Big Bang Theory - final season (favorite lines/memories/criticisms/...)

Thread Starter

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
The show has run its course and is no longer about four nerds that cannot get a date. They all have a wife or girlfriend and has essentially become Like an episode of 'Friends' with four versions of Ross in the cast.

Anyhow, there was a good line this week as Howard and Leonard discussed their invention, a guidance system.

Howard: We absolutely know that our invention will not be used to destroy the world.
Leonard: How?
Howard: Because no one from the future has come back to kill us.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
I loved how they used Penny's ex-boyfriend to point out the obvious application for their invention. It was funny but also a very real phenomenon where tech types sometimes miss the forest for the trees.

The show has had a great run. I liked it a lot from the beginning because it was funny and well written, but also because it so rare and refreshing to see intelligent people – men even – portrayed as something other than evil psychopaths. The consistent meme for decades has been that men are either calculating predators for the cop and drama shows or they are knuckle-dragging cretins for the sit-coms. It was a swing of the pendulum away from "Father Knows Best", but it swung way too far.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
When I realized Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper) was playing the same character as John Cryer (Two and a Half Men) I changed the channel.
Where's the connection?
Chuck Lorre
If I wanted to listen to the existential angst of a neurotic with OCD, I would get a girlfriend.
 

profbuxton

Joined Feb 21, 2014
421
I thought this was a scientific discussion on universe origins. Don't bother with those silly sitcoms any more, they have done all plot lines to death, like most of so-called dramas.
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
First season was really funny. It started going downhill from there. The Raj and Howard characters where the most disappointing. Raj went wrom not being able to talk to women to dating 2 women. It isn't going to happen. The actor did his best work at facial expression. He was funnier when he was not talking.

I just loved Howard as a slimeball. How he is just sickening sweet thought the cad in him shows from time to time.

It really should have ended at the end of season 2.
 

ErnieM

Joined Apr 24, 2011
8,377
I still very much enjoy this show. It is as funny today as it was in the beginning, and it has been very good to see the characters grow and change, though for a while it did pain me to see what Amy had to go thru.

You may think I am crazy for thinking this, but I am not. My mother had me tested.
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
I still very much enjoy this show. It is as funny today as it was in the beginning, and it has been very good to see the characters grow and change, though for a while it did pain me to see what Amy had to go thru.
Hence the problem with the show. It is supposed to be a sitcom hwere you laugh and forget about life for an hour, not a drama dealing with real life situations that get you depressed. Characters are not supposed to "grow".

Pretty much every episode of Seinfeld was a hit from the first show till the very last because they remained true to the characters on which the show was piloted. They remained the same self absorbed, insensitive, selfish, shallow characters from day one till the very last episode.

Dealing with real life / political issues is what ruined M.A.S.H. IMHO. It was a fun show about a bunch of quirky characters on a military medical base. TThen Alda got his hands on it and decided he wanted to use the show to make a political statement. The show really lost appeal for me after that.
 

ErnieM

Joined Apr 24, 2011
8,377
Hence the problem with the show. It is supposed to be a sitcom hwere you laugh and forget about life for an hour, not a drama dealing with real life situations that get you depressed. Characters are not supposed to "grow".
If a TV show can get you depressed I suggest you invest in something called "a life."

If you prefer characters that do not grow I suggest an art museum where you can look at the pretty pictures on the wall.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
When I realized Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper) was playing the same character as John Cryer (Two and a Half Men) I changed the channel.
They're both reincarnations of Barney Fife. I'd be curious to learn whether Barney was an original character. He was probably the first of that type on TV. Any Shakespeare experts around here?
 

Thread Starter

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
They're both reincarnations of Barney Fife. I'd be curious to learn whether Barney was an original character. He was probably the first of that type on TV. Any Shakespeare experts around here?
Barney Fife was just a hillbilly version of Ed Norton to Ralph Kramden.

The character is called a sidekick or, more precisely, a gentile second banana.
 
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wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
Hmmm... Good call, but I'm not sure I buy it. Yes, there is a long history of sidekicks. Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, even George Burns and Gracie, and many more. But Ed Norton was arguably the more "sane" one of the pair while Ralph was the one that was neurotic and a half bubble off plumb. I guess it's the idea of opposites that works. Adam and Eve.
 

Thread Starter

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
Hmmm... Good call, but I'm not sure I buy it. Yes, there is a long history of sidekicks. Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, even George Burns and Gracie, and many more. But Ed Norton was arguably the more "sane" one of the pair while Ralph was the one that was neurotic and a half bubble off plumb. I guess it's the idea of opposites that works. Adam and Eve.
I guess we made it half way around a Möbius strip. I guess the Sheldon role won the "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series" award at the Emmy's, not Best Supporting Actor. Ralph Kramden was definitely the lead character. You're right.
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
If a TV show can get you depressed I suggest you invest in something called "a life."

If you prefer characters that do not grow I suggest an art museum where you can look at the pretty pictures on the wall.

It was you that was getting depressed not me.

"though for a while it did pain me to see what Amy had to go thru."

Depression / pain whatever you want to call it. So maybe it is you that needs to get a life.

And as I pointed out characters are not supposed to grow in a sitcom. The Seinfeld characters never changed get the show was a huge success from day one. Archie remained the same bigot throughout the whole All in the Family series. Felix remained the same clean freak and Oscar the same slob. Characters remaining the same in a sitcom works.
 
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spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
I guess we made it half way around a Möbius strip. I guess the Sheldon role won the "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series" award at the Emmy's, not Best Supporting Actor. Ralph Kramden was definitely the lead character. You're right.
Parson's is the only reason the show has lasted this long. The Sheldon character has probably been the most unchanged since the beginning of the series bar his rather akward relationship with Amy.
 
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