CBS on Monday night has been surpassing the once must-see TV of NBC on Thursday nights the last couple of years, with the addition of The Big Bang Theory placing CBS well ahead. Who would have thought that a show full about jokes about science fiction, comic books, and physics would attract such a mass audience? Of course I would have loved the premise even if it wasn’t such a success.
The nerds on The Big Bang Theory returned from their summer at the North Pole in the season opener last night leading to a milestone for nerds going after girls who are out of their league. Leonard went to tell Penny that they were home leading to a series of scenes such as the above. This was probably the greatest moment for nerds since Jeremy (Joshua Malina) succeeded in dating Natalie (Sabrina Lloyd) on Sports Night. In one of many excellent lines in the episode, Walowitz expressed regret over not going over first. This set up the response from Raj:
Wolowitz: “Damn it, I should have gone over and told her we were back.”
Raj: “Yeah, it was ‘first come, first served.'”
The episode had many great scenes. Some were based upon regular jokes of the show such as Sheldon returning to his beloved side of the couch, a reference back to Soft Kitty, and somehow the manner in which he knocks on Penny’s door manages to remain funny every time he does it.
The trip to the North Pole was a scientific failure but, primarily motivated by self preservation, Leonard, Wolowitz, and Raj provided Sheldon with some fake data. (I won’t even get into what happened the night the heat went out and they slept together in the nude.) After feeling humiliated by finding out he was tricked after telling everyone about the inevitability of winning the Nobel Prize, Sheldon returned home to his mother in Texas. Leonard was reluctant to go after him because he wanted to get into bed with Penny and Wolowitz had his own argument against going:
Leonard: I don’t want to go to Texas
Wolowitz: Alright and I do? My people already crossed the desert once. We’re done
Not that I’ve ever needed an excuse to include a post about shows such as The Big Bang Theory, but the events in Texas do fit in well with the usual topics of this blog. In Texas we saw Sheldon’s response to prayer and when the other guys arrived to try to take him home, Sheldon said he planned to stay in Texas to “teach evolution to creationists.”
As seen in the above clip, Sheldon’s mother responded to this by saying, “You watch your mouth Sheldon. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” Sheldon explained, “Evolution isn’t an opinion. It’s fact.” His mother responded, “And that is your opinion.” Sheldon then saw the folly of remaining in Texas and agreed to return home–which his mother saw as proof that prayer does work.
Returning home, there is no longer anything keeping Leonard and Penny from going to bed but afterward they both felt weird. I suspect that the writers felt the need to resolve this matter from last season by having them hook up but realized that having them remain together would not feel right for this show. If this is the case, rather than having them feel weird about friends sleeping together I would have preferred to have one, if not both, realize in a subsequent episode that they really do not have anything in common. Of course this might still be coming.
I didn’t make it beyond CBS last night. I’ll definitely watch Heroes tonight, but I doubt if I’ll watch House. The same formula has been repeated too many times on that show to keep my interest. I’m sure others are thinking the same applies to Heroes, but I do tend to be harder on medical shows. (Gray’s Anatomy didn’t last a single episode in my house).
How I Met Your Mother was good but not at its greatest last night. Do people really sit down and define their relationship as opposed to winging it and seeing where it goes? It was rather contrived to find that Ted was in the wrong class room without finding out for several minutes but this does alter the knowledge that the eventual mother was in the class room. Rather than being one of his students she can now be virtually anyone on campus. There were some new Barnyisms as we learned how the same rules apply to girls as apply to Gremlins, and the Indiana Jones stuff was, well, legendary.
I’ll give Accidentally On Purpose another chance due to staring Jenna Elfman but the pilot was a disappointment, having already seen the much funnier Knocked Up. The set up of having Zach getting Elfman’s character pregnant and then wind up living with her in a platonic relationship felt unrealistic but it will be more important to see what they do with the situation that has been established.
