JohnPhD

And there was I thinking I was normal. I watch only Freeview TV, but never live. If there's something I might want to watch I record it to the HD and watch it later, FF-ing over the ads. Then if it's something I might want to watch again (like TBBT) I copy it to DVD. Then I erase it. This pattern isn't one of those you mention.

So still no plans for KC to appear in a horse opera? Apart from her being a natural, it would have a pleasing resonance for those of us who thought the classic TBBT sich of Penny and the Nerds was an echo of Ball of Fire, where Barbara Stanwyck played Sugarpuss O'Neil. Later in her career BS starred in several westerns, of which The Violent Men is probably the best overall, altho she didn't ride in that one. Anyway, there are lots of girl-on-a-horse-in-the-wild-west roles that KC would adorn.

The finale was the final insult. Penny's pregnancy should have been the climax of the series. Instead it was crowded out by the preposterous Nobel story, and got less screentime than Amy's haircut. It's incredible that we never got to see Penny telling Leonard she's pregnant. That should have been 10 minutes screentime in itself. And the very last scene should have been the whole gang gathered in 4A to congratulate Penny. Sheldon could have made his suddenly-human speech there.

The finale seemed badly rushed, which is ridiculously incompetent considering all the totally unnecessary dross we've been given this season. The final outrage was that we never saw Penny tell Leonard she was preganant! Maybe the writers realised that KC and JG would do such a star-quality emotional job on that scene that it would put their golden couple Shamy in the shade. Amy's damn haircut got more screentime than Penny's pregnancy!

Not just the best - the only real ones.

I thought this was very badly-structured. They should have concentrated on B, L and P in 4A. I don't care about Raj, I first thought Denise was fun but now I find her just boring, and it's TOO LATE to sort out either Raj or S&D. I thought Beverley was really going to get into things with L & P and the No Kids issue would be explored, but no. When P went to the bedroom L didn't follow her to talk, instead he went across to S & A. What a ridiculous couple to consult about anything . And couldn't we for once have a real Lenny ep, without bringing in Amy? A lot of the action and dialogue seemed more or less random, like it was written by interns.

OK, I think 12.21 has got it. All About Amy.

The unwanted personal info that Amy forced on Penny and Bernadette included her not being able to open her legs more that 22 degrees, which hasn't been a problem for Shamy, so I guess that's all the dead past.

I've seen up to episode 21 The plagiarism thing, and I can't imagine what's still to come could change how I feel about the current state of the show - angry, sad and baffled. Angry that the programme makers seem to have deliberately crashed the quality of the show by treating Amy as the heroine. Some people have complained that it's become the Sheldon Show, but I think foregrounding Amy is the problem. Just consider how inherently ridiculous it was to make that character part of Sheldon's Nobel bid. If S was to be in for a Nobel, obviously Leonard should have been his co-nominee. It could have worked well with Penny being supportive and Amy being a pain. Apart from that, Amy's emotional "life" is just not interesting, because MB can't do that sort of thing. She could be very funny but she can't do loveable. Some very successful sitcoms have no characters one particularly cares about, but TBBT had Lenny. Sad that we don't get the emotional resolution that Penny and Leonard need and deserve. They went far beyond comedy to give us a truly touching relationship, that A & S couldn't. And angry that the wonderful comic and romantic actress KC has been sidelined while lesser talents take the spotlight. Baffled that the programme makers destroyed a great show. Without Penny/KC they'd have had just another ho-hum funny-nerd sitcom worth a couple of seasons. But even such a show would have been better than what we've got now, focussed on the empty character of Amy, who has lost everthing that made her funny. And Sheldon has also been stripped of his once-hilarious peculiarities to dwindle into a husband. As an example of the deterioration, consider 2 scenes where Sheldon sang Soft Kitty. When he sang it to Penny who was spaced out on painkillers after S took her to get her dislocated shoulder fixed, it was quite hilarious and also rather touching. When he sang it Amy after her outburst, it was just mawkish and very boring. The only redemming feature was that Amy looked like a cat being fondled against its will, and I don't suppose that was intentional. There are other storylines that could be cut to make wroom for Lenny's resolution, of course - does anyone really care what happens to Raj?

Over the 12 seasons a lot of episodes have been described as Worst Episode Ever, but I think we have a clear winner with this one. Utterly ridiculous to focus on Amy's moral dilemma. She can be very funny but she has been given no inner life and when she's not funny she's boring. And she wasn't funny. I can hardly believe that with just 3 more eps to go they would focus on Amy.

Several Lennies have praised 1220 The Decision Reverberation as a Lenny ep at last. To me there was something off about it, it didn't have that old Lenny feeling. Maybe the writers have forgotten how to write Lenny. And consider some of what happened - Leonard had a violently upset stomach during a cinema trip, which makes Penny wiping his fevered brow a bit less romantic. Then, apparently, he went to a cycling class with Penny where, hilariously wimpish, he did his leg in, so Penny abandoned him on the stairs. Remember when he shot himself in the foot (or grazed his foot with a bullet) taking Penny pistol shooting, she got him all the way upstairs. Not my idea of a cute Lenny ep. Needless to say, there was far too much Amy.

I read the article as referring only to TBBT fans in the UK. So well done us.

I loved it too. There's nothing wrong with sad if it's as beautifully acted as KC did here. Less is more.

Maybe my memory's going, but isn't the shot from season 4 part of the saddest scene in the whole series - "Goodbye, Leonard"?