TOP TEN EPISODES

[Idle Miscreant]

Right. As I have somehow managed to LOSE two Polls in this swirling vortex of entropy (but HOW? Talent!), namely the Polls for Favourite Season 3 & 4 episodes, I have been unable to cobble together a Top Ten HQ Episode List. We have the results from Seasons 1,2,5,6,7, but something tells me this isn’t going to cut the mustard for us lot, so until we sort this out, just plonk your own little desert island Ten Episodes down here.

This is a desert island with a DVD player built out of coconuts, played back on a poisonous land crab, and powered by despair.  

After much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth (or vice versa) I have chosen;

S1
The Luminous Fish Effect
The Jerusalem Duality
The Nerdvana Annihilation
S2
The Barbarian Sublimation
The Panty Piñata Polarization
The Friendship Algorithm
The Vegas Renormalization
S3
The Adhesive Duck Deficiency
The Einstein Approximation
The Pants Alternative

Emergency Horses;
Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization, Euclid Alternative, Creepy Candy Coating, Apology Insufficiency, Thespian Catalyst

Your turn. It's very hard to whittle the bastards down...

This thread will eventually have pictures and whathaveyou. But not tonight it won’t.


(I don't know why I've put this here. Does everything need a reason? We can debate this later, if anyone wishes...)

[Toad]

Season 1
The Luminous Fish Effect
The Pancake Batter Anomaly

Season 2
The Barbarian Sublimation
The Euclid Alternative
The Panty Pinata Polarization
The Cushion Saturation

Season 3
The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary
The Adhesive Duck Deficiency
The Einstein Approximation

Season 4
The Justice League Recombination

This is actually very difficult, and I feel like I'm "betraying" too many excellent episodes. If you'll all excuse me...

[devilbk]

Is there a reason Bath Gift isn't on either of your lists?

[Toad]

Is there a reason Bath Gift isn't on either of your lists?

Sigh. I really don't know that I have a satisfactory answer for that, Dev. The stringency of adhering to a top ten list meant that I had to "discard" a lot of strong and exceptionally well-made episodes. It would definitely make a top 15 list. Hell, probably even a top 11 list for that matter.

I WILL say that the napkin scene no longer resonates as strongly with me. I still love the delightfully awkward hug, but the buildup to that moment has worn, with over-familiarity, a sort of meh groove in my brain. I find it not-just-a-teensy-bit over-acted now. *runs*

But it's definitely worthy of honorable mention, along with Workplace, Friendship, Spaghetti, Vegas, Pants, Bus Pants, and many many others.

[queenoftheDales]

Ten episodes was hard to whittle down but here are my choices.

Season 1:
The Luminous Fish Effect
The Pancake Batter Anomaly

Season 2:
The Panty Piñata Polarization
The Euclid Alternative
The Barbarian Sublimation
The Terminator Decoupling

Season 3:
The Einstein Approximation
The Pants Alternative
The Excelsior Acquisition
The Adhesive Duck Deficiency

Like everyone else, there are some really good runner ups. Here is my Sheldon reaction gif to the madness of picking only 10 episodes out of soooo many


Many, many oxen! >_<

[Louise]

I would have to go back and watch my S1 and S2 DVDs before I could even do this. Lately, this show has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I kind of distanced myself from it, for a while.

I'm an outlier because I like things that explore the relationship between H & R, so I like things like "The Cornhusker Vortex" and "The Pirate Solution", but the eps. that are the most interesting in terms of character analysis aren't always the same as the ones that are just straight-up funny, well-made, and cohesive...

[FlyingMonkey]

Season 1
The Luminous Fish Effect
The Pancake Batter Anomaly

Season 2
The Panty Pinata Polarization
The Vegas Renormalization

Season 3
The Staircase Implementation
The Adhesive Duck Deficiency
The Gorilla Experiment
The Excelsior Acquisition

Season 4
The Robotic Manipulation
The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification

Seasons 5,6,7

[Louise]

This isn't final, but off the top of my head, I like, in no particular order:

The Bat Jar Conjecture, the Jerusalem Duality, the Pork Chop Indeterminacy, The P.P.P., The Vegas Renormalization, The Pirate Solution, the Gothowitz Deviation, the Cornhusker Vortex, the Jiminy Conjecture and the Robotic Manipulation.

A lot of people feel S2 was the pinnacle, and I understand why, but I've realized that I really like S1 a lot, once you get past the sort of introductory phase at the very beginning. IMO it has sort of a leisurely, loose, relaxed feel which I enjoy...

I like Pirate and Cornhusker because there's a lot of Raj.

But really, I feel kinda phony doing this, because as so many others have said, I like individual scenes/moments more than whole eps.

The Pancake Batter contains what is *definitely* my all-time favorite scene, which is the whole Drake Equation/Wolowitz Coefficient exchange.

Btw, I seem to remember that some people hate "The Cruciferous Vegetable."? Is there a reason for this, or am I dreaming? I don't remember much about it, except that the Mobile Presence is pretty funny...

[FlyingMonkey]

Btw, I seem to remember that some people hate "The Cruciferous Vegetable."? Is there a reason for this, or am I dreaming? I don't remember much about it, except that the Mobile Presence is pretty funny...

I think some people are turned off by the fart jokes but there are some great moments. And I really liked the Mobile Presence.

Sheldon: In order to live long enough to fuse my consciousness with cybernetics, I need to change my diet.
Penny: Wait, cybernetics is robot stuff, right?
Sheldon: Correct.
Penny: So you want to turn yourself into some sort of robot?
Sheldon: Essentially, yes.
Penny: OK, here's my question. Didn't you already do that?

And a great Howard moment:

[Idle Miscreant]

When I first started watching TBBT (the Season 1-4 Boxset that I picked up on a whim at a charity shop and watched on my laptop whilst living out of a suitcase in a busted flat in Glasgow, just for pointless context) "Cruciferous Vegetable" was actually one of my favourites. The car scene, with the 'relaxing music' and Knight Rider Sheldon being a 'yammering sphincter' I still regard as one of the most amusing scenes of all.
I think I just overwatched the fucker.

I still enjoy it. Sheldon was in full "Camp Robot" ergo C-3P0 mode, which is not my preferred Sheldon, but it's one of his funnier incarnations. "Mad Scientist" Sheldon is peak Vintage, in my opinion...I classified all the Sheldons once on a niminy piminy graph that mapped every episode up to Season 6, where I gave up in disgust. I should try and dig that graph up, it was fascinating to watch his traits suddenly shift towards the genuinely unpleasant/idiotic in Season 5.

Anyroad. I love Parsons' smarmy Shelbot smile...Just LOOK at that bastard!