05-08-2015, 02:47 PM
I didn't watch the episode because I'm only interested in Sheldon, and he wasn't in it. There was some bloke that looked a bit like him, but lacked all of Sheldon's original character traits, and mannerisms and fashion sensibilities and entire soul and...
However, I have scanned the comments. This is a common one, and demonstrative of everything wrong with the current audience;
"It's how the show is supposed to go. They are all becoming actual men now. Not just a bunch of nerds."
It's hard to know where to begin, regarding how ghastly that statement is. The very words "actual men" seem scented with cheap cologne and hint of moron. It's right up there with "You just want Sheldon to go back to being an emotionless robotic asshole" for sheer presumption, prejudice and ignorance.
"Just a bunch of nerds" and "emotionless robotic asshole" are how these current viewers genuinely see Seasons 1-3 and Vintage Sheldon. These viewers are common, normalist, blunt-minded bullies, and the show is now pandering to them. They are most certainly laughing AT the lads, and think that a love of fantasy, fiction and geekery is something ridiculous and pathetic, and that the only way one can "grow" as an individual is through sex, marriage and "romantic intimacy".
This appears to be similar to the message being pushed by Molaro in his interviews. Forget philosophical growth, or moral understanding, subtle introspection, illumination, artistic triumphs, deepening friendships, purely intellectual passions - the only thing that REALLY matters (if you're a REAL MAN that is, and not a NERD) is when you're going to marry your girlfriend/have sex.
If I had to pick a motto for TBBT's Season 5-8, I'd be torn between ~ "It's impossible to grow as an individual without becoming half of a couple." and "Growth requires shedding your previous identity."
As TBBT has now systematically crippled and destroyed all its most fascinating characters, leaving the everyman audience stand-ins (of Leonard and Amy) to triumph, the characters as individuals, previously worthy in their own right, can no longer support the show. The husks they have become of their former glory are simply not strong enough. So they've reduced these husks to soap-opera antics, mouthing platitudes and blowing about the stage in this sham of "growth" that's powered the past few seasons.
The current audience (housewives mooning over "Shamy" on social media largely, it seems) needed something as ham-fisted and OOC as Sheldon Gump pulling a ring out of nowhere to see "how much he's grown!!!" because they are incapable of seeing the subtler and far deeper emotions of Vintage Sheldon. He was far too unusual for their target demographic, so they dumbed him down. Anyone who thinks S1-3 Sheldon was "an emotionless asshole" is an unimaginative, unperceptive, insensitive pillock.
Current Sheldon has no subtlety at all, no range beyond the mawkish and pantomime, and has been debased further than any fictional character I've ever encountered. It's an appalling waste of Parsons' talent, and the writers' brilliance at Sheldonian dialogue which they are apparently no longer allowed to produce.
When was the last time we heard one of those wonderful spiels of science and fact, that Parsons used to delight in getting his tongue around, and its rhythms right?
There was a brief spasm of it during his discussion on Back To The Future grammar, and for an equally brief moment, my heart sped up with the old exhilaration, but then it vanished again. And has not been seen since.
I really despair of what has happened to this once magical and highly unusual show...but as Louise said, the characters have been dead for so long now that it's getting less and less painful. The more infuriating aspect is the wasted potential. The writers are far, far cleverer than this, the actors are capable of greater subtlety. Above all, those marvelous characters deserved a more interesting future than this conventionalist nonsense. I don't care if it's "realistic". It's MEANT to be art.
However, I have scanned the comments. This is a common one, and demonstrative of everything wrong with the current audience;
"It's how the show is supposed to go. They are all becoming actual men now. Not just a bunch of nerds."
It's hard to know where to begin, regarding how ghastly that statement is. The very words "actual men" seem scented with cheap cologne and hint of moron. It's right up there with "You just want Sheldon to go back to being an emotionless robotic asshole" for sheer presumption, prejudice and ignorance.
"Just a bunch of nerds" and "emotionless robotic asshole" are how these current viewers genuinely see Seasons 1-3 and Vintage Sheldon. These viewers are common, normalist, blunt-minded bullies, and the show is now pandering to them. They are most certainly laughing AT the lads, and think that a love of fantasy, fiction and geekery is something ridiculous and pathetic, and that the only way one can "grow" as an individual is through sex, marriage and "romantic intimacy".
This appears to be similar to the message being pushed by Molaro in his interviews. Forget philosophical growth, or moral understanding, subtle introspection, illumination, artistic triumphs, deepening friendships, purely intellectual passions - the only thing that REALLY matters (if you're a REAL MAN that is, and not a NERD) is when you're going to marry your girlfriend/have sex.
If I had to pick a motto for TBBT's Season 5-8, I'd be torn between ~ "It's impossible to grow as an individual without becoming half of a couple." and "Growth requires shedding your previous identity."
As TBBT has now systematically crippled and destroyed all its most fascinating characters, leaving the everyman audience stand-ins (of Leonard and Amy) to triumph, the characters as individuals, previously worthy in their own right, can no longer support the show. The husks they have become of their former glory are simply not strong enough. So they've reduced these husks to soap-opera antics, mouthing platitudes and blowing about the stage in this sham of "growth" that's powered the past few seasons.
The current audience (housewives mooning over "Shamy" on social media largely, it seems) needed something as ham-fisted and OOC as Sheldon Gump pulling a ring out of nowhere to see "how much he's grown!!!" because they are incapable of seeing the subtler and far deeper emotions of Vintage Sheldon. He was far too unusual for their target demographic, so they dumbed him down. Anyone who thinks S1-3 Sheldon was "an emotionless asshole" is an unimaginative, unperceptive, insensitive pillock.
Current Sheldon has no subtlety at all, no range beyond the mawkish and pantomime, and has been debased further than any fictional character I've ever encountered. It's an appalling waste of Parsons' talent, and the writers' brilliance at Sheldonian dialogue which they are apparently no longer allowed to produce.
When was the last time we heard one of those wonderful spiels of science and fact, that Parsons used to delight in getting his tongue around, and its rhythms right?
There was a brief spasm of it during his discussion on Back To The Future grammar, and for an equally brief moment, my heart sped up with the old exhilaration, but then it vanished again. And has not been seen since.
I really despair of what has happened to this once magical and highly unusual show...but as Louise said, the characters have been dead for so long now that it's getting less and less painful. The more infuriating aspect is the wasted potential. The writers are far, far cleverer than this, the actors are capable of greater subtlety. Above all, those marvelous characters deserved a more interesting future than this conventionalist nonsense. I don't care if it's "realistic". It's MEANT to be art.
"WHERE THE HELL'S MY PARACHUTE?"