JohnPhD

Sounds perfect. Should not be studio-bound, more outdoor filming. I don't see any reason not to use KC's known skills, so IMO it would be good if Penny took part in competitive horse riding, either in rodeos or may be show-jumping, which would plausibly allow for some humour about snobbery. They could also have a darker storyline where Penny's brother's involvement in crystal meth brings some dangerous characters round. The only problem with all this is that it presumably precludes KC's becoming the new Goldie Hawn. Strictly this doesn't qualify as it's reported speech, but how about when Stuart told Leonard that Penny said "Oh Leonard" when she was making out with Stuart? And L's wordless dance outside the comic book store.

True, but Romcom love stories generally do. P & L breaking up finally would be almost heartbreaking. We've had all the sweet sadness we need in their previous breakups. Casablanca was considerably less plausible than TBBT, and the pretext for separating Rick and Lisa, that the great resistance leader had to get to then-neutral (when the film was set) America, was pure BS. I'd like to see KC and JG in a film based on the B&W classics: JG in the Bogart role would be fine, I see KC as more Bacall than Beregmann. But who knows what they could do given the chance. I'm particularly displeased by the degradation of Lenny because they're the only sitcom couple I've ever been invested in. I loved Cheers and Friends without caring about Sam and Diane's or Ross and Rachel's relationships. It would be a pity if H & B broke up, but not the same level of sadness as P & L. I'd be delighted if S & A broke up, and I don't give a damn about Raj.

Yes indeed to the bold bit. Commercials would be no use to me, they're country-specific and anyway I usually record TV shows and FF over the commercials. Also, they have more depth than that.

Yes, this ridiculous Shamy Nobel plot is destroying what was left of TBBT. I always hope it's going to be put out of our misery, and every ep it seems another possibility of ending it is cut off. When I saw there was going to be an ep with several real Nobel Laureates, I thought surely they were going to say Super Asymmetry was nonsense. But no, that didn't happen. The hope I'm clinging to from where we are now after 1218 is that there's an upcoming episode called "The Plagiarism Schism". Can it be that the writers have done the right thing there, and it turns out that a paper published before S&A's by Lesley Winkle already implied Super Asymmetry, so she shares the Nobel withe 2 experimentalists and S & A are reviled as plagiarists? No, I don't really expect it, but it's all I can think of to hope for.

Not for me. What upsets me is not Penny's not wanting kids, but that L & P just leave it at that. Leonard has to respect Penny's decision, obvs, but he should try to get to the bottom of her feeling of not wanting kids. It would be IC for P not to fully understand her own feelings here. If they really got to understand P's feelings that in itself would be a big thing, growth in their relationship. If this led to P wanting kids after all, so much the better, but the main thing IMO is that the Lenny relationship shouldn't be static. It's happened before, that something important comes up in Lenny's life and the story drops it and cuts to another couple with zero chemistry whose "love" has never been made believable. Eg the ep in the cabin in the woods where P told L she hated her job.

I'm glad everyone here is so confident the writers haven't got something bad cooked up for the Lenny relationship in that pic.

Good on 1 level, bad on another, IMO. (Apart from Lenny just being enablers, which is bad on both levels) . I thought the dialogue was unusually good this ep, with a lot of lines I laughed at. I enjoyed the bit where Amy lost it for several reasons. It's always seemed peculiar to me that the Amy character is so immature compared with the other characters (except Raj, of course) but is the grown-up in Shamy, telling Sheldon what to do. Here she reverted to the uncontrolled, infantile Amy who broke Penny's nose and, unforgiveably, got away with it. I hope this outburst has some bad consequences for her. I thought MB acted that scene very well. The writers gave her the perfect lines and she delivered. I believed in out-of-control Raging Amy. While the details were good, I think the writers and directors rejected an opportunity to make better use of the occasion for longer term. When I read they'd assembled some real Nobel laureates, I assumed they were going to knock this Super Asymmetry nonsense on the head once and for all. Sure the writers are the professionals, they know what they're doing etc, but they sure make some peculiar choices. An obvious way to play it would be for one of the laureates to ask all the characters what they thought of SA. Penny would have said honestly that it didn't mean anything to her, all the others would have been more or less positive. Then the laureate could have said something to the effect that Mrs Hofstadter must be the smartest of you all because she's right: it doesn't mean anything. Drs Cooper and Fowler, we're not saying your theory is wrong: what you have written doesn't amount to a theory with the property of being right or wrong, it's meaningless. Doing it this way has the advantage of allowing for another development. While Penny was only mentioned to emphasise the nonsensical nature of SA, President Seibert, who seems not to be the smartest of university presidents, could have taken it literally and appointed Penny to some Caltech council (I've no idea if university presidents can do this, but we're long past that level of implausibility), which would mean that on formal university occasions Sheldon, Amy and Raju would have to defer to her. That would have been enjoyable.

The bottom pic is worrying - fat slob Leonard, and Penny looks exasperated but resigned. Surely he's not hung over?

Well, that's a good criterion, but I think there's some variation in believability. To me Penny is the character I believe in most, because KC has given her an inner life and she seems like a real person with feelings. Leonard likewise seems to have an inner life. I can't imagine anyone but JP as Sheldon, but S is such an extraordinary character that JP's performance shouldn't be compared with those of actors playing more recognisable types. Anyway, JP is brilliant. Less is expected of the other actors, IMO. They're all quite believable as their characters, but the supporting characters don't need to have the same depth as the main 3. I don't get a sense of their inner lives. Which is not to say that they're not excellent supporting actors with first-class skills and in some cases brilliant physical comedy; and of course they might have talents not called upon in TBBT. (I never managed to see Florence Foster Jenkins with SH in a leading role).

All great choices. a couple of alternates alternates: 117 "The cat's alive". For its significance. 418 "Goodbye, Leonard" (when L tells P he can't hang out with her because Priya objects). The saddest line in the whole show, but beautifully done.

Yes - to be clear, I never thought that you thought there was any sexual element to S & P - I think we're fully in agreement on that. It occurs to me to wonder if the reason some people expected the S & P relationship to develop into a sexual one was because that's something of a convention in films - antagonistic pairs of young man and woman either start off married (eg Woman of the year) or end up together (eg It happened one night). Yes, my examples are pretty old, and I don't know if it still holds - anyone else think so?

Yes, totally agree: you've nailed something I've tried to express in the past. They also should never have tried to make Amy into a romantic heroine. Perhaps that change of character is impossible to pull off, and it certainly doesn't work here. When the writers play to MB's strengths - as in 1217 Scheming Amy - it can be very funny. But only KC should be the leading lady.

Yes that was a brilliantly written and acted relationship - and all the more powerful, altho' there was no sexual element, for being between a man and woman - most of the great adverserial partnerships in comedy are 2 men. With all the conflicts, by season 3 at the latest I felt they had come to love each other (in a non-erotic way, I repeat), and the frequent conflicts made their occasional displays of affection (as in the Adhesive Duck Deficiency or the ep where Penny gave Sheldon the napkin his fravourite actor had used) quite touching. It was in fact Peny who first brought out any human feelings in Sheldon.

I always enjoyed Bernadette's ultra-competitive and ruthless side. Loved her in the Scavenger Hunt, and her usual sarcasm. I also enjoy her amoral attitude to drug safety. And remember how she was when she suspected Ruchi of trying to supplant her during maternity leave? And all the stories the boss at the pharma company told about her behaviour? That's the Bernadette I like. I was afraid she was going soft when she sent Penny's team home just because it was after midnight in 1217.

Everybody seems to expect an exciting, upbeat finale. Maybe so (in which case Penny's birthday would be good) but is that the usual arrangement? I realise that I can't remember the final eps of Cheers or Frasier or Friends. On the other hand, some British and Irish sitcoms I do remember. Drop the Dead Donkey was one of the funniest ever, IMO. Set in a TV news company, it ended with the parent company closing it down. The characters as I remember mostly had to take demeaning jobs either outside TV or on low-grade chatshows, while the company's director had a breakdown. Ballykissangel ended with the heroine (played by Dervla Kirwan) electrocuted while trying to fix the power supply in her pub (I gather a show of the same name staggered on with mnone of the main characters). Goodnight Sweetheart ended with the time-travelling hero trapped 50 years in the past. None particularly upbeat.