An Un-unravelable Web?

[wellplayedpenny]

The Hollywood Reporter Wedding Fever May 10 2012

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-fe...ers-320766

Memorable Lines:
[MR]:"[Howard and Bernadette] are such compatible opposites but they always figure out a way to come to a resolution that works for both of them."

[MR]:"They've always hit speed bumps along the way with navigating each other's personalities -- and Howard's past as we found out in the bachelor party. So it's only fitting that in trying to make it to the altar they hit a ton of obstacles along the way."

Mood of the Masses:
The worst season is a toss-up between Seasons 4 and 5 (in their defense, I think this season was better than last year's misogynistic, sex-filled disaster). Season 3 was still funny, but their best were still Seasons 1 and 2. If Sheldon drew a Venn Diagram for you, Amy Farrah Fowler would be the individual located within the intersection of the sets, 'no longer funny as hell,' and, 'unbearable to watch.' She has her moments, but in general, she's annoying as chicken pox on a hot summer's day. [We Built The Pyramids]

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Entertainment Weekly Bill Prady May 10 2012

http://www.ew.com/article/2012/05/10/big...bill-prady

Memorable Lines:
**You really expanded your cast this season – Bernadette and Amy started as series regulars in season 4, but they really established themselves fully this year.
[Bill Prady]:I’ve been asked about this a couple of times, and as I’ve said, it was not by design. We didn’t say, “Let’s expand the cast! How are we going to do it?” We found two actresses and two characters that we love, and it was a week-to-week thing. “Let’s see her again. Let’s see her again. And, you know what, I think we’re just going to see her a lot.” That’s a wonderful expansion, not part of some plan.

**Do you think Sheldon and Amy will ever make it to the bedroom?
I have no idea. Here’s the thing that we often talk about in the writers’ room. Sheldon is so stubborn, and yet somehow Amy seems to manage these incremental progressions in their relationship that he seems to accept. It always kind of baffles us when he does it.

**She’s proven herself to be equal to the task.
She’s a worthy foe, isn’t she? When she wants something from him, she’s found ways to get it.

Mood of the Masses: No Comments.

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Entertainment Weekly Simon Helberg May 10 2012

http://www.ew.com/article/2012/05/10/big...on-helberg

Memorable Lines:
[SH]: And then I started to think, what will happen in the future for this character if he’s married. Is that going to change him so drastically that we won’t have any of that same dynamic we had before. ... And then it just seemed to happen very naturally. It’s been five years. It’s not like we’re in the 10th year and there was never any romance; they just married us. It seems like it built up pretty evenly and naturally. You start to see, wait a second, even though he’s married, the dynamic has not completely shifted yet. He’s not grown up. He’s still with his mother. He still needs these guys to hang out with. And now you’re going to get this whole view of what married life is like, which I think is a kind of fascinating thing to put into this show about young nerds.

**Howard’s been so sweet – what he says after the bachelor party, and with the star necklace…
Yeah. I felt really lucky. It was a bold move to let it go into an emotional territory without feeling sappy or anything like that. Hopefully people felt the same. I think it’s nice to see that side.

Mood of the Masses:
Basically saying that Amy is unpleasant and the wedding was 'cute' but nothing memorable to quote.

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TV Line s5 Finale May 10 2012

http://www.ew.com/article/2012/05/10/big...on-helberg

Memorable Lines:
SHELDON WENT TO HOLD AMY’S HAND AT THE END. WHAT?! | Rest assured, the perfectly matched geek and geekette won’t be going at it like sylvilagus audubonii anytime soon. “There’ll be no changes in [Sheldon], though I think the character is capable of things we haven’t seen,” Prady noted. “That’s an important distinction to make.”

Mood of the Masses:
Most of the reviewers were torn between the wedding episode being 'awww cute' and boring.

"I think we see the same thing, unfortunately. Having just discovered the show in reruns, I can compare the ‘old’ to the new and get a different perspective. The geekiness is becoming secondary, almost a background joke, and that IS the [point] ( and the charm) of the show. I hope the writers resist the urge to inch the characters toward bland conformity." [Melanie]

"Please don’t ruin this show by ‘un-geeking’ Sheldon and making him conform to ‘normalcy’ by pairing him with Amy. Having seen the re-runs first I can see how the new shows aren’t as geeky/edgy. . The writing seems to be trending toward ‘normalizing’ the guys too much. And what happened to Raj’s adorable puppy??? He’s my favorite-and the best looking!" [Melanie]

"Penny is my favorite character on the show. I don’t understand why she gets bashed so much. Anyway, I thought the finale was so-so. I thought the entire season was kind of ho hum. The first three seasons were wonderful and I noticed a small decline in season four and this year was boring at times. I noticed Sheldon’s speech pattern was even a little different this past season. I may be in the minority here but I think the Amy character is overused. She is a lot funnier in smaller chunks." [Thom]

[ricardo shillyshally]

Just went down this side street>We've all seen how the writers seem to be treading water until someone pulls the plug(add own gag!). And we've wondered why Jim, Kaley, Johnny, Simon haven't taken more creative control. Chuck Lorre as producer of Roseanne, had massive battles with Roseanne Barr over creative control. 'The particulars of the behind the scenes battles at Roseanne remain muddled, with both sides maintaining conflicting stories, but the core issue for Barr was ensuring the series was authentic and her infamous “tantrums” were rooted in a desire to maintain creative control.' from http://thiswastv.com/2012/11/07/women-in...-roseanne/ I didn't know about their long running battle, but having read a few of his vanity cards. I imagine he has some overidding creative control clause. Some of the mud slinging is entertaining!

[Trust No One]

Just went down this side street>We've all seen how the writers seem to be treading water until someone pulls the plug(add own gag!). And we've wondered why Jim, Kaley, Johnny, Simon haven't taken more creative control. Chuck Lorre as producer of Roseanne, had massive battles with Roseanne Barr over creative control. 'The particulars of the behind the scenes battles at Roseanne remain muddled, with both sides maintaining conflicting stories, but the core issue for Barr was ensuring the series was authentic and her infamous “tantrums” were rooted in a desire to maintain creative control.' from http://thiswastv.com/2012/11/07/women-in...-roseanne/ I didn't know about their long running battle, but having read a few of his vanity cards. I imagine he has some overidding creative control clause. Some of the mud slinging is entertaining!

I still would like to think strength in number and Kaley and Jim teaming up could have done something. Maybe they could have brought on Kunal and Simon? Johnny would never go against his buddy Lorre and Johnny would never go against anything that would stop the Leonard character from making out with Penny.

[ricardo shillyshally]

I think the point is that; Roseanne was based on her routine, life anecdotes, and her strength of personality, yet a writer thought he should have creative control over the show. As it said, 'The majority of people who create television either come from within the fold or from affluent and middle class background', and she wasn't. She kicked him out of the writers' room. I see some Sheldon in CL, he would have planned ahead and made sure in future. Of course I'm only speculating.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

Perfectly reasonable. The BB crew are extremely passive and seem to almost crawl over each other to proclaim that its all the writers work. The never improvise.

[Louise]

[SH]: And then I started to think, what will happen in the future for this character if he’s married. Is that going to change him so drastically that we won’t have any of that same dynamic we had before. ... And then it just seemed to happen very naturally. It’s been five years. It’s not like we’re in the 10th year and there was never any romance; they just married us. It seems like it built up pretty evenly and naturally. You start to see, wait a second, even though he’s married, the dynamic has not completely shifted yet. He’s not grown up. He’s still with his mother. He still needs these guys to hang out with. And now you’re going to get this whole view of what married life is like, which I think is a kind of fascinating thing to put into this show about young nerds.

**Howard’s been so sweet – what he says after the bachelor party, and with the star necklace…
Yeah. I felt really lucky. It was a bold move to let it go into an emotional territory without feeling sappy or anything like that. Hopefully people felt the same. I think it’s nice to see that side.

He’s not grown up.

Yeah, all he did was graduate from one of the world's most prestidgious universities, and get a job at another one of the world's most prestidgious universities. It's like laying on a rotting couch in the basement, watching infomercials, eating Cheetos, and using drugs all day, really.

It's interesting how cultural context affects our view of stuff like this. Howard's relationship with his mother is clearly unhealthy in some ways, but in some cultures it's both normal and *expected* to live at home with your parents until you get married. My Korean friend is prob. in her early forties and she sort of makes a pretense of living with her parents, although I think she goes off and stays with her boyfriend on the weekends. She has nothing but disposable income and she can travel, buy Louis Vuitton bags, play golf every single day, go on vacation constantly, and just do whatever she wants. I think that by choosing to be single, she is actually a lot freer than some other Korean women and she has kind of outsmarted the system by not becoming a housewife and subservient to her in-laws. There's none of this "living at home = loser" attitude here. The expectations are different, and carry their own set of problems and issues.

[ricardo shillyshally]

Not a metaphor for anything. He was a song writer, who had only just switched to sit coms when he tried to take control of her show. I now see TV in America as being run as a sort of feudal system, run by a few white older males. CL is a duke, and even the writers do his bidding as well.

[ricardo shillyshally]

(sorry mind buzzing)I like this idea that physicists see BB as like looking in the funhouse mirror>'Perhaps the humor raises some hackles because–like all good comedy–it contains an element of truth. We have all encountered physicists who fail to pick up on common social cues; who make inappropriate comments to attractive women; and who engage in animated, technical arguments on the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force, to the bemusement of any non-scientists who happen to be present. In another scene, the guys argue at length about the scientific inaccuracies contained in the first Superman movie.......scientists are notorious for griping at length about minor technical inaccuracies in film and television.
Comedy is a funhouse mirror: It's an exaggerated reflection, to be sure, but it is still a reflection. If we don't like what the funhouse mirror shows us, maybe we need to change the reality. Only then will we see a change in the reflection.' http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/...-ouellette

[Idle Miscreant]

"Big Bang Theory's Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco and Chuck Lorre on Penny/Leonard vs. Penny/Sheldon:

Penny "has" to end up with Leonard, Johnny says. "She can't end up with Sheldon—that would be the end of the show!" Kaley has a different take: "I want Justin Timberlake playing my boyfriend on the show. That's what I'd prefer. Because Johnny Galecki just did a movie with him and I think, why don't you just bring him on the set?" Um, done and done, right? And bossman Chuck Lorre says this of the Lenny v Shenny debate: "I got to be honest with you, I love that we get to alternate back and forth because they team up so differently. Each one of the characters has a different dynamic when you pair them off with someone else. That gives us lots of options as writers. There's not a favorite aspect to it as much as I know. We have the depth to go for another few years because we have a lot of stories because the characters are all good in whatever configuration. They all work."

http://au.eonline.com/news/220935/glee-a...r-you-fans

[wellplayedpenny]

The Hollywood Reporter Steve Molaro September 27 2012

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-fe...tte-374442

Memorable Lines:
**The first season six promo revealed a romantic dinner for Amy and Sheldon that goes awry. How will they struggle this season?
[Molaro]:They're in a weird place, but they're trying to work through it and figure things out. There's always weirdness, there's always Sheldon pushing back against Amy's romantic agenda. There is forward movement even though it's in small increments, it is occurring. Amy had a taste of hand-holding in the season five finale and would like more.

**How aware is Sheldon about the impact the hand-holding had on Amy?
[Molaro]:She makes him very aware (laughs). He's aware of her wanting to pull him in that direction further with more hand holding and things like that. I don't feel like we're necessarily hanging it on the specific, "Well you held my hand when rocket went up." She continues to very strongly want to take him down that road and she can be persuasive. He's not going to be happy about it but he seems to grudgingly give in here and there cause I think it's easier for him to give in a little bit than to keep fighting.

Mood of the Masses: No Comments.