and BAM! Howard Wolowitz

[Louise]

The anvilicious writing kills the humour.

Exactly. This is true of so many parts of this show. If you put too much emphasis on something, if you make it too literal, then it becomes sad or disturbing instead of funny. This is, after all, a show about people who are misfits and outcasts, and if you delve too deeply into that, it's no longer a bunch of people who are charmingly eccentric, it's people with serious psychological problems.

These things have to be handled delicately, or they go over like a lead balloon...