10.02 The Military Miniaturization

[Tuesday Pajamas]

I liked the episode. Thought Bernadette was a flamin hypercrite getting mad at Penny for blabbing though. She'd done exactly the same thing to another girl, for her own ends. SO KARMA!

I liked the main plot and I loved the guys messing around with the eye recognition software at the end. Although, the fibre optic lamp scene, was and will always be, my fave use of tech. It wasn't too bad this one. A marked improvement on 10.1

The Shenny scene was cut so tight we didn't get any of their usual fun looks and smiles.

[CTR69]

The Shenny scene was cut so tight we didn't get any of their usual fun looks and smiles.

Agreed, when he tells her he had no regrets, this should encourage Penny to not feel so bad about it. She cares for other people's feelings too much, unlike Sheldon. This is how they complement each other. His advice would make her feel better and it would only take couple of seconds to cheer her up.

We have a saying "No soup is eaten as hot as it's cooked", roughly translated. So Bernie would get upset, but they would work things out anyway along the day and it would be forgotten the next day. So it was pointless to be in a such bad mood.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

Agreed, when he tells her he had no regrets, this should encourage Penny to not feel so bad about it. She cares for other people's feelings too much, unlike Sheldon. This is how they complement each other. His advice would make her feel better and it would only take couple of seconds to cheer her up.

We have a saying "No soup is eaten as hot as it's cooked", roughly translated. So Bernie would get upset, but they would work things out anyway along the day and it would be forgotten the next day. So it was pointless to be in a such bad mood.

Yes Sheldon definitely should have helped Penny there and perhaps if Molaro wasn't writing the words we might have got that (yes I'm like a dog with a bone there ). I compiled a spreadsheet of plot writers vs dialogue writers and I'm sure there's some interesting ship analysis to be had from it. Posted the plot writers totals a while back.

Bernadette told everyone that Barbara Chan in Retrovirus was pregnant, and lost her a study. this is why she thinks she's the one who told. She's hardly innocent but Penny was.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BK3yezrjH3x/

[Nutz]

I liked the episode. Thought Bernadette was a flamin hypercrite getting mad at Penny for blabbing though. She'd done exactly the same thing to another girl, for her own ends. SO KARMA!

I liked the main plot and I loved the guys messing around with the eye recognition software at the end. Although, the fibre optic lamp scene, was and will always be, my fave use of tech. It wasn't too bad this one. A marked improvement on 10.1

The Shenny scene was cut so tight we didn't get any of their usual fun looks and smiles.

I consider it payback for knowing years ago that Leonard cheated on Penny and didn't tell her. What a crappy friend.

[wellplayedpenny]

I give this episode a thumbs down because it's a hodge-podge of previous episodes: Amy wanting to scan Penny's brain in the midst of doing something. Sheldon's struggle to keep silent like he did at Raj's office over the People magazine article. The Sheldon and Penny scene was the same ol' Sheldon states problem, Penny relates with problem, Sheldon can't see relation, they come together and hash out their problems. I think what has me about tonight's Shenny encounter is partially what PJ had said re: how tight the camera cuts were so as to practically eliminate the smiles and other non-verbal chemistry (hope I didn't put words in your mouth!). Tonight's encounter is how the writers see them now--a quick joke in a formulaic sequence and then on to the next scene, whereas before we had camera cuts specifically to capture a Sheldon scowl or a Penny grin. It's not personal now, and I don't like that. Hell, the affection I had for the characters is the reason why I wrote novels about this show. This is what is being sacrificed in the later seasons, the connection, because the writing is atrocious and the style and tone of humour has changed, and now the choppy directorial structure of the episode butchers what scenes they do have. I felt like I was watching Penny and Sheldon reduced to the 'just the facts, ma'am' routine. What makes Sheldon and Penny scenes shine *is* the originality. The chemistry. Given that the writers have taken so much away from Shenny screen time, there's less time to do something different, and it's disappointing that they aren't doing anything different with the limited time they had. To lose the originality sparked by two dynamic personalities is as growly to me as the guys coming to the idea that geekiness is a stage until you get a real girl and 'grow up'.

When the writers add 'new' things in, it's still stuff that can be fished out of a 'Insert When Needed for Filler' bowl like Howard's 'I make less than my wife' and Bernadette being mean(er) and mean(er). And of course, how can I forget the new 'Sheldon says something positively s-t-u-p-i-d.' I mean, not bizarre or self-serving, I mean downright dumb. Like, I cringe as it's coming out of his mouth bad.

The only thing which captured the fun of the guys was when they were playing with the eye recog scanner. Yes, geeking out over cool technology is something they do, but it's something that's being presented differently here. That is my beef--they are repeating too much stuff in order to capture the feel-good love for earlier times in the series when things were original and funny. If they've run out of ideas and have to repeat, at least make the jokes as different as possible. i.e. Lifting up Howard for the ret scanner and other goofy things we know they must have tried. It's one thing to borrow one sequence for an episode and another to construct an entire episode with borrowed scenes. It's retconning IMO and there's so much the canons want to forget and rewrite about earlier seasons that appropriations like these are not appreciated.

I'm in the 'been there, done that' category. Try something different. Or at least, spend some effort in repackaging jokes so that some sort of originality is at play. As it is, I feel like I watched a highlights episode with one excellent sequence. And like how the Shenny kiss couldn't save that episode for me, the guys geeking out at the door doesn't give this one a pass either.

[A.D.A.]

I liked the episode. As wellplayedpenny said, it wasn't exactly all new material, but I'll take a lighthearted episode like this over a Milestone one any day - never got the obsession with that, anyway, I think TBBT was always best in its slice-of-life, random situations humour. Also, the girls together can be really funny when their scenes are not all about the men (even Amy, who works so much better when she's not presented as Sheldon's long-suffering, nagging hanger-on) - who would have guessed.

However, the way Sheldon is written nowadays is just painful. Intelligence has long stopped being one of his traits.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

That's what I noticed right away WWP. I was looking to make a gif or something but the Shenny scene was edited so tight it was impossible. It literally only contain dialogue. Almost as if it was done deliberately to eliminate Sheldon and Penny's natural chemistry due to that special something only those two actors have. It left us with one of the most souless Shenny scenes we've ever seen.

[QueenOfShebaSays]

That's what I noticed right away WWP. I was looking to make a gif or something but the Shenny scene was edited so tight it was impossible. It literally only contain dialogue. Almost as if it was done deliberately to eliminate Sheldon and Penny's natural chemistry due to that special something only those two actors have. It left us with one of the most souless Shenny scenes we've ever seen.

The whole episode felt weirdly edited for certain scenes, it cut off at points for commercials and it almost felt like I was watching a rerun on TBS that was edited oddly. But yes! I sas trying to figure out why their scene felt off... their scenes NEVER felt off... hopefully this A trends and future shenny scenes are better.

[Nutz]

I do agree with WPP that there was nothing new in this episode, it's just old material and jokes that has been brought out of the mothballs. Old repackaged jokes are just a bore to me and a complete waste of the actors to spout off the same jokes because the writers are to lazy to create something new. However I don't mind some of the old scenarios coming back (the guys geeking out over tech will never get old) and I did end up laughing at a few things although I can't remember what they were (easily forgettable).

I agree that the show felt disjointed and I'm not sure if that was the editing or just the way it was written, I do know that I enjoyed the way the Howard/Raj scene was presented (edited, written) way more than the Sheldon/Penny scene.

Overall The episode was just meh.... It wasn't horrible (when they stay away from the ships it never is) but it definitely is being written and acted as a show on its last legs. There was nothing really special or funny about it and unlike most of the episodes in the first four seasons, I would turn the channel to something else rather then watch this one again in syndication.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

Polls are up for both 10.01 and 10.02. I voted Neutral Zone on this one, due to the premier being so atrocious (you know for a premier and all)