09-29-2015, 09:31 AM
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.
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.
Let's go exploring!