SHAMY WARNING: 9.11 The Opening Night Excitation

[Satnight815]

So my fellow Vintage Sheldon fans - sorry, "lame-o" "robotic asshole" "half-men" - who else is choosing Star Wars over character defenestration this Thursday?
HANDS UP!
Yes, thank you, I will be. Yes.

Star Wars is art, what's being done to Sheldon is character palimpsest. Mercifully I don't care anymore. Rather than watch on Thursday, "I would sooner swim to the Bermudas on two politicians' rotten bladders, tied together with an intelligencer's heart string..."
And other Jacobean bombast.

I don't know about Jacobean bombast, but let me put this in a way TPTB will understand: "I'd rather swim buck-naked across the Ganges with a paper cut on my nipple and die a slow, agonizing death from a viral infection" than watch this episode. 

[wellplayedpenny]

Well the initial reviews for Star Wars look good so I'll probably be looking at next week for viewing it.

I suppose that means I get to see the debacle on Thursday. So at the very least I should have some sort of review out for the episode. (and I ex-ect your reviews for the movie!)

[Trust No One]

Well the initial reviews for Star Wars look good so I'll probably be looking at next week for viewing it.

I suppose that means I get to see the debacle on Thursday. So at the very least I should have some sort of review out for the episode. (and I ex-ect your reviews for the movie!)

The reviews seem real good WPP. I cannot wait to see it Saturday morning. Probably will not be able to sleep Friday night.

[SpaceAnJL]

I'm seeing it Sunday, so will be avoiding site so I don't get spoiled.

[Ratman77]

Well, I have not seen the interview yet, but (by that what I am reading on this Threat-please correct me if I am wrong) it seems that “TBBT” now belongs to the series where the Creator lost control over his work.
I remember a lot of series from different genres where, by time, the original concept was increasingly distorted so that you could no longer recognize the end.
 
A good example is ‘Seaquest DSV’ The first season was an interesting and not so unrealistic future-vision with good topics and stories and an ecological message. With the second season it became a conventional Sci-Fi-show with Atlantis, ancient gods and even aliens. It did not matter anymore whether the vehicle was a submarine a spaceship or something other. The main reason why main-actor Roy Scheider leaved the show.
 
Another example was “Millenium”,the other mystery-show from “X-Files”-creator Chris Carter. The first season was a crime-show about “normal” serial-killers or psychopaths. By the takeover of the showrunners Morgan and Wong it became a paranormal monster-show with ghosts, mysteries and demons.
 
And ultimately, the great Gene Roddenberry, who had lost completely the influence about his creation. At all of his “Star-Trek”-series the message of optimism were lost by the time and they became military (“The next generation”) or even spacewar-shows (“DSN”).

Well, and now “The Big Bang Theory”. The funny show about four nerd-friends and their clash with another world-personified by the beautiful Penny- becomes a boring relationship-opera like many others. I want not to say that changes must be bad for a series in general, but only if they nevertheless remain faithful to their concept. At the beginning it was a-parodic- series about the nerd-culture in general. The behaviors, the habits and so on. Now it looks like a show against the nerd-culture. It makes it look that nerds are not high intelligent people with “island-talents” and extraordinary skills but only social deadbeats and losers which define themselves only in the way that they have no girlfriends or wifes. It seems that the massage is: “If you are a nerd, than try all what you can to get out of it.”

Hints of this were always in the show. Especially by Leonard. Remember, at the episode with the time-machine, he was ready to sell all his toys, models and other things to become Pennys attention. Or when he, Howard and Raj were high from the drug-cakes, he said that he hates his forename because it- by ton ago- contains the word “nerd”. Yes, Leonard is the best example. He hates it to be a nerd and that explains his behavior towards his friends.

(If they want to present him as the main-character, why to hell they make him so unappealing, that the relationship with Penny never appears realistic? Also Pennys behavior cannot be explained. She knows that he is a liar and a cheater. That she still stays with him let it show her rather as enslaved than in love……and that is the opposite of her orginal-character.)

Another example therefor that nerds are social losers was the character of Dennis Kim. What was the plan to put him out of the way? To get him a girlfriend. Get him a girlfriend and he will forget his IQ his skills and the science.
Now Sheldon is also a victim of this “formula” and all that does not nerds look good.

My question in this case: "Was that really the intention?”

I cannot imagine it. I believe that there is a lot is getting out of control. Well, I am not a person which has a tendency to give the blame only one. I want to believe that Mister Molaro was thinking that he was doing the right thing. But how you are describes Mister Lorres behavior it sounds that he is desperately trying to keep a damage within limits.

How Treat Williams always said in “Deep rising”(1998):

“Now what?”

When he don’t want that it became completely implausible- when he don’t want to buried his own “child”,….. than he must make a turn a bring the show to another way.  The best would be back to the roots, to the comedy and the old dignity of the characters.

And concerning “relationships” I only can repeat some lines from my first post:

“No, I stand to my opinion: Penny and Sheldon would be the real and perfect pair. It could be a wonderful love/hate-romance, marked by affection, balance, understanding and annoying. Sophisticated and funny at the same time.”
 
(Mister Lorre, if you read this, than……come on please and remember which topics and which two characters made your show great and bring it back to the old glory. It would pay off- financially as well as artistically).

Greetings from Germany and sorry for my English!

[wellplayedpenny]

9.11 The Opening Night Excitation

With great fanfare the episode opens with a threat by Sheldon that the guys would never hear the end of it if Sheldon couldn't see Star Wars on opening night. When he finds out this coincides with Amy's birthday he has a moral dilemma and Arthur shows up in his dream to advise him. Sheldon is more concerned with missing Star Wars until Arthur says that he can see the movie any time while he only "has a limited number of days he can be with [Amy.] So be with her." After hearing that comment I admit that my mind jumped to the conclusion that Amy was going to die, but even I know that's probably not gonna happen. Although it WOULD make a heck of a Moment. Maybe George Costanza could give Amy the rest of his wedding invitation envelopes to lick?

As for the whole process of intimacy, I'm glad my life doesn't revolve around Sheldon bedding Amy because if it did I would have been horribly disappointed by the whole thing. The possibility of Sheldon wanting to have sex is supposed to be a big deal and, to be fair, Sheldon realizes that it's an important night for the both of them. But what has me sad is that he never said that he wanted sex. He said, "I'd like to show her how important she is," and he "decided to be physical with my girlfriend" but there was no ringing endorsement that this is something that he wanted to do. It might just be me, but I would be absolutely heartbroken and horrified if I knew my boyfriend was having sex with me just to show me how important I am to him. I want him to be in it because he's 'into' it. Anything else and it makes the whole encounter like a sacrifice than a moment of mutual joy.

Sheldon is worried that he will be overwhelmed and ruin the moment, but to be fair it's Amy's Moment more than his. Granted, Sheldon is placing his own discomfort with physical contact aside so he can be with her is important, but Amy doesn't seem to get how hard this is for him. She bikini waxes and puts candles everywhere and slides over to him on the couch to plant a kiss and get the ball rolling instead of following Sheldon's lead to first go to a restaurant and have a walk. I mean, just pretend for a moment that you care about your boyfriend's mental wellbeing instead of jumping into bed to get your rocks off.

Instead what we get is the biggest understatement in the show's history as Amy says, "I've been waiting for this for so long, I've kind of built it up in my head." Given that bedding Sheldon has been her sole reason for existing as a character since season six I suppose there should be some sort of anticipation.

And yet when the big moment arrives, like almost every Sheldon and Amy moment of intimacy and connection, what happens next occurs off-camera. Their fans have waited four and a half years for a bunch of words on a screen to tell them that Sheldon and Amy had sex. Forget the cigarette, that's not even worth a Nicorette gum.

At the end of it all, Sheldon is surprised that he enjoyed that a lot more than he thought he would, but that kind of endorsement is rather amorphous as he could have thought intercourse with Amy was akin to sticking his penis inside a Sarlacc pit of bacteria. Regardless, it still doesn't motivate him enough to plan future sex any earlier than Amy's next birthday.

The ending was perfect when Arthur asks how it was and Sheldon gushes about the Star Wars movie. After all, a good Star Wars movie has been anticipated for over thirty years by millions of fans and from what the critics say, this one is worth the wait.

To put this episode in perspective, even if Molaro recast Arthur with Jar Jar Binks mesa say the episode would still be anticlimactic, betcha, betcha.

[A.D.A.]

Well, this was about as expected. Generally, Sheldon seems much more excited about Star Wars than sex, which I realise is the joke, but also reflects on his relationship with Amy, or his possible asexuality. It's actually kinda strange how accurate it is to things I've read from some asexuals (some say they don't dislike intimacy, they will do it sometimes for their partners). However, I don't think that mellow view quite matches the Sheldon who had a panic attack when he thought Amy was pretty and whose intimacy issues lately seem deeper than "just" a general disinterest. There seemed to be some problems there and I'm not sure how they were addressed in any way.

There is a weird conversation that Howard and Raj have whether Leonard has "ever seen a movie with Stuart before" because apparently he brings tupperware with food and 1) who cares, and actually 2) I'm pretty sure we've seen Stuart in the cinema multiple times. The two I can remember are the date with Amy and the second when he was with the whole group when Howard was in space, and both times there was no tupperware anywhere. I know sitcoms are kinda lose on canon, they will add character traits and quirks that are one-offs for comedy in some episodes, but in a well-written sitcom the trick is to choose something that could have been a trait and just not have surfaced until now rather than straight-up contradicting yourself.

I have heard more about Amy's bikini regions than I ever needed to.

The episode had some good moments. Arthur was a lot of fun, as usual. He even had kind of a touching line, considering he plays a dead guy ("You can see Star Wars whenever you want, but you only have a limited amount of days that you can be with this woman - be with her.") Too bad it was wasted on this pairing. There was a funny variation on the knocking gag with Penny and Bernadette. Will trolling the cinema in his Star Trek uniform legitimately had me grinning.

The Shamy scene in the bed before sex ("I guess we'll find out together") wasn't actually bad or anything, but it's the same problem as most of their romantic scenes this episode. It was standard Emotional Sitcom Moment dialogue. The lines could have been given to any of the other three guys in the same situation and you wouldn't have had to change them at all. Jim didn't give them a very Sheldon feel, either, although to be fair I don't really know how you could. It's like reading fanfic that isn't full of grammar errors or spelling mistakes or any other glaring writing problems, but eventually you realise that the characters are so far removed from what they are supposed to be you might as well be reading something about people who just happen to have the same names.

The mirroring of sex lines with the guys in the cinema was a bit clumsily done (Amy would say she's nervous, then one of them would, etc.). Since we only cut to them for about half a minute each time, too, it didn't seem like the stuff came up naturally, but just sort of 'haha, this also can be applied in this situation', which isn't really a joke that works twice in a row. Maybe that's just me.

Apparently, Penny coached Sheldon on sex. So there is that for you Shenny shippers.

[Shellsyke]

As for the whole process of intimacy, I'm glad my life doesn't revolve around Sheldon bedding Amy because if it did I would have been horribly disappointed by the whole thing. The possibility of Sheldon wanting to have sex is supposed to be a big deal and, to be fair, Sheldon realizes that it's an important night for the both of them. But what has me sad is that he never said that he wanted sex. He said, "I'd like to show her how important she is," and he "decided to be physical with my girlfriend" but there was no ringing endorsement that this is something that he wanted to do. It might just be me, but I would be absolutely heartbroken and horrified if I knew my boyfriend was having sex with me just to show me how important I am to him. I want him to be in it because he's 'into' it. Anything else and it makes the whole encounter like a sacrifice than a moment of mutual joy.

Sheldon is worried that he will be overwhelmed and ruin the moment, but to be fair it's Amy's Moment more than his. Granted, Sheldon is placing his own discomfort with physical contact aside so he can be with her is important, but Amy doesn't seem to get how hard this is for him. She bikini waxes and puts candles everywhere and slides over to him on the couch to plant a kiss and get the ball rolling instead of following Sheldon's lead to first go to a restaurant and have a walk. I mean, just pretend for a moment that you care about your boyfriend's mental wellbeing instead of jumping into bed to get your rocks off.

Instead what we get is the biggest understatement in the show's history as Amy says, "I've been waiting for this for so long, I've kind of built it up in my head." Given that bedding Sheldon has been her sole reason for existing as a character since season six I suppose there should be some sort of anticipation.

And yet when the big moment arrives, like almost every Sheldon and Amy moment of intimacy and connection, what happens next occurs off-camera. Their fans have waited four and a half years for a bunch of words on a screen to tell them that Sheldon and Amy had sex. Forget the cigarette, that's not even worth a Nicorette gum.

At the end of it all, Sheldon is surprised that he enjoyed that a lot more than he thought he would, but that kind of endorsement is rather amorphous as he could have thought intercourse with Amy was akin to sticking his penis inside a Sarlacc pit of bacteria. Regardless, it still doesn't motivate him enough to plan future sex any earlier than Amy's next birthday.

Finally got on here! 

The part in bold is what really sums up my feelings about the Shamy sex. I didn't really mind Sheldon in this episode, because he did show more empathy than he had in the past when he decided to forego watching Star Wars in lieu of spending time with Amy. Let's face it, as a Shenny shipper, if he had been with Penny and Penny's birthday fell on something important, I would want him to do the same thing. So I did not mind Sheldon choosing Amy over Star Wars because it was her birthday (and I believe he did eventually see the movie). I didn't even mind Sheldon offering up sex as a birthday present. But I totally agree that it did not come off as anything that he truly wanted for himself. 

Amy really bothered me because unlike Sheldon, who was totally putting Amy first for her birthday, she really did not demonstrate any sort of empathy or acknowledgement over the fact that Sheldon had been working on his intimacy issues. She wanted to get right to the presents rather than work up to it with dinner so to speak.  

Plus, I thought it was interesting that post-coitus, Amy's chest was heaving up and down and she totally had bed head, while Sheldon looked stoic and not like he just had had a lot of sex.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

First of all, welcome skellsyke!!

I haven't seen the episode yet but from the posts here so far, I'm not dreading it like I thought I would. You guys have explained is so well I feel as though I have seen it and I can see you all came to similar conclusions. Might just skip it...

[Tuesday Pajamas]

May I just say that this is BRILLIANT and could only be used in a Shenny sex scene, due to the fact the meaning was carefully explained to Sheldon in 1.3 (if I recall correctly). No...it was 1.05!!!!

Sheldon: I need your opinion on a matter of semiotics.

Penny: I’m sorry?

Sheldon: Semiotics. The study of signs and symbols, it’s a branch of philosophy related to linguistics.

Penny: Okay, sweetie, I know you think you’re explaining yourself, but you’re really not.

Sheldon: Just come with me.