FolkLorre

[Louise]

I just don't understand why you would create such marvelous characters in order to deconstruct and destroy them. It makes no sense to me.

This is it, in a nutshell. This is everything I could possibly say about the show, summed-up in one sentence. I don't see anyone here quibbling over minor plot-points or complaining *solely* because their ship isn't canon. It's bigger than that. This isn't just another case of "well, some fans want X to happen and others want Y."

These BBT characters were, and could have been, some of the most iconic and memorable sitcom characters of the past twenty or thirty years. I really believe that. The waste and the lost potential are the saddest part.

I could've tolerated a lot of minor disappointments and a lot of minorly bad decisions on the part of the writers, if the characters remained vibrant and dynamic and true to themselves. My expectations are not high. Nobody here is stomping their feet and going "I want things MY way!"

They've traded something fresh and original for a generic sitcom. It occurred to me today that this is nothing but the age-old "men are dumb, women are bitchy" schtick which has been a staple of comedies since radio and probably before. They've grafted that set of tropes on top of the old show.

That's why we feel so confused and distressed: they've taken the original characters and squeezed them into these archetype/stereotype roles which don't match their true personalities at all. Sheldon is especially ill-suited to such a dull and mundane position, maybe moreso than any other character before or since.

They haven't "developed" or "evolved" the characters; they've slotted them into these traditional sitcom stock-character roles which have nothing to do with their original personalities. If you want to get meta, it's like we're watching the actors play their characters, and then the characters in turn are playing *other* characters.*

This causes a lot of cognitive dissonance for Nostalgics and Purists. It's why we're always saying "But so-and-so wouldn't *do* that!" It's because TPTB have changed their plans mid-stream and we're watching these same familiar actors play Lazy Husband or Dumb Blonde or Wacky Neighbor.

Original Howard has some qualities that aren't admirable, but lazy and stupid are not among them.

Likewise, as Purists have stated, you don't get Sheldumb from Sheldon without some kind of brain damage or psychological breakdown.

There is no possible way that *these* characters could evolve from *those* characters. There is simply no way that someone watching Season 1 would predict the events of Season 8.

Thought experiment: imagine a scenario where something bad happened to those original characters and they *did* deteriorate. What would they be like? Well, I don't think Sheldon would be buffoonish and Howard would be lazy and parasitic, or submissive. Maybe Sheldon would become more reclusive and tic-ridden, maybe Howard would become more snide and nasty.

This is just speculation on my part. But even in a worst-case scenario, I don't think they'd be as dumb and helpless as they are now. Do you see what I mean? These are not the original characters minus the innocence and optimism. These are fundamentally different people.

*ETA: this part is a major breakthrough to me, I think. It's like when you paint a wall, covering-over the previous color, but you can still see hints of that previous color. It's not so much that TPTB have *changed* the characters, as that these "new" characters have been layered over the old ones, which is why you can still sometimes see glimpses of the old stuff. Maybe with Sheldon it's more complex or more severe than that, I don't know. But I think that's what's happening.

[ricardo shillyshally]

But with Howard they are just playing out that old cliche of Jewish man lives with mother, and expects wife to act the same. Sometimes events in peoples lives really do change them, going to space would have made Howard really confident, and people(incl: Sheldon and Mike respect him). I think 'Change' in characters is what BB is all about. It's the whole premise; the four guys in the apartment would have changed incrementally, due to similar outlooks. and interests. They drop Penny onto their planet, like some exotic blonde alien. Sheldon and Penny spent a lot of time together; she taught him about social conventions, understanding others' needs, how to be more confident in public, even changed his physique with exercise. Exposed him to popular culture; humour, kardashians, radiohead, Branjolina,etc. If you think about it she's changed them all(even changed Howard, and maybe harshly, but he had a thick protective skin),and their destinies(introductions). I think my problem with fantasy(and I enjoy Star Wars, while knowing it's twaddle!) is that it's one person's fiction. Fiction is very complex to understand, it's like the collective unconscious. When you write fiction you tune into all the other fiction ever created. It is also a part of the real world, real culture. Still need to understand it more. Are ancient myths still being played out today in culture, in life! The dark comedies(like God Bless America) are critiques from within the Hollywood movie system itself. They see what predictable plots, stereotypes, cliches, feel good endings, are doing to their creativity, and bring in outsider auteurs, to critique the dumbing down of general culture.

[Louise]

But with Howard they are just playing out that old cliche of Jewish man lives with mother, and expects wife to act the same.

That joke might've been funny if it only lasted for an episode or two, but it's gone on for too long. It's the *only* joke Bernadette has. Besides, I think she's really *not* that similar to his mother. She's worse. Howard wasn't afraid to talk back to his mother or push back at her, even if he usually obeyed her wishes in the end.

Insofar as you can actually analyze a very exaggerated character like that, I'd say Mrs.W's behavior came from a place of being insecure and lonely, whereas B is just hostile and nasty. She's *more* controlling than his mother ever was.

IMO the early seasons make it clear that Mrs.W is irrational and we're not meant to take her seriously, whereas now B is presented as the voice of reason, to some degree.

Yes, I can see Howard being subconsciously drawn to someone like his mother, but that's such a clichéd and distasteful direction for the show to take, long-term. TPTB just LOVE these quasi-incestuous themes. I think it's reasonably IC that Howard would want someone to take care of him the way his mother did, I *don't* think it's IC for him to be totally unwilling to even *try* to take care of himself. I mean, presumably he went away to college; how did he survive that?* Something like that would be *actual* growth and character development, if the characters had to stretch themselves a bit and learn new things. This is just "dumb husband, bitchy wife" stuff which I find super-tiresome. He's far less independent now, not more. You can't claim "growing, changing, learning, evolving" if the characters are *less* independent and *less* self-actualized.

*I subscribe to this pre-Season 3 theory that Howard's father died while he was in college and this is what caused him to come home again and take care of his mother. It's an idea which has been thoroughly Jossed, but I don't care; I think it makes a lot of sense psychologically and it's my headcanon, now. Maybe, just as Howard was taking some baby-steps towards independence, this big event came along and sort of squashed whatever progress he'd made, and bound him and his mother closer together. Think about it; it makes sense.

ETA: I kinda think it might've been cute if there was an early-seasons ep where Howard was dating a much-older but still beautiful woman, someone like Christie Brinkley or Cheryl Tiegs, maybe a Playmate from the '70s/'80s. That would be playing with the Oedipus Complex in a gentle way, not an icky way.

Can't you just picture that? Flirty!Howard gets all excited:

"And she's a Playboy Playmate!"

Leonard: What month?

Howard: April...1975!!

*Leonard and Raj look baffled*

[ricardo shillyshally]

Yes but that cliche, goes back forever. I wonder why Jewish writers would even perpetuate it. Howard would have changed with the culture around him, not pretending to be some fifties husband. It's insulting to our intelligence. But I have a sneaky idea, the same writers were working with Charlie Sheen, while writing for this show. I think something leaked over. They then no doubt got flak for his back story, and now will never give him a break.

[ricardo shillyshally]

Of course, another way of viewing this is that CL creates surrogate family scenarios incl: BB. It's a place where we feel safe, surrounded by our fictional friends. They have similar interests, and we know their references. The stereotypes, the cliches, the safe plots, all make us feel we're in a predictable safe world, nothing to challenge us, or shock us. It seems to me like time in BB land is pretty similar to our own. You can see from that flashback episode, where they have huge curly hair. They have changed considerably over the course of the show. Every part of the human body from; atoms,cells,neural networks,feelings, ideas, would have changed immeasurably in that time. I'm sorry Sheldon, but change is inevitable!

[Idle Miscreant]

Sheldon hasn't changed organically though, has he Ricardo. He's been completely rewritten.
His essential character has been retconned to make way for a "relationship" which Vintage Sheldon would have run screaming from.

I also doubt people "change immeasurably" over 8 years under normal circumstances (ie barring warfare, atrocities, alien invasion etc). A quick scan over the 30 or so people I know well enough to judge, shows that those who've gone from their twenties to their thirties have merely mellowed a little, but are otherwise the same people, and those who were over thirty to begin with haven't altered a JOT.

People may slightly alter their opinions on certain ephemeral matters, or change their academic ideas, possibly, but they don't change their core identity and value system, and they CERTAINLY don't change their mannerisms and vocal patterns...Not unless, as we've said, they've suffered a head injury or have been brainwashed.

Changing as Sheldon did below, rapidly, from Season 4 to Season 5, simply doesn't happen in reality. The loss of IQ particularly.



What I don't understand, is that Lorre seemed to love Vintage Sheldon dearly, and was protective of his odd, alien qualities. Why did he allow this character, his masterpiece, to be destroyed?

[Tuesday Pajamas]

Sheldon has not changed organically in the slightest. I found his deadpan, mad-genius persona, a believable personality. But to say that he would regress to this giggling twit is a step too far. He's the class fool now, not dignified at all and Sheldon had stacks of dignity. I don't know how anyone can think this is a real growth story. It's not comparable to reality because it's so daft and OTT.

Also I don't take Lorre words at face value I'm afraid. I suspect he said that because he wanted Leonard and Penny to be the main couple, like Ross and Rachel on Friends. But Sheldon and Penny had more chemistry. They ignored it for years but eventually brought a girlfriend in. Putting a great deal of effort in, and making a lot tweaks to her character. But for this to work properly, the original Sheldon had to go.

[ricardo shillyshally]

Me, play devil's advocate! I just don't know where they would have gone with Sheldon. Obviously I love original Sheldon, but without intervention from particularly Penny, he would have been condemned to a solitary existence(buying a book on 'how to make friends'), and Leonard helped him a lot, until it got too much(like it did with last tenant). We are watching them grow up, become socialised, make new friends. He isn't Peter Pan! I just meant on a biological and neural level we reconstruct ourselves continually, we are never physically or mentally the same. Theoretical physicists are finished by thirty. I think some characters may seem similar, but radical changes happen in twenties. We've seen them go through rites of passage, markers of change(marriage is another rite of passage). So I thought that clip from S7 showed some of Sheldon, still remained. I haven't seen S8, I don't want to support them. I heard there's a new season of Community, good time to try it. Plus that Inside No 9 show I posted, dares to combine multiple genres, and I'm still thinking about it's brilliance.

[wellplayedpenny]

I honestly think that the word 'growth' is a catchall to explain away anything that TPTB are called out on by their critics. Why is there less geekiness on the show? Growth. Less science? Growth. More of an emphasis on relationships? Growth. Major alterations to character portrayals? Growth.

It's the great side-step--there are no continuity problems with the early to late seasons; what we're seeing is a progression, an evolution. Aside from the obvious that the writers have run out of ideas this progression is part of the reason why we're seeing old jokes/plots reused. As the basic points by which we judge the 'framework' of a show (i.e. characters, settings, etc) are now askew there needs to be a way to keep these links between the seasons 'alive'. The Penny fig Newtons joke worked, so let's use it again so we can add nostalgia to the face value of the joke. The sentimentality and good will generated by the early seasons is hopefully tapped to keep the ratings high.

Ultimately their idea of Growth is lazy and it's rather sad that critics/interviewers don't call them out on it. If everything they do is Growth then the willingness/ability to discern the quality of the show is lost. That is what has me steamed. Yes, I agree that the characters have changed and like Ricardo I believe that we were seeing change in them in the early seasons, only it being done at their own pace. But what undoes this whole Growth bullshit we're being fed as being only a positive force is how the humour on the show has changed. It's now mean-spirited and no where near as complex as the early jokes were. Growth in humour isn't calling someone a 'Sexy toddler' (as it invokes an uncomfortable humour, a knee-jerk reactionary humour) it's calling someone a robot and expanding that into a brilliant scene intro involving Asimov and Jenga. It catches Sheldon, Howard and Raj in all their brilliance and character nuances with a good-natured tease given a genuine mulling over. The characters bring out the joke as opposed to now where the joke is the characters.

The proof is in the pudding and the verdict by a greater number of people is that season 8 is just not funny.

But by gosh there's Growth!

[Idle Miscreant]

Ricardo!

I can think of plenty of places they could have gone with Sheldon. Most particularly the one you very astutely mentioned in Sheldor the Conqueror. His eccentricities would have increased, not decreased, his passion for his work likewise. He would NOT have become a socialised, simpering boyfriend character. He would have become a driven, peculiar scientist. Like Tesla, not the buffoonish Adam Sandler/Honey Boo Boo hybrid he is now.

There's no question of Vintage Sheldon being "condemned to a solitary existence" (which, incidentally, sounds exactly like what the canons used to say to us to justify why everyone's in little ark couples. Remember?) as the character we knew in Seasons 1-3 HAD friends, that he showed the full spectrum of emotions with. What he DIDN'T need was a manufactured long-term "romance", particularly of the High School variety. They purposefully regressed him so they could put him through some godawful teen relationship for the benefit of an increased female audience. They bent his identity out of shape around a tertiary character, simply because they wanted to keep writing for that tertiary character. Why couldn't they have kept his original identity in this relationship? God knows.

I will never forgive them for exchanging the multicoloured Coopersuit for the grey, boring and human Coitusuit.

Never! *faces away into dramatic gust of wind* etc

Anyroad, the question wasn't whether Vintage Sheldon benefitted from Penny and Leonard's friendship between the Staircase flashback and the end of Season 3, it was;

1) Whether the current Sheldon could realistically have "grown" from Vintage Sheldon (no)
2) Is this current Sheldon BETTER or more mature than Vintage Sheldon (no)

If we are watching them "grow up" then why is Sheldon a ridiculous and unbelievable, infantile character in Season 8, and a sensitive, albeit very eccentric, adult in Season 1-3? Either he has regressed, or HE HAS BEEN REWRITTEN, as said.

Change itself is not my beef, it's that this is inorganic, inaccurate, horrible change.

I know you're just playing Devil's Advocate but stop it immediately or I'll have to challenge you to a duel behind the woodshed. We can slap each other with white silk gloves until one of us crumbles.




I find this all particularly painful because judging by the surreal philosophy frequently demonstrated in his Vanity Cards, Lorre is a brilliant fellow.
I LIKE the fucker!

Hence am suffering some sort of cognitive dissonance over all this...

Again, why destroy your masterpiece? And on the Sheldon and Penny front, why break up your show's greatest comedic pairing?