The Big Bang Theory: The Nerdmabelia Scattering
By fred | April 29, 2008
(S01E14) A new Monday, a new dose of geekiness coming to your screens. I know some people don’t like The Big Bang Theory that much, and I agree it’s not the even greatest sitcom of the night, and it does use classic rules and boring clichés one too many time, but if you’re able to give it a actual chance you’ll realize that this show has something going for it : it is funny, really funny.
That said, ever since it got back after that awful strike finally ended, I’ve always felt that the episodes weren’t all good. It wasn’t bad and it made me laugh most of the time, but there was always something that didn’t work, it wasn’t as good as it used to be last year. And with this episode, I think we can officially announce that this is now over !
This episode, strange as it may sound, did not focus on Sheldon. He’s the comedy force on the show, and past episodes have had tendency to, one way or another, focus on Sheldon. It makes sense, I’ve been the first to say he was the main character and the one to really make us laugh out loud. Yet, it didn’t always work. In fact, when they had Sheldon get a cold, it really didn’t work !
And so this episode didn’t center on Sheldon, but on a time machine. Geeks at their best, after all what’s more geek than people arguing over time travel and the unavoidable paradoxes that are bound to happen with it ? Right.
(By the way, Sheldon agrees with the rules, you cannot travel through time to do anything that would alter the timeline or the (possibility of) the time travel in the first place.)
Yeah, so those stupid geeks and their time machine, uh?! And while the focus was more on that new device, and maybe Leonard, than it was on Sheldon, this episode was actually and according to my calculations the best and funniest episode since the strike is over ! I thought it was great, pretty damn funny, from head to toe. Of course, it’s not a surprise that most of the great lines that killed came from Sheldon, but everyone had his parts, and except still for a few stupid cliché unfunny jokes we really could have done without (see the reparation of the elevator “joke”), it was all great.
Of course we had once again Leonard hoping he could go on a date with Penny, willing to get ride of all his toys and costumes and everything geeky he owns (”Is that really necessary ? If you need money, you can always sell blood. And semen.“), only to realize she’s more into the captain of the football team and he switch back into his true self before it’s too late. Not anything new, but it came with funny jokes and quite frankly that’s all we ask from this show, isn’t it?
A few more things I can remember, mostly things that made me laughs :
- Sheldon complaining about his sandwich, and how “it’s the right ingredients, but in the wrong order!”
- Still the same guy, answering to Leonard wondering who sells a full-size time machine for $800 : “In a Venn diagram, that would be an individual located within the intersection of the sets ‘no longer want my time machine’ and ‘needs $800′“.
- Leonard trying a time travel joke on Penny. Of course, she didn’t laugh. But Sheldon was there to comfort his friend : “For what it’s worth I though it was humorous. *”laughs”*“. Sheldon faking a laugh like that is fun!
A typical way to discuss, I’m sure you’ve all done it at some point.
“
- Bimonthly is an ambiguous term. Do you mean move it every other month, or twice a month ?
- Twice a month.
- Then no.
- Okay, every other month.
- No.
”
- Typical geek conversation, as they argue how to deal with the fact that they all want to travel back to the same point in time, so it’d be crowed. Also, the time machine doesn’t move in space, so how would he get where he wants to go ? But of course, they have a solution : go into the future, to steal a cloaking device from Captain Kirk…
- When Penny came back, pissed, after her trip to the roof and the other building and whatnot, Sheldon made sure to always remind her it was a time machine. “Oh please, it’s not a time machine! If anything it looks like something Elton John would drive through the Everglades !”
Of course, Sheldon didn’t really get that, replying that “it only moves in time. It would be worse than useless in a swamp!”
- Finding Leonard in the middle of the night, sitting behind the wheel of his time machine, Sheldon was able to tell that Leonard was upset. Something he’s not usually able to see, so he was proud of himself – “Good for me!” – and started to go back to bed. But then, more than that, he realized he might want to talk about it, and, yes, he wanted to ! “Wow, I’m on fire tonight!”
Hilarity ensued with a fun chat, during which Sheldon used examples from movies, because “of course they’re movies. Are you expecting me to come up with an example involving a real life time machine !?? It’s absurd!” and also reminded Leonard that he failed getting a date with Penny long before the time machine was here, “that failure clearly stands on its own!”
- Sheldon hilarious, and probably a bit scary also on that one, to Penny : “If I went into that apartment right now, would I not find Beanie Babies ? Are you not an accumulator of Care Bears and Ly Little Ponies ? And who is that Japanese feline I see frolicking on your shorts ? *to her underwear* Hello, hello, kitty!”
- Good last sequence as well, when Sheldon woke up in the time machine, in the future, but got attacked by flesh-eating Morlocks! Thank God, that was just a dream. If then decided they had to get ride of the time machine, and Leonard actually agreed because it’s too big (”Yeah, that’s the problem, it’s too big!“), and had already hired some workers to move it away. And they are Morlocks too ! “Starving Morlocks” in fact, as it said on their uniforms. But no, wait, that was a dream as well. “Leonard!!!!!!!”
A really good episode, and – again – I believe the best one since the strike ended. Really good to see the show fully back like that, too bad it happens as we’re getting extremely closer to the season finale already…
Posted in Reviews
Shows: The Big Bang Theory
I thought the sped-up acting during the time travel scene was hysterical.
Yeah, another funny moment of pure geekiness indeed ;)