The rest of Season Grate (Eps 8.07-8.15 and 8.17)

[Idle Miscreant]

Here's the ratings (and a mildly cynical but thoroughly plausible and probably accurate reading of them).

Season 8 resembles Season 5 (or Season 3, god forbid!), but declining.



After the significant leap in ratings from Season 2 to Season 3, as the show hit its stride, notice the swift kick in the testicles it received upon introduction of permanent girlfriends for the two most popular and independent characters, and subsequent floundering as the "girls' nights" and relationship bollocks began to take over in late Season 4.

Syndication and thus re-runs of early episodes saved the show from initial decline, and it began to crawl its way hesitantly upwards again, after this significant set-back, much in the manner it WOULD have continued to do without the two plot-devices being ham-fistedly grafted on to an already thriving organism.

The relationships did not "save" this show. They crippled it.

Here's the real-time ratings of overall viewers and the target demo of 18- 49 (the only one advertisers are interested in) for two comparative seasons;

Mid-Season 3
3.11 "The Maternal Congruence"--------- 5.6---- 15.58m
3.12 "The Psychic Vortex" ---------------5.7 ---- 15.82m
3.13 "The Bozeman Reaction" ------------5.2 -----14.99m
3.14 "The Einstein Approximation" --------5.4 ---- 15.51m
3.15 "The Large Hadron Collision" --------6.0 ---- 16.26m
3.16 "The Excelsior Acquisition"----------5.9 ----- 15.73m
3.17 "The Precious Fragmentation" ------ 5.9 ---- 16.32m

Mid-Season 8
8.05 The Focus Attenuation ------------------ 4.6 ----- 15.63m
8.06 The Expedition Approximation --------- 4.6 ------ 16.02m
8.07 The Misinterpretation Agitation -------- 4.1 ------ 16.25m
8.08 The Prom Equivalency ------------------4.3 ------- 16.5m
8.09 The Septum Deviation ------------------4.5 ------ 16.90m
8.10 The Champagne Reflection -------------4.1 ------ 14.61m
8.11 The Clean Room Infiltration ------------3.9 ------ 15.49m


They've been dropping since mid-Season 7. You know, around the time they turned Sheldon into a schmaltz-ridden imbecile. But that's purely a coincidence, I'm sure...

It took ONE SEASON, from S2 to S3, for the show to gain 5 million viewers, without syndication, without formulaic romcom relationships. It took FOUR SEASONS to gain the next 5 million, and they've lost it already.

The formula of Season 2 & 3 was working brilliantly. If it ain't broke, what, prithee, do you do?

But by all means CBS, continue with your monstrous, conformist nativity-play...

Who is behind this? *shakes fist limply at heavens*