An Un-unravelable Web?

[wellplayedpenny]

BrisbaneTimes Lorre March 24 2010

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertai...-qvi0.html

Memorable Lines:
Lorre's focus is still very much on the writing and his time is divided more or less equally between the two shows. "We're coming up to the 150th episode of Two and a Half Men and about a third of the way along that with Big Bang Theory and the magic trick of it all is, how do you keep it fresh without being redundant, without becoming a formulaic show where the audience is way ahead of you?" he says.

It's not a question, Lorre says, of hitting the same note weekly but of trying to find the note on different instruments. "The nature of television is that you're telling a story without an ending. By economic necessity it can't end so the trick is to find a way to keep it alive, and that's frustrating."

"There are elements in both shows [BBT/TAAHM] that might be flying under the radar to a certain part of the audience but I'm really wary of making the show insulated or elitist in that way - a show that communicates to a select few - because that's offensive," Lorre says. "I don't want people to feel excluded, that's not our job. Our job is simple - to entertain and not to pick who we want to entertain. That's self-destructive."

Mood of the Masses: No Comments

[Louise]

"The nature of television is that you're telling a story without an ending. By economic necessity it can't end so the trick is to find a way to keep it alive, and that's frustrating."

Very interesting, to me, how he admits that $$$, not any other factor, is the reason for a long-running show's continued existence. We all know that, of course, but IMO it's interesting to see him state it so openly and matter-of-factly.

The thing is...if the show's "ending" consists of everyone being paired-up, then the plot has been over since the end of S3. Literally nothing new has happened. P is with L, H is with B, S is with A, and the majority of people don't seem to care much about poor R, anyway. If this show's true premise, the premise Lorre intended it to have, is "Even weirdos can find a partner", then this sh*t has been over for five years. And don't tell me "Howard went to space" or "Leonard went to such-and-such", because those storylines suck, especially the former, which I find ultra-cringey, tasteless, and cruel.

Also, I know this is a very unpopular opinion, but I don't see why "formulaic" is such a dirty word. If the formula WORKS, then that's good. I'm gonna come right out and say it; I like things that are formulaic. That doesn't mean there are *never* any surprises and *never* anything new or risk-taking, but I don't need or want "big events."
I know I've said this a million times before, but I *like* a "show about nothing" approach. Think of a "bottle episode", where the characters are stuck in one location for the duration of the ep. Not much can actually *happen*, yet you can make a really entertaining episode out of that situation. I don't need or want to see a bunch of dramatic, life-changing, game-changing events in a barely-20-minute mainstream sitcom.

You could have episodes where the characters did nothing but go to work, have dinner, play games, and go to the comic book store, and you could extract so much good stuff out of those simple, everyday things. *Every*episode could be like that, and yet it wouldn't get boring, to me. And indeed, most of the early-season eps ARE like that, at least on the surface.

[wellplayedpenny]

Toronto Star Canada April 11 2010

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/tel...anada.html

Memorable Lines:
[JG—regarding his pleasure at having Lenny occur] Galecki's just happy to break out of his nerd niche. “I don't generally get those roles,” he says.

Cuoco has found viewers love episodes where Penny not only gets Sheldon's snide remarks, she gets Sheldon, helping him by “driving him places, doing these things for him as a parent.”

[re: The Napkin] “That was a big turning point,” says the 24-year-old. Both she and Parsons were incredibly moved by that script. “Anyone who watches the show knows how special that scene was. It was so sweet.”

[JP-on why people root for Sheldon despite his idiosyncrasies] “I think it's mostly due to the writers' protection of his core innocence, lack of malice, you know,” he says after a pause.

“We have gone through tapings where more than once they've had to rewrite dialogue on the spot because whatever it is they've written, either I can't do it without sounding extra bitchy, or it's just too mean.

“Sheldon rarely says anything to hurt,” he explains another way. “That's what's funny about it. It's very honest.”

It's a trait Sheldon shares with Penny and its why she's able to find the chink in his armour, he says. “She's obviously more savvy, but they're both honest. All the characters on the show” — we mustn't forget Sheldon and Leonard's perhaps even geekier friends Howard (Simon Helberg) and Rajesh (Kunal Nayyar) — “seem to be mostly without malice.”

Mood of the Masses: No Comments.

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IGN Wil Wheaton April 10 2010

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2010/04/10/bi...ton-part-2

Memorable Lines:
Could [Wheaton] be a recurring nemesis for Sheldon? "I would think so. Nothing's resolved," Parsons remarked. "And I don't think Sheldon ever gets to win in that situation. Not to spoil anything, but Sheldon wins a lot of the time, so it's nice to have a good person come on and always get the best of him, because the rest of them don't always. They try, [but] he's too smart."

[Regarding Sheldon seeing Wheaton] "He's very unhappy," Jim Parsons said....On the other hand, Parson added, "I was happy to see Wil Wheaton because he's very nice, and easy to work with. It's funny, there's absolutely no love lost between the two of them, at least on Sheldon's end, and it's really interesting to treat such a nice person that way - take after take of disdain or just staring. It's one of those things where, a lot of the time you get here, maybe you don't see each other [before filming], and we would go hours where that was the only communication we would have. I would leave the set that day and realize that I'd literally not said a nice word to him because I hadn't seen him outside of the scene. So that was weird."

Mood of the Masses: No Comments.

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NYTimes BBT Science April 26 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/scienc....html?_r=0

Memorable Lines:
“Leonard is in the most discomfort, he wants to move through the world,” said Mr. Lorre; Sheldon doesn’t care. Leonard’s efforts to establish and then maintain a romantic relationship with Penny have constituted a major part of the narrative arc of the first three seasons.

Mr. Parsons memorizes his lines by writing them out longhand and says he is astonished when people ask if the actors on the show ever improvise. “To veer away from the scripted dialog is a one-way trip to sudden death,” he said.

The point of the show, Mr. Prady said, is to tell small stories. “We are not doing ‘Lost,’ we’re not doing a complex novel for TV,” he said. “We follow the characters, and let them tell us what they’re going to do next. We’re telling stories about outsiders. We all feel like outsiders. Can you find love? Penny pulls Leonard to the outside world; Sheldon pulls him back.”

Mood of the Masses: No Comments.

[Gamma]

Well they have certainly thrown that innocence lack of malice thing out the window, haven't they. They have turned him into an obnoxious, incompetent average joe with a girlfriend to make him tow the line. What a waste. Sheldums are a dime a dozen on sitcoms.

[Louise]

“We follow the characters, and let them tell us what they’re going to do next.

OMG. The absolute falseness and hypocrisy of this just blows my mind! I swear, I'm starting to hear Charlie Brown's teacher going "wah-wah-wah" every time I read one of these quotes from TPTB about how much they respect the characters. They're always babbling about integrity, authenticity, truth, yadda, yadda. It's...just...so...NOT what they've *actually* been doing. They have literally done the opposite of all this lofty-sounding propaganda about "we tell deep, real, emotionally truthful, character-driven stories." Blah, blah, blah. LIARS! These people love the smell of their own sh*t. IDK, this just made me really angry for some reason, because it's just so blatantly not true.

[Trust No One]

OMG. The absolute falseness and hypocrisy of this just blows my mind! I swear, I'm starting to hear Charlie Brown's teacher going "wah-wah-wah" every time I read one of these quotes from TPTB about how much they respect the characters. They're always babbling about integrity, authenticity, truth, yadda, yadda. It's...just...so...NOT what they've *actually* been doing. They have literally done the opposite of all this lofty-sounding propaganda about "we tell deep, real, emotionally truthful, character-driven stories." Blah, blah, blah. LIARS! These people love the smell of their own sh*t. IDK, this just made me really angry for some reason, because it's just so blatantly not true.

This is such a lie Louise. TPTB do not follow anything and push everything to their liking. That is the problem with this show. They need to follow where the characters take them and let the natural chemistry take over.

[ricardo shillyshally]

Sometimes BB seems like a metaphor for real life. Do we have self determination, or are we just controlled by outside forces. It strikes me that the actors have alot invested in these characters; not only because they are part of them, they have to be able to think like them, act like them, but also because they will probably never escape being associated with them. I think the whole writer, CBS, audience, led plots have, like you say, sealed their fates, since S4. It's such an old fashioned way of working. If I were the actors I would have taken half the money(it's not like they'll ever be broke again!), in return for some character self determination. They know what worked, what was fun to act. It must have been electric in the beginning; playing with ideas, researching content, finding what works. These ideas, that you find someone, live with them forever, even if it's hell, so 19th century!

[Trust No One]

Sometimes BB seems like a metaphor for real life. Do we have self determination, or are we just controlled by outside forces. It strikes me that the actors have alot invested in these characters; not only because they are part of them, they have to be able to think like them, act like them, but also because they will probably never escape being associated with them. I think the whole writer, CBS, audience, led plots have, like you say, sealed their fates, since S4. It's such an old fashioned way of working. If I were the actors I would have taken half the money(it's not like they'll ever be broke again!), in return for some character self determination. They know what worked, what was fun to act. It must have been electric in the beginning; playing with ideas, researching content, finding what works. These ideas, that you find someone, live with them forever, even if it's hell, so 19th century!

Very well put ricardo shillyshally! I would think the actors would want to have more say in their characters. It would have been nice if the last contract negotiations were about creative control. Then again, JG and KCS would probably push for even more Lenny nonsense. I think JP needed to be the catalytic for change with his Emmy wins in his pocket.

[wellplayedpenny]

WallStreetJournal Jim Parsons May 6 2010

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/05/0...parakeets/

Memorable Lines:

Wall Street Journal: Both Judy Greer and Mayim Bialik (of “Blossom” fame) will be guest-starring as female eggheads this month. Are the writers determined to give Sheldon a girlfriend?

[JP]: Judy plays a scientist that Sheldon’s invited to stay at the apartment, and she’s very similar to him on first blush. However, he quickly realizes she’s much more in touch with using her sexuality than he is, and his opinion of her drops from peer to just ordinary.

Mood of the Masses: No Comments.

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TorontoStar TPTB May 12 2010

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/tel...heory.html

Memorable Lines:
[Lee Aronsohn, executive producer BBT]: “That Sheldon engages other humans is the salient point for me. He tries. I mean, he means well. He just doesn’t have the tools for it. And I think what’s endearing is that he really is a stranger in a strange land. And he knows his limitations many times and tries to deal with them. The fact that he deals with them very badly is where the comedy comes from.”

[Lorre]: “The magic trick of doing a TV series is growing the series, growing the characters without fundamentally changing them. I mean, obviously Archie Bunker has to stay Archie Bunker as the series goes along, but there has to be some incremental growth; otherwise, it gets redundant pretty quickly,” he says.

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Zap2It Parsons May 24 2010

http://www.zap2it.com/blogs/big_bang_the...st-2010-05

Memorable Lines:
[JP]: ... I do feel like so much is organically happening. [TPTB] propose ideas and they execute them and then they are performed and the audience watches them and they go from there. They can say, I like how this is going. This is not what I thought was happening, but we're going to go this track with it. I think that's really how the birth of one of my favorite things about the show happened, which is the one-on-one scenes between Sheldon and Penny. In one way, that was just going to happen, because there's five people on the show. But I really feel like the relationship that's developed between [our characters] was not something that anyone could've guessed would have the depth that I think it does. You know, it was only after throwing out a scene or two here and there that [we discovered] that there was something about [the dynamic] that was really fun to investigate.

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AVClub Galecki May 24 2010

http://www.avclub.com/article/johnny-galecki-41451

Memorable Lines:
AVC: When we interviewed Jim Parsons last year, we asked whether he has any proprietary feeling toward his character on Big Bang Theory. What about you? If the writers came to you and said, “Now in this scene, you’re going to do this,” would you feel comfortable disagreeing, saying, “I don’t think Leonard would do that?”

JG: That’s never come up. We’re very much on the same page. In a series, you really need to stay open-minded. It’s not like a play or a film, where you can create and fully commit to your character’s backstory. These characters are apparently going to be here for a few years. We still have a whole lot to learn about them. You might all of the sudden learn that your character’s father was an alcoholic. We just did a flashback episode in which you see how Sheldon and Leonard met. There were a lot of surprises there. You can’t really claim too much ownership of your character. They really do belong to the writers, and in many ways, you’re just their puppet.

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[wellplayedpenny]

Teen Television BBT Cast September 21 2010

http://www.teentelevision.com/2010/09/21...heory-cast

Memorable Lines:
Kaley: I think [Leonard and Penny's break up] was super realistic actually. I mean, relationships are up and down, and people get together, and they break up, and they're not friends, and they're friends. I mean this stuff happens all the time. So I think it actually was perfect timing, and you never know what's going to happen with them.

TeenTelevision: Simon, it was a lot of fun when Wolowitz had his girlfriend and had hook-ups that he could brag about. Was it fun to play that and is it gone for good?

Simon: That was really fun, and I think it's nice to cut through the sleaze of the character and see sort of some humanity there, and that is unbelievably fun to play. ... Every season, the writers give more and more layers to these characters and make them more and more real and to see that there's kind of a bleeding heart under his ridiculous character [is cool] and [the girlfriend] is coming back!

Mood of the Masses: No Comments