Wishful Thinking...

[Wisp]

It's Amy's patronising tone, also, that bothers me. The Shamy shippers' oft used argument that "Amy treats Sheldon like an adult and respects his mind" would be perfectly reasonable if Amy didn't have the insipid tone she currently has when she talks to Sheldon. She sounds like a social worker. I wish they'd stop treating Sheldon like he's some sort of nutcase.

[CassandraElise]

It's Amy's patronising tone, also, that bothers me....I wish they'd stop treating Sheldon like he's some sort of nutcase.

As true Sheldon fans know, he's NOT crazy; his mother had him tested!

[Idle Miscreant]

Alright lads and lasses/ladies and gentlemen, time-wasters, aliens...
THIS IS YOUR MODERATOR SPEAKING. (one of the militant feckers anyway)

As we're all apparently excessively wordy bastards, and prone to rambling away wherever the fancy takes us, I think we have to make a modicum of effort to keep these threads in line.

There are three threads in the Mint in Box Forum, and they've all devolved into variations of "Isn't the show bloody terrible nowadays."
Yes it is. Mostly. And in some areas it's horrendous.

Moonbase has started a thread specifically to carp on this matter, so we should ATTEMPT to go there when we have our bitchy pants on. Or to the guarded by snakes arena, obviously.

Witchdoctor started this thread to discuss hypothetical futures and variations, which is a wonderful idea. Sheldon as a Private Detective, a Super Villain, a brain in a jar, Sheldon as the memory of a swan, whatever, anything but canon discussion. Don't we all get ENOUGH of that?

Let's attempt to honour the characters' original conceptions without dwelling too much on the dispirited mockeries they've become.

Now if you don't mind, I have to go and weep into my hair-shirt...

[taffinabean]

That's what it WAS for the first several episodes after the introduction of Amy. It was interesting watching two misfits discover each other. They only agreed to meet to placate others. They shared an aversion to soiled hosiery. They enjoyed each other's company but they weren't burdened by being in a "relationship". I wish they had continued that. Let the other characters go thru their romantic angst but leave Sheldon and Amy as curious, scientific observers of the turmoil

But then the writers decided to toss that away and gradually turned Amy into the mopey, humorless, sex-starved pursuer she is now. And I think it was done strictly for money. They know that there's a huge demographic out there who wants romance, romance and more romance. So they changed the show to attract that audience, and you have to admit that it's been wildly successful ratings-wise. You'll notice that the discussion on the other site after every episode now is almost entirely about the status of the various romantic relationships. Who's getting along, who's fighting, will they ever have sex, blah, blah, blah. It's obvious they've attracted far more viewers that they've turned off but it was done at the cost of undermining a unique, intelligent, refreshing show. Now I consider it an above average romcom. Nothing more.

Syndication is a the main reason the ratings shot up so fast after S4. As soon as TBS and Fox started running the show several times a week, that's when the new shows on CBS rating's went up a lot.

S3 actually had better ratings than S4, and S4 is when Amy started making regular appearances and Bernie and Howie got engaged. The highest rated show for S3 was 6.0 in the major demo and 16.32 million in over all viewers, the lowest rated show for S3 was 4.6 for demo, and 11.63 million viewers.

The highest rated show for S4 was 4.9 in the major demo and 14.02 million over all viewers. The lowest rating for S4 was 3.2 in the major demo and 10.50 million viewers. S4 the show was starting to take a down turn after it built up pretty big ratings in S3. Each season was building ratings, then the down turn in S4 happened.

At the end of S4 syndication started and the rest is ratings history.

Romance didn't sell imo, syndication did, and it sold using the the best seasons (1-3). That's how I became a fan. Not from watching the most current season at the time on CBS, but catching the older seasons on TBS.


Anyway, my wish pretty much what y'all talked about with Amy remaining Sheldon-like instead of whatever the hell she's suppose to be now.

The biggest thing on my wishful thinking list is a future wish. I want Penny and Sheldon to kiss.
Make it happen tptb, then you can go ahead and push the entire show off a cliff. Just give us that moment and don't eff it up. Thank you.

Penny getting a steady acting job and branching out to other friends would be nice too. Of course I want Sheldon to be successful and make a discovery without it being taken away.

[Wisp]

Alright lads and lasses/ladies and gentlemen, time-wasters, aliens...
THIS IS YOUR MODERATOR SPEAKING. (one of the militant feckers anyway)

As we're all apparently excessively wordy bastards, and prone to rambling away wherever the fancy takes us, I think we have to make a modicum of effort to keep these threads in line.

There are three threads in the Mint in Box Forum, and they've all devolved into variations of "Isn't the show bloody terrible nowadays."
Yes it is. Mostly. And in some areas it's horrendous.

Moonbase has started a thread specifically to carp on this matter, so we should ATTEMPT to go there when we have our bitchy pants on. Or to the guarded by snakes arena, obviously.

Witchdoctor started this thread to discuss hypothetical futures and variations, which is a wonderful idea. Sheldon as a Private Detective, a Super Villain, a brain in a jar, Sheldon as the memory of a swan, whatever, anything but canon discussion. Don't we all get ENOUGH of that?

Let's attempt to honour the characters' original conceptions without dwelling too much on the dispirited mockeries they've become.

Now if you don't mind, I have to go and weep into my hair-shirt...

Before beconming a forum member I had NO IDEA how easy it is to get off topic...

*Witchdoctor this is your conscience speaking... That Amy... You're not a fan of her, are you? Doesn't she annoy you? Hm? Now type about it. TYPE ABOUT IT.*

And hell yeah to Sheldon the Supervillain. I totally would have made Sheldon progressively more and more maniacal... Leonard's exasperation and eventual breakdown while he witnesses this would unoubtedly be entertaining. God I am so Sheldon-biased. It's ridiculous. Just Sheldon being a strange mix of nefarious, charming and undeniably logical in a room on his own would personally be fine for me in some episodes. I'd always thought it would have been nice to see an episode entirely from Sheldon's point of view, like his inner monologue or something like that. But watchers of this would probably, realistically, be exhausted by his train of thought after two minutes. If that. I've always imagined it being very stressful in Sheldon's head...

[Toad]

I'm sure this is very cliched, but I'd love to see an episode that employs the Rashomon trope. You know where an event is told from the perspective of two or more characters and there's usually a huge discrepancy in their accounts.

Specifically I'd like to see some conflict or other between Leonard and Sheldon, with each of them giving his version of what happened, because I think it could be brilliantly performed by Jim and Johnny. Imagine Jim acting out the Leonard interpretation of Sheldon (and vice versa), with Sheldon's quirks comically exaggerated to an even more annoying degree.

[stock2007]

I think it kinda already happened episode one season 3. Leonard said it was no big deal what they did to Sheldon when of course it was.

[Wisp]

I'm sure this is very cliched, but I'd love to see an episode that employs the Rashomon trope. You know where an event is told from the perspective of two or more characters and there's usually a huge discrepancy in their accounts.

Specifically I'd like to see some conflict or other between Leonard and Sheldon, with each of them giving his version of what happened, because I think it could be brilliantly performed by Jim and Johnny. Imagine Jim acting out the Leonard interpretation of Sheldon (and vice versa), with Sheldon's quirks comically exaggerated to an even more annoying degree.

That would be brilliant, but I don't trust the writers with anything now

[SpaceAnJL]

A possible explanation for the weirdness -

Early February, and in a basement in Pasadena, Bernadette prods carefully at a petri dish.

It isn't easy, being a mad scientist. Especially when you are still working your way through college. They don't exactly give out grants for her area of biochemical research. She has no patience with this wishy-washy liberal nonsense about human testing. She's making them happier, isn't she? She misses her old college tutor – dear Doctor Woodrue had been so understanding.

The scope of the experiment is simple. All she's doing is giving nature a little nudge. Helping along the hormones, amping up the pheromones, tweaking the dial.

Her initial chosen test subject was her co-worker, Penny. And circumstance gave her the ideal candidate, in the neighbour, Leonard. Watching them interact at the Cheesecake Factory, he was already hormonally enslaved to her, there was no need for intervention on his behalf.

But now it's time to bring out the big guns, a new approach. Holds up the vial, and the light gleams weirdly off her spectacle frames. If she can jump start Sheldon goddamn Cooper, then the world is her mollusc of choice. Shame about the degradation of intelligence, but sacrifices have to be made in the pursuit of progress.

[Idle Miscreant]

SpaceAnJL, that's utterly fucking terrifying.

This topic has obviously been bothering the hell out of a lot of characters here.
The amount of mad business they could get away with on a show about FOUR GODDAMN SCIENTISTS (I mean, good grief, where do you begin!), and what do we get…a cloying, overly-masticated, formulaic romcom, that’s bitterly wasting the actors’ abilities. Also wasted is the dark surrealism that I suspect lurks in a few of the writers, and CERTAINLY in Chuck Lorre. The man who wrote the spiel about painting the sacrificial chicken blood on the groin can do a hell of a lot better than some tepid pussy-footing around the marital and coital status of two brain-glazingly dull couples, as they putz around from one predictable scenario to another, shedding their brilliance with every tawdry step.

They had the right idea straight from the gate, with The Nerdvana Annihilation, for example. The variations in the reactions to a potential Time Machine were splendid, and the Morlock dream-within-dream is unparalleled in the show thus far. In my opinion…

Nowadays the Morlocks would probably go to bloody lamaze classes or something...