SHAMY WARNING: 9.10 - The Earworm Reverberation

[Tuesday Pajamas]

"Sheldon has a revelation when he realizes why a song was stuck in his head. Also, Amy invites Dave over for dinner despite their previously awkward date, and Wolowitz and Koothrappali become obsessed with a fan of their band, "Footprints on the Moon". ""

Warning : This episode contains Shame kissing and reconcilation.

Promo pictures are here. There's actually one featuring Sheldon and Penny, although though both look utterly depressed. (who can blame them )

[Toad]

[devilbk]

Brillian, Toad. Eff-ing brilliant.

[Kimk26]

Oh, this is going on my FB page (after the ep. airs, o'course..)!!

[Ratman77]

Yes, it is a strange affair.
Penny is married with this 'superduper-hero' Leonard and Sheldon one step away to get back in his relationship with the 'warmth and emphatic' Amy.
This both must technically be on ‘cloud seven’, but on every still or promoshot they seem to be depressed.  
What may be the reason?  

Great work , 'Toad'!

[A.D.A.]

Oh geez, Sheldon's descent into madness is too accurate. His video diary to future crazy Sheldon sparked by his earworm... he should have done this in Season 3. There was some cute Shenny conversation and also interaction between Sheldon and Leonard, for the few of us who like that, although as per usual in this strange new TBBT, Leonard is the one who wants to work and Sheldon is distracted with lovey-dovey stuff, namely the song he can't remember. When he figures it out, he tells us how it is about how Amy made his life better, quoting the "half a man" nonsense. He had a pretty funny line later on when he tells Amy, but as has always been a strange habit on TBBT, he overexplains it and sort of ruins the joke ("You're my heartworm... the metaphorical kind, not the poodle-killing kind"). This is such a pet peeve, but I really dislike it when they do that.

I'm happy Raj and Howard are still doing "Footprints on the Moon". They had a little plot about their Facebook page and a fan they were stalking. Watching these two together is still consistently the most entertaining part of the show, even though their plot was really inconsequential.

Amy is so boring. Every scene with her is boring. I know she is a straight woman, so this is to be expected, but although I don't like Bernadette that much, either, she, for example, manages to both sell her funny lines and reactions. Amy continues to be in a drama-soap opera, not a sitcom. It's not that the acting is really bad or anything, it's just not suited for such an in-your-face comedy. Anyway, she is now the one who "used to drive him anywhere" because Amy must be the focus of Sheldon's life always.

I really do wish Dave was a character who'd stay around. "Let me just check my schedule... he said, trying to seem like a man with things on his schedule." And as much as I dislike the sentiment, he delivered "kiss her, you brilliant fool" quite brilliantly. They could nix new-Stuart and Emily who's never around anyway and keep him instead.

At the end of the episode, Dave tells Sheldon (still kissing Amy) that if he ever has a moment, he'd love to discuss physics. Silly Dave! Why would Sheldon want to discuss physics when he can kiss a girl? Haha, what a nerd Dave is. Really underlines how Sheldon has changed... oh, excuse me, DEVELOPED.

[wellplayedpenny]

In tonight's episode we have a metaphorical incident with Sheldon's eidetic memory suddenly failing him. It is another trait from the past that defined his vintage self so it, too, must fall under Amy's paradigm as only she can be powerful enough to stymie his Beautiful Mind. It's really repetitive to the point where I roll my eyes, the idea that anything Sheldon was/did in the past can be rewritten/dismissed with a mere reference to Amy. I mean I hate to say this but Sheldon is now the most co-dependent character on the show. He can't do anything without there being some sort of connection, whether direct or indirect, to Amy. This is rather distressing to me since Sheldon was the one character who had his head on straight when it came to his observations on Raj, Howard and Leonard's attempts at romantic relations. Sheldon gave both Leonard and Penny shit for belittling geekdom on the altar of perceived normalcy and yet we flash forward to now and Sheldon's given up Everything for someone whose only changes have been to centralize herself in his life for her own benefit as dictated by the 'spin the wheel to see what plot device Amy will fulfill this week' mechanisms of the writers.

For me, this episode revealed how weak every aspect of this show has become and I wholeheartedly admit to being shocked at how blatantly those behind the scenes just don't give a damn. It's one thing to try a joke or a plot and have it not work out, and I'm not going to say that every episode was equally as strong in the first four seasons. However, I will say that the early episodes are infinitely stronger than s6-9 because they were more cohesively conceived. Plots were either massive, involving all the characters, or else divided in two but with one plot intersecting with or originating out of the other. Nowadays, there's no attempt at creating a cohesive narrative; there's an obvious A and B plot which are independent of each other. This wouldn't be so bad if the quality of the writing still held up but oftentimes the B plot is a complete throwaway—a one line joke that is stretched out way too long. Although I shouldn't be too hard on the B plots given how hapless the A plots are nowadays.

There is a horrible balancing act involving too many thumbs on one side of the scale, wherein TPTB micro-control everything from writing to direction and yet are now dependent on having the actors bail out their lacklustre product. The Howard and Raj scenes tonight worked not because of the inane plot but through the sheer acting talents of Kunal and Simon. They really are working with crap and yet have managed to rise above it for jokes here and there, but then the question becomes how much am I enjoying the scenes because of my sentimentality towards the characters as opposed to their current portrayals?

Jim is the one who is particularly left out to dry. Since he is the lead male he is particularly micromanaged because no one wants to kill Sheldon, their Golden Goose. Their way of altering his character has been through Amy, hence the reason why she has become central to the show. She is their mole, making sure that Sheldon thinks and acts in the right way so that he becomes less complex to write. This leaves Jim with infinitely less to work with, hence the reason why the director has asked for him to put more of himself into Sheldon. TPTB are relying on Jim to keep Sheldon a three-dimensional character which fails spectacularly because whatever character I saw tonight, it sure wasn't Sheldon. The problem is that TPTB don't recognize that early Sheldon *was* a three-dimensional character. It was only as they simplified him that he became a cartoon character. Sheldon lost his power and subtlety and not even Jim can save this later seasons crap, which says something given that he has four Emmys.

This is what TPTB don't get: I didn't tune in to see Jim Parsons, I tuned in to see Sheldon Cooper. And yes, there is a difference. The problem now is that the illusion has been shattered, there is no Sheldon, only an actor who is playing a character called Sheldon. What makes things worse is that we can see more than the marionette's strings, we see the puppeteers positioning him and moving him on the stage. When Sheldon comes to his epiphany about the song being about Amy, Jim is standing in the middle of the apartment. He then moves to his Spot on the couch and has to not only relay the lyrics to the song, but also explain how they're relevant to Amy. This is his 'Aha!' Moment for understanding he is 'half a man' without her and then we get the whole rush of 'I love you Marsha', 'I love you John' and a smoochie at the door.

The thing is, all this overproduction doesn't change the fact that it's poorly written. The writers can tap into as much schmaltzy, unoriginal sentimentality as they want but if people don't buy into their world, there is no 'Moment'. I can't buy into this new world because the old one was so complete. It had moments like the napkin and Soft Kitty. The difference between what was and what are now moments is crucial to seeing what is wrong with the current season and this is best reflected in the two kisses we've seen so far:

Amy and Sheldon's kiss was the culmination of an episode plot which spelled out Sheldon's love for her. It was a Moment because the writers and directors SAID it was a Moment—and lo and behold, The Moment! Never mind that the kiss, itself, was passionless. Save for Jim's arm, which wiped Mayim's back with regularity like a windshield wiper, there was no movement. It was inorganic, a stage kiss which might work for theater but with the step into the personal which television shows have via the close up of the camera it just doesn't have 'it'. The kiss is as real as The Moment is genuine.

In contrast, Penny and Sheldon's kiss MADE a moment. As the dialogue between Penny and Sheldon moved into a new direction, what with Sheldon saying that he was available for her to kiss since he was single, you could hear the uncertainty in the audience's laughter. An 'I don't know where you're going with this but ooo boy this has become a charged scene'. And then Sheldon—not Jim—swept in and kissed Penny. The kiss was passionate, alive, organic. It moved, it breathed and the audience went nuts. It was taboo, blasphemous, daring, and wish-fulfilling. THAT is what makes a great moment.

Sadly, it seems that TPTB don't get the difference.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

I have to confess I couldn't watch it. I looked at a couple of scenes briefly and saw the reconcilaiton part but then I was too creeped out to watch the rest. Jim is a fine actor and Dave was funny, what little I saw of him. Maybe one day I'll be able to watch these episodes but not right now. Shamy just weird me out too much.

[wellplayedpenny]

I think for me, I was just curious as to how this comes across. TPTB are really pushing the Shamy and the swampettes are nuts over it so I want to see why it's 'good'. Am I missing something? Perhaps to curmudgeonly particular to the point of blindness? The problem for me is that there's no passion in the relationship. Amy's been the 'flattener' of Sheldon's bubbly personality and together they make boring. Their kiss was just that--boring. And to have this come about that Amy is supposed to be Sheldon's perfect match and one true destiny is tragic not celebratory. There's all this fanfare from CBS and Prady, etc, yet time and again when I watch the episodes I'm like, 'that's it?' Even with fanfare it doesn't measure up to even one Sheldon glare/Penny grin.

[devilbk]

Much ado about a big boring nothing.