9.13 The Empathy Optimization

[Tuesday Pajamas]

"After having to deal with a sick Sheldon, Leonard, Penny and the gang try to treat themselves to a Sheldon-free weekend."

WRITTEN BY: Chuck Lorre, Eric Kaplan, Dave Geotsch 

Photos pending.

CBS trailer here.

My initial thought about this plot is they are just redoing Pancake Batter Anomaly but of course this time Sheldon won't get away with it. They seem to have a moral for Sheldon every ep now.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

What I'm don't get, is why they don't use this as an opportunity for Amy to take care of Sheldon. Now it's not something that I would watch but it seems very selfish of her to high tail it out of town, even though she put Sheldon through a fake illness for over a week, when this is a man who had serious phobias about illness. She doesn't even care enough to stay and take care of him because it's too much trouble. She's just had sex with the guy after five years of whining and huffing about not getting any. He's made this huge gesture to her!! You'd think she'd care enough to look after him when he needs her. Not good.



The writers are so hell bent on making Sheldon PAY for all his past misdemeanors that they don't even consider using a different character for a change. How about Leonard getting sick and everyone taking care of him. Sheldon going to extraordinary attempts to avoid him?

Penny took care of Sheldon even though she barely knew the guy. I love the conversation as they come up the stairs, Sheldon had no trouble asking his extremley attractive neighbour to give him a sponge bath.

Penny: Okay, sweetie, I’ll take care of you, what do you need?
Sheldon: Well, my mom used to give me sponge baths.
Penny: Okay, ground rules, no sponge baths, and definitely no enemas.

He seeks her out at the cheesecake factory.



Asks her for a sponge bath...



Then all this...






Then she gets her own back...



And lets not forget her making him soup when they are both sick in Large Hadron...



So, in conclusion, Shenny is still so much better. They do a much better job of creating funny, brilliant [potential] ships when they aren't trying too.

Plus does anyone else think the name of the episode doesn't fit? The Empathy Optimization

No one is optimising empathy.

[Nutz]

Oh but PJ, it's not about anyone empathizing with Sheldon, it's about Sheldon FINALLY learning about empathy from his Saint of a girlfriend Amy.

So code milky green is no longer in effect. You know the one where they just leave him to take care of himself and they ignore him for a couple of days. Like they used to do. Apparently, as an adult one you must take care of your roommate while spewing out venom towards him and then once he's well tell him he's a miserable excuse as a human being.

What a comedy goldmine, I'm laughing already 

[Jela]

All except for the 'Soft Kitty' every guy I know is pitiful and demanding when sick. But we tend to them because we care.
Can you imagine whiny Leonard being sick? And how much attention he would be owed for the inconvenience?
And we know her highness should not be inconveninced, ever...
But this couldn't be the Amy show, with co-star Leonard if we were to be able to see their flaws....

So we make someone pay for being themselves. (Because other characters don't know how to operate a door and leave from the presence of someone they don't like)
But at this point...is Sheldon not the most accommodating character? 

Some writer is working out some past issues-passive agressive style, through Sheldon.

[Ratman77]

What I'm don't get, is why they don't use this as an opportunity for Amy to take care of Sheldon. Now it's not something that I would watch but it seems very selfish of her to high tail it out of town, even though she put Sheldon through a fake illness for over a week, when this is a man who had serious phobias about illness. She doesn't even care enough to stay and take care of him because it's too much trouble. She's just had sex with the guy after five years of whining and huffing about not getting any. He's made this huge gesture to her!! You'd think she'd care enough to look after him when he needs her. Not good.



The writers are so hell bent on making Sheldon PAY for all his past misdemeanors that they don't even consider using a different character for a change. How about Leonard getting sick and everyone taking care of him. Sheldon going to extraordinary attempts to avoid him?

Penny took care of Sheldon even though she barely knew the guy. I love the conversation as they come up the stairs, Sheldon had no trouble asking his extremley attractive neighbour to give him a sponge bath.

Penny: Okay, sweetie, I’ll take care of you, what do you need?
Sheldon: Well, my mom used to give me sponge baths.
Penny: Okay, ground rules, no sponge baths, and definitely no enemas.

He seeks her out at the cheesecake factory.



Asks her for a sponge bath...



Then all this...






Then she gets her own back...



And lets not forget her making him soup when they are both sick in Large Hadron...



So, in conclusion, Shenny is still so much better. They do a much better job of creating funny, brilliant [potential] ships when they aren't trying too.

Plus does anyone else think the name of the episode doesn't fit? The Empathy Optimization

No one is optimising empathy.

Thank you, “Tuesday Pajamas” for this pictures of the good old times (and the best moments of the whole show). It is really nice to see them again.

I think this episode is concise in two ways. The producers had declared that the rest of the season will have other
priorities and main-topics than the “Shamy”, right?
Well, it proves-for me- that they have no ideas how it could be go further after the coitus. So they have the choice to put Sheldon and Amy together by side (not possible because Sheldon is one of the icons of the show) or try to separate them in the storylines.
And that is not possible too without a dramatic implausibility or to show someone of this two-like in this episode Amy-as selfish and egotistical. At the beginning the ”Shamy”was –as relationship for me-an illogical road to nowhere. Now, it seems, it is a dramaturgical “Dead End”.

[A.D.A.]

Oh, hey, Emily is here interacting with other characters and the girls are having a comic movie discussion, with the guys watching, agape. But then they segway into talking about romance movies because of the hot leads, oh boy! Hahaha, hilarious. Women and nerds, am I right? I'm sorry, the opening joke just got to me a little.

Alienware product placement! At least the symbol looks cooler than the ubiquituous apple.

I know that this forum is (understandably) pro-Sheldon, but as someone who has friends and relatives who act like this when they are sick... yeah, I do get the reactions of the others to Sheldon's behaviour when he was sick. Because after a few days of being treated like that, you do kind of want to throw that person out the window. What I don't get is why Sheldon needs to be taught "lessons". As seen in this episode, his behaviour is a good drive for comedy. This episode of seeing him learn "empathy" was quite fun, if a little repetitive, but much like the Shamy coitus, the problem is what comes after. Either they'll do that tiresome sitcom thing of a character learning the same lessons twenty thousands times, or they'll be stuck with a Sheldon that's just not odd enough to bounce the straight men against anymore.

As a sidenote, Penny's bewilderingly awful wardrobe choices are now infecting Leonard. What was that he wore in the middle of the episode, that too-small purple t-shirt and ineffectually thin grey fabric vest combo? I mean, I can barely match colours, I am not in any position to judge anyone's fashion harshly, but if even I notice they look terrible (and not just weird as they should), it's probably time to talk to the Costumes department.

Edit: Oh, and the less said about Amy's rule as Sheldon's benign spirit guide, the better. This is really just the fourth (!) retread of the idea that in a relationship, the woman must fix the man's personality.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

By TBBT-Faves

Note the desparate attempt by the writer to label Penny's affection for Sheldon again? 'Maternal" care! As if Sheldon would use those words. These characters are just imposters, marching through the old seasons trying to 'set the record straight'. There is absolutely no need for a Sheldon apology over Adhesive Duck. The episode had everything...

His reluctance, his dressing her, his terrified driving scene, their intense banter at the hospital where he drives her nuts, his putting her to bed and then singing Soft Kitty in a round.

"You know, people think you’re this weird robot man who’s so annoying all the time, and you totally are, but then it’s like that movie Wall-E at the end. You’re so full of love, and you can save a plant and get fat people out of the floaty chairs."

Sheldon: "That’s a fairly laboured metaphor, but I appreciate the sentiment behind it."

All the best Shenny eps had a conclusion between Sheldon and Penny. In Panty he actually apologises to her face. This is years before the 'great' apology scene to Amy and this so called Apology Tour.

[Idle Miscreant]

If New!Sheldon (circa Season 5-9) thinks of Penny's affections as maternal then he perhaps should stop asking her out, engaging in love experiments, or considering her a viable option for dating after his self-proclaimed "best girlfriend you're ever going to get" "Best shot he's got" dumps his "lame-o", comic-book-collecting ass for being precisely himself who she claimed to love "quirks and all", but doesn't.

I see it's still not time to return to this show. Back to Asgard.

Or perhaps...




The realm you can only pronounce whilst shitfaced/blootered/three-sheets-to-the-wind...

[Ratman77]

„Star Wars-Syndrome: Part Two!

Instinctively my thoughts went on this new version of the conversation between Lord Vader and The Emperor at the special-edition of “The Empire strikes back.”
 
Like George Lucas they desperately trying to relativize and change past-perfect- things to fit in the new course (Episode I-III)….. even if it is totally illogical and incompatible.
That is lousy,  thoughtless,  disrespectful (to the fans of the first hour)  even incompetent and proves that there was/is no really concept.

When they really want to go back to the past than they should make an episode where Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj wake up in a hospital ward and learn that they, after the heating had failed , were frozen at the pole and that the whole years ( seasons ) were only dreams. No Amy, no Bernadette, no Emily, no marriages in reality. Only them, and further the female blonde beautiful neighbor from 4B.

Title: “The big freeze”

(Eventually I make that as a fanfiction)