09-22-2014, 06:34 AM
If viewers were getting tired of the flirty/sexual stuff from Howard, the writers didn't have to surgically remove that whole aspect of his personality, they could just use those jokes less frequently. Same with Raj's mutism or anything else. They don't have to dump these things, just de-emphasize them a bit and play up the other fun and interesting aspects of the characters. As I noted in a previous post, Howard had already become slightly less "creepy" by the end of S2, and that's long before Bernadette or any of this other stuff.
The thing is, I don't believe anyone actually *was* getting bored/weary with the classic characters and all the classic recurring jokes from early days, so why change them? TPTB have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes.
ETA: I also believe that if people were tired of "Raj can't talk", they could've found some clever and amusing ways to get around that problem. Like, say, he can talk to Penny if he's not looking directly at her, for example, or maybe he can talk to her on the phone but not in person. You could have some very funny scenes of Raj saying things like "You're so beautiful and sexy" to a girl, but looking at Howard or Sheldon while he says it....
But, again, I'm not convinced that anyone *was* tired of that concept, in the first place. If this show had ended after a sensible four or five seasons, there wouldn't be time for all these running gags to get old.
The thing is, I don't believe anyone actually *was* getting bored/weary with the classic characters and all the classic recurring jokes from early days, so why change them? TPTB have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes.
ETA: I also believe that if people were tired of "Raj can't talk", they could've found some clever and amusing ways to get around that problem. Like, say, he can talk to Penny if he's not looking directly at her, for example, or maybe he can talk to her on the phone but not in person. You could have some very funny scenes of Raj saying things like "You're so beautiful and sexy" to a girl, but looking at Howard or Sheldon while he says it....
But, again, I'm not convinced that anyone *was* tired of that concept, in the first place. If this show had ended after a sensible four or five seasons, there wouldn't be time for all these running gags to get old.