blatantly shippy cake-eating H/R scene from Cooper Extraction. (*Not* the accidental kiss from Boyfriend Complexity, which was contrived and condescending and psychologically icky.) So, that's about ten minutes out of five years. I'd keep Intimacy if the Shennies wanted me to. The rest of it is truly and totally irrelevant to me.

But I don't have a magic wand. Bernadette probably hid it. But she doesn't exist, so whatever.

TBH, I might do away with this show entirely, if it meant seeing the same actors in something better. I can't discount the writing, though, so that's a quandary. These actors' outside projects have been resoundingly meh, so far.

Even with the early seasons, I like the potential more than the execution. I've realized this is why I'm not particularly into blow-by-blow dissection of specific eps; because I like the characters and the "worldbuilding" more than the eps.

[Nutz]

"It's enough to wonder how the final couple months of Season 8 would have played out if not for Susi's passing. No doubt that unfortunate development necessitated some rewrites and shuffling of storylines."

Seriously? Howards Mom was hardly even a supporting character. They could have had her move to Florida and people wouldn't have missed her at all. They used her death to milk out three episodes because they had nothing else.

"And often, the weaker moments of the season came when the writers tried too hard to force drama and conflict rather than allowing it to develop naturally."

Considering this reviewer thinks the epitome of a naturally driven plot is The Prom episode it's obvious they wouldn't know a good story if it was handed to them on a golden platter. Plus the fact they think this show needs to push the relationships (Shamy) even more and finds the show "a familiar source of geek-oriented humor" is a spotlight on what a latecomer to the BBT party they are.

This review doesn't have the blatant, desperate Amy love of the AV Club reviewer, but I kept feeling like I was smelling the stench of a Fowling throughout the piece.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

Seriously? Howards Mom was hardly even a supporting character. They could have had her move to Florida and people wouldn't have missed her at all. They used her death to milk out three episodes because they had nothing else.

I really wished they hadn't killed her off. It was unnecessary. She could have run off with a guy, anything but removing her and another thing which gave the show its 'feel'. Complaints about how they handled this are common in articles and on social media.

[Idle Miscreant]

SEASON 8 BLOOPERS

Regardless of our (justifiably embittered, lengthily expounded upon) feelings about the direction of the current show, these are some very charming actors.
I put the Parsons/Cuoco ones in the Parsons/Cuoco thread. For not particularly obscure reasons.





This needs an extra repeat:



Thank you to whoever made that. Thank you. And thank you Parsons.

[Louise]

Things I would rather watch than Howard-Bernadette interaction:

1. Test pattern.

2. Squirrels humping.

3. Ferrets humping.

4. Ferrets doing nothing.

6. Slugs performing a ballet. (and I really, really, *really* hate slugs.)

7. Test pattern again.

8. Kim Jong Un giving a speech without subtitles.*

9. Kim Jong Un giving a speech with subtitles.

10. Life Alert Commercials

11. Velociraptors picking shards of bone out of their teeth after having eaten someone.

12. Twilight

13. Justin Beiber

14. MMA Cage fighting

15. Somebody cleaning a clogged drain.

16. Rats crawling on a test pattern.

17. Rats breakdancing.

18. A mosquito slowly dying.

19. Leftover pizza congealing.

20. Earwigs doing anything you can name.

21. Random passerby being killed by a hippo.

22. Charlie Sheen's drug-fueled ravings.

23. Zarnecki doing sexy poses.

24. Cement drying.

25. Howard interacting with someone who actually understands and respects him.

*Not political, just a silly list.