JohnPhD

I thought Amy's parents were the high point of this ep - only a few seconds, but verbal and non-verbal acting perfect. Less is more. So are Missy and Raj going to pick it up where they were when Raj's experimental social confidence drug wore off? The scene in the car with Raj driving was well done, IMO. I always liked Missy.

I really can't think what the programme-makers are playing at. Since the end of S7 they've changed the structure by firstly making Shamy's joke relationship real, and secondly promoting Amy to romantic heroine. A big problem they had was the legacy o0f S4-S7 which had established Amy as utterly unappealing and a horrible person. I would have thought the writers would have tried to overcome this as far as possible by making Amy more appealing and a better, nicer person in subsequent seasons. Instead they've done the opposite if anything. A plausible reason for Sheldon's being with Amy was that she worshipped him - S likes that in a woman. Now that she's got him, on the contrary A treats S with rudeness and contempt, particularly in public. Consider A in this ep. First when Howard announces the children have pink-eye her reaction is entirely selfish. She abuses H for coming into the same room with her (in his own house!) and doesn't give a damn about the kids. Secondly when A is infected she barges into Penny's apartment and touches everything in her filthy way. Worst is her concealing from poor Sheldon that she has PE. She kinows how he fears infection, but rather than being honest with him or considering his feelings she lies to him about it - an indication of how she'll treat S once they'married. The writing of Penny is right off. She alsao expresses no concern fror the children she's supposed to love, and allows PE Amy into her home, altho' P knows A's filthy ways better than anybody. And she colludes in A's concealing her PE from S - apparently P hasn't told Leonard about it, who could then decide whether to tell S. It was her duty to S to tell L - S is her real friend in spite of his frequent rudeness, A is incapable of friendship. In general P & L have seen more concerned with getting S off their own hands than whether A is good for him. Sheldon is sometimes a monster, but he's a character it's possible to care about, and I feel sad for him, betrayed by his friends and facing a life of being abused and deceived and presumably revolted by Amy. And sad isn't what I expect from a sitcom.

Goodnight Sweetheart was a comedy about a guy who could time-travel by exactly 50 years, and had a wife in 1990s London and a girlfriend whom he later married in wartime London. After 3 seasons the actresses playing both wives (Dervla Kirwan for the 1940s) were replaced (don't know why). I didn't think either replacement was as good, but the show as a whole was still good and ran another 3 seasons. Drop the Dead Donkey was one of my favourite comedies of the 90s. Set in a TV newsroom, one of the main characters was the woman assistant editor. When the first actress (Haydn Gwynne) left, a new character was brought in in the same job. I didn't like her as much but the show was still excellent. But I don't think TBBT could survive the loss of KC or JG or JP.

How about working with animals? I'd like the show to bring back the lab monkeys. I particularly liked the scene where Amy's smoking monkey blew smoke in Sheldon's face. I wonder how long that took to film.

Indeed. KC does great facial acting: her expressions often express the inner life of the character. This is distinct from just pulling funny faces (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I would like to hear Sheldon explain how St P's day became such a big deal in the US, and also the significance of the battle of Puebla (5 May 1862).

Leonard has IMO always been the decent little guy we (male viwers) could identify with, so when he gets it wrong it matters more. Personally, all too often his mistakes remind me of my own. On the other hand, I've got a lot to do around the house today, but here I am, so maybe I should be identifying with Howard.

Very strongly agree. But to be fair, there is a reason within TBBT world that people frequently barge in on P & L (who still don't appear to have mastered locks and bolts) and no one ever barges in on A & S. P & L are the best, most grown-up characters , to whom others naturally turn (well, Bernadette is grown-up but not someone you'd turn to). No-one would want to be with A & S so no-one barges in on them. I feel the same as the other characters on this: I'm always pleased when the scene is P & L, my heart sinks when we find ourselves with A&S.

Not at all. Both do wrong sometimes and, unlike Amy, would have had the choice to do right. But in this case L has failed in a basic principle of marriage - that the wife should be "queen" of the marital home.

I very much doubt if the writers think about P & L in that much depth.

Serves L right.

Not at all. Penny wasn't "jealous", she was rightly displeased that L chose to play with Amy when P got home and needed him. L was responsible for not considering that. The ep should have ended with P & L talking it over in bed.

Both are to blame. It's Amy's nature to be selfish but L had a choice and made the wrong one - or didn't see the choice had to be made. But Amy could have been equally selfish in a way that could be funny. Lazy writers. Actually I think blaming A & L is on different levels. A never comes across to me as a real person with free will, she's more of a set of traits that can't change. She is what she is and it's no point expecting her to be anything else. L seems to me a fully-developed character with an inner life (as is P) so when he does wrong I can imagine that he made a moral choice and he could have have made the right one instead. Not that he's actually bad usually - just makes mistakes which are often recognisable from experience.

It's been suggested in another thread that Amy has become "normal", but while she's certainly stopped being funny in the original way there's a bit of this ep that suggests she's not normal (not that I really expect consistency). When Penny comes in and says "Amy's here - again" that would signal to normal people that P wants to be alone with L, but A just sits there like a selfish lump, which is infantile. A normal decent person would have said that she must go, and left. But Amy is not decent. A normal selfish person would have said something to the effect "Oh, I'm in the way, I'd better go" in such a way that a couple of softies like P & L would have felt compelled to press her to stay, which she would. This behaviour is quite common IRL, and surprisingly annoying. It could also have been made pretty funny if the writers had taken a bit of trouble.

I think Leonard was to blame. When Penny came home and said "Amy's here - again" it was clear she wanted to be alone with L. If Amy were a normal decently-mannered person she would have left at that point, but being a selfish lump she sat tight. So L should have politely but firmly asked Amy to leave. Effectively P was driven out of her home by A. L really needs to work on keeping A out of 4A.