9.02 The Separation Oscillation

[FlyingSolo]

Jesus christ that was a hell of a kiss. Mother of god.

And I normally hate kissy-wissy business.

Might...er...watch it again?

https://www.clippituser.tv/c/wpamw

(Don't know how to embed the fucker)

Now to brave the nudey torrent sites and see the rest of the damn thing...

Oh My GOD that was hot!!!!! I am burning up with that Shenny kiss!!!

[Shenny306]

Need some more of those kisses! Way way better than Amy/Sheldon and Leonard/Penny!

[Idle Miscreant]

I presume there'll be some sober reviews appearing here shortly, once everyone's finished celebrating/sniggering?


I predict low ratings for this episode, incidentally. They didn't use the kiss in the promo (and only hellbent fans watch sneak peeks), instead they promised ANGRY AMY, VENGEFUL SHELDON, LEONARD/PENNY STRIFE.
No one wants to see that.

So, particularly after last week's fairly sombre episode, this one'll be down a couple of million, methinks.

SHOULD HAVE USED THE KISS IN THE PROMO CHAPS.

Happy to be found wrong. I like this 3rd version of Sheldon. He's closer to Vintage than the simpering toddler boyfriend of Season 8. Hopefully the fucker will STAY.

Going to watch the rest of the damn episode now and report back...

(And as Nutz was saying in the Grumblebox - god forbid an Alternative TBBT site celebrates an Alternative Couple moment. Jesus.)

[wellplayedpenny]

9.2 The Separation Oscillation

I remember back in Grade 2 I used to tell stories to my friends about my cousin, Don. They loved the episodes where he tossed my head into the ceiling when he lifted me up or chased me around with an axe, and I loved telling them. Then, one day, a friend looked at me after I'd finished another rousing tale and said, 'but that didn't really happen.' I didn't know what to say. I thought the whole paradigm was set up: I told tales to entertain my audience. Yes, there was a kernel of truth involved with each story but the point of the story was that it WAS a story. One part doesn't outshine or have more prominence than another. They're all make-believe.

That's not what some people in the BBT fandom are going to say. They're going to insist that a kiss in a dream sequence on a make-believe show is worth less than a kiss by two characters outside of a dream sequence in a make-believe show. That it's less 'real' than the other one, even though saner heads would point out that the entire show is a creative construct, hence no part is any more or less than it is.

It's the actors who give it a whole lotta woo. And tonight the audience responded with a woo of their own as Sheldon kissed Penny.

Now I'm not going to get into details about it—Sheldon pulling Penny to him, their lips hungry for each other, a long Mississippi and Sheldon readjusts and goes in even deeper, Penny's leg lifting to his waist and his hand firmly gripping her thigh—because the fact Sheldon and Penny kissed isn't the point here.

The point is chemistry. Kaley and Jim have it.

It's this that frustrates me the most—the obvious power Jim and Kaley have to draw the audience into a scene and hold them there, and TPTB's reluctance to utilize it in the later seasons, preferring instead to hammer home the established canon relationships. With a glare or a grin, Jim and Kaley convey more about their characters to the audience than any other couple on the show. Internet polls about favorite BBT episodes point to the perennial favourite Sheldon and Penny-centric episodes like, The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis or Panty Pinata Polarization. They are one of the main driving forces behind the syndication surge that catapulted current seasons into 'can't miss' tv.

They're also the engine of BBT fanfiction as Sheldon and Penny match-ups, whether romantic or otherwise, are the most written about couple and dominate the Top 100 most popular stories on ff.net.

Now these Sheldon and Penny, Shenny, writers didn't collectively decide one day to come up with a crack-ship that no one could take seriously. They wrote what they saw on the show. Sheldon and Penny, through Jim and Kaley, communicating on levels of intimacy not seen elsewhere. Kaley and Jim's genuine affection for each other, combined with their acting chops, shines through, elevating the level of the scripts to comedic gold.

Jim and Kaley *connect* and the audience gets that.

There's no need for a sappy, "I've loved you from the moment I saw you and I'll love you until the end of time" comment. Sheldon doesn't kiss, he *takes* Penny. And Penny ups the ante and accepts the challenge. That's all we need to know, and it's in character, not with the sad-sack portrayals we've been subjected to in the latter seasons, but to the vintage fire that set scenes ablaze.

Compare that to Sheldon's initiated kiss with Amy on the train. Jim tries. He really does. He steps into Mayim, arcs her neck, but there's no return. The entire episode was structured to culminate in that Moment, the touting of the Shamy by showrunners and actors so as to pump up the audience's expectations.

Compare the two kisses and see for yourself. You might say that it's a matter of apples and oranges, that Sheldon and Amy's relationship is 'of the mind' and that they're inexperienced sexually so of course their scene shouldn't be as fierce. What I'm saying, however, is that Amy and Sheldon's awkwardness shouldn't have blunted the *power* of the scene. Sheldon delivered what Amy has always wanted and she was as responsive as a dead carp. Jim made that kiss last long enough for Mayim to meld from shock to acceptance to enjoyment. Mayim didn't.

Given only a cold opener to an episode, Kaley took a Jim Parsons kiss and knocked it out of the ballpark.

That's why they're paid a million dollars per episode.

Every story, even the most outlandish, has a kernel of truth somewhere. In the case of BBT, it's a simple one—Sheldon and Penny are genuine because Jim and Kaley connect. Shenny writers use this connection to anchor their stories so that the Sheldon and Penny relationship can naturally develop, no matter if they take place in Cimmeria, the afterlife, Wonderland or 2311 North Los Robles.

So there's no big yip to me that the Sheldon and Penny kiss 'only' occurred in a dream.

They've been kissing in mine for years.

[Idle Miscreant]

OUTSIDE REVIEWS

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:

"Speaking of flames, how hot was that kiss between Sheldon and Penny? I might have stood up and cheered when it happened. After nine seasons of watching Jim Parsons brilliantly channel Sheldon’s awkward characteristics, it caught me off guard when he grabbed Penny like a boss and kissed her like he meant it. Let the record show that Jim has major skills."

http://www.ew.com/recap/the-big-bang-the...-episode-2

IGN:

"This episode had a really nice momentum going as it balanced out the relationship drama with more lighthearted humor. Unfortunately, all of this came to a screeching halt once Leonard and Penny had their heart-to-heart chat. I was really looking forward to an extended storyline that would force the two characters to confront their deep-seated issues with one another. Instead, their marriage crisis reached a quick and easy conclusion thanks to Leonard's suggestion that both of them are simply afraid of losing each other. No sooner did they acknowledge that fact than their marriage was fixed and it was off to the bedroom.

Needless to say, that scene rang pretty hollow."

http://au.ign.com/articles/2015/09/29/th...ion-review



(Twitter was flooded with latent or emerging Shenny fans, and a shedload of delighted Nostalgics, both for the Sheldon/Penny scenes, and for the Raj/Howard malarkey, which I'm very much looking forward to seeing. Aside from a handful of sour shippers hassling Prady on twitter, I've seen only good things from the public about this scene.)

[Kimk26]

This is just way too fun..

[Jomi25]

More screencaps!!!

[Tuesday Pajamas]

AMAZING kiss. I knew it was coming but I really never expected that. To have something THIS fantastic and not promote the hell out of it? We saw a second of the kiss in the promo and I was convinced that this was all they kept in but WOW.

[Jomi25]

AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME! Jim & Kaley deliver perfect chemistry once again. I was also expecting they'd cut it short, but DAMN! That was hot! It truly baffles me as to why TPTB are refusing to put all that blazing chemistry to good use. Why are they still trying to push the forced, stale & bland when they already have comedy gold and amazing chemistry in these two?

[Tuesday Pajamas]

That kiss makes the show and it current couples look beige. I wasn't sure if the Jim/Kaley chemistry was still there but holy crap! I'm just going to go stare at gifs now