8.02 The Junior Professor Solution (September 22)

[Tuesday Pajamas]

My first quibble with this one was the fact I have some better (similar themed) old episodes in my memory. Sheldon HAS taught classes before, and he loved the adoration of his grad students (and boy did they love him). This episode is a poor substitute for ‘The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem’ though. And if Sheldon is that brilliant then no one would care if he were obnoxious or not. It’s about the work. Do people care if artists and musicians are obnoxious? No, people enjoy brilliance and science is about science. So I can only conclude that Sheldon is not the finest mind of his generation anymore but transformed into the lesser SHELDUMB.

I did like that Leonard tried to cheer Sheldon up over being obnoxious by saying “wwhhhaaaat?” he tried. It was quite well delivered by JG as well. Funny.

But they repeated the Fig Newton joke from ‘Gorilla Experiment’ and that annoyed me. *sigh* Sheldon scoffed at Penny over that Fig Newton thing.

Howard is always the man who steps up, he’s a ‘dear friend’ now?? He’s has always been there for Sheldon even though he’s such a shit to him. Howard is pretty cool. I really enjoyed their scenes up until the spitball in mouth.

Amy didn’t like it when Penny and Bernadette sorted it out and her attempts to be cool weren’t much chop but I liked it when she streaked down the stairs, I laughed. If only she wasn’t dating Sheldumb and he hadn’t been changed to accommodate her, she might be an enjoyable character.

“You violated the sanctity of my mouth” what a line!

I loved the science stand off between Howard and Sheldon at the end. Almost old school.

One Penny Blossom from me.

[Louise]

Even though there are some good, or at least unobjectionable, scenes in these new episodes, I somehow can't manage to feel good about it. I have a hard enough time swallowing the fact that this show is still airing. I know that sounds very gloomy and contrarian, even for a Nostalgic, but...I dunno. There's just such a huge gulf of time between "then" (old seasons) and "now" (new seasons), and so much has happened.

The part with Simon listening to headphones is cute and funny, but it's reminiscent of stuff he's done before. Is it as funny as that "beatboxing" thing? No. It's like they bring him out and have him do tricks like a performing animal, because he's the designated "guy who does funny random stuff."

The mere existence of the ships just poisons everything for me, even scenes where they're not referenced. I guess I'm Eeyore: