Big Bang Again

We’ve been watching re-runs of The Big Bang Theory, three or four in a row nearly every day for several weeks, and have decided that’s a very funny show. And it’s given us nearly as many lines and labels and crazy situations as The Jerry Seinfeld Show did. Where Elaine had her “Yadda yadda yadda,” Sheldon has his “Bazinga!” when he throws out what he thinks is a joke or a put down. Where George had his “shrinkage” problem after coming out of a chilly ocean, Howard has a robot hand clutching his penis. Where Jerry had his “Hello, Newman,” Sheldon has his three-knock Penny routine. Where Kramer had his eccentric entries into Jerry’s apartment, Raj has his selective mutism, unable to speak to women without an alcoholic reinforcement. Each crazy Seinfeld situation (the bubble boy and the soup Nazi to name only a few) is matched by the craziness in Big Bang—the comic-book store filled with nerds and geeks; Howard’s invisible Jewish mother whom we never see, just hear when she shrieks at Howard through doors and walls; the paintball battles; the “Soft Kitty” song Sheldon has Penny sing to him when he’s sick or sad; Mrs. Wolowitz’s famous brisket dinners; Sheldon’s odd throat music; Sheldon’s duplicating (or trying to duplicate) the Star Trek theme on an electric Theremin; the killer robot contest; Penny’s “Holy crap on a cracker!”; Barry Kripke's Elmer Fuddism when he says to Sheldon, "You wiw nevuh defeat Bawwy Kwipke's wobot!" (He may as well have said, "Hewoh, you wascawy wabbit."); and too many others to mention. I noticed how often scenes are shot involving them eating—at the Cheesecake Factory where Penny works, at the university cafeteria, and in Sheldon and Leonard’s living room with takeout Chinese or Thai—sort of poking around at their plates as they converse. From Season one to this season, their seventh, the humor hasn’t waned, the writing hasn’t devolved.

And speaking of a show’s writing devolving, last week’s Person of Interest had to be one of the worst hours on the tube . . . ever. The dialogue was stupid and the plot was right out of bad tv from the 50’s. I have to think that the show’s producers canned all the original writers and hired a bunch of newbies who don’t know clever dialogue from clichés, don’t know clever plots from transparent rehashes. Even Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson must have been embarrassed by what they were given to say and do. We’ll give this “person” another week before we depersonalize him. They’re very close to losing this person of disinterest, this viewer, that is.