Addendum to Philosophical Shenny

[Idle Miscreant]

As we watch now, the potential Muse has become a housewife of abandoned personal ambition, and the noble Outsider has been regressed into infantilism, and broken down into an alternately pitiable or villainous pantomime, sometimes akin to an Idiot Child, under the guardianship of a character that began as an identikit copy of himself, and is now inexplicably, wiser and “better” than he is, and seems to function as his Keeper. This hideous destruction of character may be justified commercially, but artistically it’s indefensible.
If the characters of Sheldon Cooper and Penny are remembered past the death of syndicated re-runs, in any pocket of iconic eternity at all, it will be for their original depiction, not for the dispirited mockeries they’ve become. They have in Jim Parsons an actor of vast capabilities and extraordinary comedic instincts, and in Cuoco a comedic naturalism and enormous charm that is severely underused and underrated. It’s like watching Buster Keaton and Lucille Ball reduced to doing children’s parties.

That is all I currently wish to say on this matter. I would lay a fairly certain bet that I’ll have more to add interfrastically. In the mean…Thoughts?

[Tuesday Pajamas]

Oh yeaaahh!!

I am getting a distinct housewife vibe from Penny as well and it's so OOC. She has been frozen in time with literally nothing happening in her life for 7 years. A charismatic woman like that??? Who do they think they are fooling?

And Sheldon? What happened to his certainly? He knew who he was once and he was unshakable. Now he's little more than Leonard annoying pet and Amy's science experiment. They are pandering to the ordinary, who relate to characters like Leonard and Amy because it brings in the bucks. But a part of me wonders when the boredom will set in with this current course of action. Sheldon and Penny as you wrote are like pure radium, as writers/artists they must feel the urge eventually to return to the roots of these characters. This is my hope.

[Toad]

As we watch now, the potential Muse has become a housewife of abandoned personal ambition, and the noble Outsider has been regressed into infantilism, and broken down into an alternately pitiable or villainous pantomime, sometimes akin to an Idiot Child, under the guardianship of a character that began as an identikit copy of himself, and is now inexplicably, wiser and “better” than he is, and seems to function as his Keeper. This hideous destruction of character may be justified commercially, but artistically it’s indefensible.
If the characters of Sheldon Cooper and Penny are remembered past the death of syndicated re-runs, in any pocket of iconic eternity at all, it will be for their original depiction, not for the dispirited mockeries they’ve become. They have in Jim Parsons an actor of vast capabilities and extraordinary comedic instincts, and in Cuoco a comedic naturalism and enormous charm that is severely underused and underrated. It’s like watching Buster Keaton and Lucille Ball reduced to doing children’s parties.

That is all I currently wish to say on this matter. I would lay a fairly certain bet that I’ll have more to add interfrastically. In the mean…Thoughts?

Very nicely put! It's inexplicable to me that so many in the fandom see this character devolution as "growth" and that such growth is absolutely necessary to prevent the show from stagnating.

In Penny's case I have a hard time accepting her manacling herself to an insecure little man who preys on her sympathies for sex and is so disgustingly pleased with himself for having secured a trophy girlfriend that he more than encourages her to display her "assets" so that he'll have a better chance at tenure as quote unquote growth. (Someone please explain to me how boobies = tenure.)

And, Sheldon. Whenever he and Amy have a scene together now, the poor man seems to be so weighted down with the grim realization that at some point he's going to have to service m'lady that it's genuinely painful to watch. That might just be my own projection there though.

Your children's party analogy is soooo spot on too. Jim and Kaley are criminally being wasted these days. They're given practically nothing to work with, and, consequently, the episodes are largely forgettable. This is especially difficult for me - always before the two of them could elevate their scenes with a canny bit of body language or a unique vocal inflection. It was comic brilliance. I see virtually nothing exceptional in their performances now though.

Let's face it - the writing has gotten incredibly lazy. TPTB have found a formula that works for them so THEY don't have to work so hard. It's just a matter now of churning out lacklustre scripts, making sure that Sheldon the Clown, Penny the Bimbo, and Amy the Horny don't deviate from their designated roles, and sitting back and counting the ratings. It's mystifying to me that it works as well as it does.

[Martha]

The show was about the exceptional and now to make the viewership happy has sunk into the quotidien so drearily mundane that Sheldon is now the clueless hen-pecked boob and Penny the dim bimbo. I'm sure at the end of the series they each will buy a nice little house near the good schools and drive off into the sunset in their minivans. Even Amy was funny in the beginning, abrasive, self-absorbed, brilliant but we can't have that. I remember with glee Jim, Mayim and Kaley's delicious dinner scene where they discuss the number of Penny's sexual partners..more or less.

[Idle Miscreant]

The show was about the exceptional and now to make the viewership happy has sunk into the quotidien so drearily mundane that Sheldon is now the clueless hen-pecked boob and Penny the dim bimbo. I'm sure at the end of the series they each will buy a nice little house near the good schools and drive off into the sunset in their minivans. Even Amy was funny in the beginning, abrasive, self-absorbed, brilliant but we can't have that. I remember with glee Jim, Mayim and Kaley's delicious dinner scene where they discuss the number of Penny's sexual partners..more or less.

I think we once suggested that at the end Penny would heave a control panel through the window, after suffocating the lobotomised Sheldon with a pillow.
It would probably be either a Hello Kitty or Star Wars pillow...just to be more poignant...

[Wisp]

As we watch now, the potential Muse has become a housewife of abandoned personal ambition, and the noble Outsider has been regressed into infantilism, and broken down into an alternately pitiable or villainous pantomime, sometimes akin to an Idiot Child, under the guardianship of a character that began as an identikit copy of himself, and is now inexplicably, wiser and “better” than he is, and seems to function as his Keeper. This hideous destruction of character may be justified commercially, but artistically it’s indefensible.
If the characters of Sheldon Cooper and Penny are remembered past the death of syndicated re-runs, in any pocket of iconic eternity at all, it will be for their original depiction, not for the dispirited mockeries they’ve become. They have in Jim Parsons an actor of vast capabilities and extraordinary comedic instincts, and in Cuoco a comedic naturalism and enormous charm that is severely underused and underrated. It’s like watching Buster Keaton and Lucille Ball reduced to doing children’s parties.

That is all I currently wish to say on this matter. I would lay a fairly certain bet that I’ll have more to add interfrastically. In the mean…Thoughts?

Fuck sake, Gripe. Taking thoughts out of my head, goddammit.

We've seen subtlety and nuanced body language in Homo Novus era Sheldon, which has all but gone bar a few brief glimpses, and Penny is definitely a little off now. Unlike with Sheldon I'm having trouble diagnosing what exactly is wrong, but she's definitely lacking something now.

And Pajamas, I agree that Sheldon's self-esteem is almost as shaky as a dead leaf on the back of a donkey with rickets. (Laboured simile but there you go) People don't seem to get what I mean when I say this, but the other guys' "here we go" response to Sheldon's unpredictable behaviour was great when there was a sense of certainty in what he was doing. Get rid of that egotistical self-assurance and all you have left is an annoying wierdo who is eccentric just for the hell of it. Writers, what are you doing? HE'S NOT PROGRAMMED TO DOUBT HIMSELF! Penny seems to me to be at that awkward character-stage of being settled in but overshadowed by the newer female personalities. (Both very overpowering in their natures. But I will point out that I quite like Bernadette. Howardette is the only canon relationship in the show, I feel, that is not wrong to me at all.) The character construct has been over-complicated. It's possible that all the relationships that popped up after Leonard and Penny getting together piled on the "women-folk troubles" and "struggling unexperienced-in-long-term-partnership-males" story lines too quick, too fast.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

As we watch now, the potential Muse has become a housewife of abandoned personal ambition, and the noble Outsider has been regressed into infantilism, and broken down into an alternately pitiable or villainous pantomime, sometimes akin to an Idiot Child, under the guardianship of a character that began as an identikit copy of himself, and is now inexplicably, wiser and “better” than he is, and seems to function as his Keeper. This hideous destruction of character may be justified commercially, but artistically it’s indefensible.
If the characters of Sheldon Cooper and Penny are remembered past the death of syndicated re-runs, in any pocket of iconic eternity at all, it will be for their original depiction, not for the dispirited mockeries they’ve become. They have in Jim Parsons an actor of vast capabilities and extraordinary comedic instincts, and in Cuoco a comedic naturalism and enormous charm that is severely underused and underrated. It’s like watching Buster Keaton and Lucille Ball reduced to doing children’s parties.

That is all I currently wish to say on this matter. I would lay a fairly certain bet that I’ll have more to add interfrastically. In the mean…Thoughts?

Fuck sake, Gripe. Stop taking thoughts out of my head, goddammit.

We've seen subtlety and nuanced body language in Homo Novus era Sheldon, and Penny is definitely a little off now. Unlike with Sheldon I'm having trouble diagnosing what exactly is wrong, but she's definitely lacking something now.

Gripes addendum needs to be framed for eternity. It's perfection.

[Wisp]

In Penny's case I have a hard time accepting her manacling herself to an insecure little man who preys on her sympathies for sex and is so disgustingly pleased with himself for having secured a trophy girlfriend that he more than encourages her to display her "assets" so that he'll have a better chance at tenure as quote unquote growth. (Someone please explain to me how boobies = tenure.)

And, Sheldon. Whenever he and Amy have a scene together now, the poor man seems to be so weighted down with the grim realization that at some point he's going to have to service m'lady that it's genuinely painful to watch. That might just be my own projection there though.

I'm unashamed to say that that brought a small lump to my throat. Poor Sheldon. And poor Penny.

It seems to me like the writers cheated these two in particular into a pair of poorly realised relationships that could have been beautiful, but aren't.

I was initially worried that Jim and Kaley in particular had lost their touch, but now I'm starting to think that it probably is more down to the writing and the strange Carry On reminiscent directing of the scenes that are designed for the biggest laughs (E.g Sheldon/Amy spanking, pie-eating contest etc.) Fine in a dated 60s comedy, not in a show that celebrates intelligence. I can't explain it. The show now seems to alternate between embarrassingly raucous and offputtingly OOC moments with little real wit in between to draw it all together.

Oh and that gif is fabulous, Toad.

---

The show was about the exceptional and now to make the viewership happy has sunk into the quotidien so drearily mundane that Sheldon is now the clueless hen-pecked boob and Penny the dim bimbo. I'm sure at the end of the series they each will buy a nice little house near the good schools and drive off into the sunset in their minivans. Even Amy was funny in the beginning, abrasive, self-absorbed, brilliant but we can't have that. I remember with glee Jim, Mayim and Kaley's delicious dinner scene where they discuss the number of Penny's sexual partners..more or less.

I think we once suggested that at the end Penny would heave a control panel through the window, after suffocating the lobotomised Sheldon with a pillow.
It would probably be either a Hello Kitty or Star Wars pillow...just to be more poignant...

Oh God I don't know what's worse. Minivans or smothering.

Jesus.

[Toad]

Just dropping in to say that "shaky as a dead leaf on the back of a donkey with rickets" (Witchdoctor Fantastic) is now my new favorite thing in the world.

Carry on...

[Idle Miscreant]

Just dropping in to say that "shaky as a dead leaf on the back of a donkey with rickets" (Witchdoctor Fantastic) is now my new favorite thing in the world.

Carry on...

Yes, I picked up on that too. I think Witchdoctor's verbiage may end up giving our episode summaries a run for their shekels.

Perhaps we should just go and build a replica of Jerusalem in the Mexican desert...