BangerMain

What is remarkable about this story and your other Lenny works is how clearly you capture the underlying subtext that the creators and writers "hide" in plain sight: Penny is the person in their relationship who has gained the most. Even though she seldom says it, she knows that this is true.

Is it something that will be explored later but who is Amy going to work with/for at Princeton? Perhaps the most eminent brain scientist there? Someone who likes her and her boyfriend.

Beverly can bring Penny to tears hypothesizing about how her father wanted her to be a boy. Still, Beverly is a demon who can make anyone feel small and inadequate.

Love this fan-fic premise. I too, wondered about when Penny had met Alfred and setting the meeting in Season 3 allows for a rich vein of speculation.

Having L/P living in 4A is causing the writing to degenerate into more implausible situations each episode. This outing especially was indicative of that feeling. - They have papered over the reason that the third best salesperson at a giant Pharma company, who makes so much money that she needs an investment advisor has to live with her successful Ph.D scientist husband in a 4th floor walk-up with an eccentric man-child who drives them both batty. - Even when her husband can't take it anymore, she vetoes his moving them out to the apartment they are paying for (4B) because she has some "special bond" with the crazy roommate. - They have made a half-assed effort to suggest that L/P may have money issues because of Penny's massive credit card debt. But Leonard has paid the rent in 4B and his portion of 4A with his own income before (probably for months when Penny was unemployed in season 7), so now that Penny is making far more money than Leonard paying the nut on 4B should be easier. As Tensor said, it's stupid for them to pay for an apartment they don't need. Either get out of 4A or get rid of 4B. Yes, we know that they want to keep the original setup for the show as long as they can. And they must have thought having L/P/S living together to be a gold mine of comedy but this strains credulity to the point of irritation.

The problem is how it's becoming stronger. Penny's mother/child, or even worst, master/pet feelings for Sheldon have had a dampening effect on their dynamic. Her saying things to Leonard like she's not mature enough for motherhood because she's drawn doodles on her sleeping "baby's" face with a magic marker or that they can keep Sheldon close to them as the "family dog" shows she still does not think of Sheldon as an adult man. This is the kind of stuff she said about him in the season 6 finale. There is little sense of equality in the Sheldon/Penny friendship now. Where each would insult and irritate the other and Sheldon would feel superior, it now Penny who feels as though she has "noblesse oblige" for Sheldon. She shows "love" for the unfortunate who can't do any better.

I have stop being irritated about the money and salary implications on TBBT because it has little bases in the real world as has been shown on this forum numerous times over the years. Howard is a world class, MIT-Master aerospace engineer (who NASA has sent to space!). This guy in real life is making over 100K a year starting years ago. Leonard is an award winning, research physicist who in the show is being honored for coming up with a discovery the Howard is making into a money making application. He is well on the tenure-track now (What ever happened to that anyway?) this guy would also make over a 100K per year after 10 year at Caltech. Here is a 2014 passage from the San Diego Reader: "According to Glassdoor and Indeed, the average staff scientist salaries at Caltech is $74,920. Research scientists at Caltech pull in an average of $89,981. Salaries for research scientists in Pasadena are in the $50,000 to $115,000 range. Cooper is described in the series as ‘Senior Theoretical Physicist’ at Caltech this position pulls in about $100,000 a year or more." Penny and Bernadette's income is also over stated. Bernie, as a Ph.D research at a Big Pharma firm would not have exceeded Howard's salary in her first year on the job as was stated. She would have started at about 65K. Assuming that she has been involved with some successful projects over the last 5 years, she may be matching Howard's salary. As someone who worked in high tech sales for many years, I feel safe to say Penny did not make more money than Leonard after only a few months on the job as was implied in season 8. No sales plan is that lucrative for a rookie on probation. As for Penny's debt's, how in heck did she get that much credit as a waitress making about 30K a year? And where are all the things she bought? She would need a Sheldon size storage bin for that many shoes. Her wardrobe doesn't show that either. She has an investment advisor for all the "money" she makes and yet she is in dangerous debt? Her "guy" is incompetent to say the least. We all know this is a fantasy and it has the internal logic of keeping the original premise as intact as the writers can after 9 years. If Leonard and Penny were really making a combined over $200,000 a year like their real life counterparts, they would not be living in a 4th floor walk-up with a nutjob who spends most of his time saying how stupid they are. But how funny are upper-middle class folks living in the suburbs. Oh yes, "Modern Family". It's the sacrifice we pay for the laughs.

The biggest problem with having more Shenny scenes is, logically, why and how would TPTB do it? A. Lenny are married and Shamy are on the road to same. Why would there be the need for frequent interactions between Penny and Sheldon? Any more than having a reason for bi-weekly interaction between Amy and Leonard? B. Penny and Sheldon were created as antagonist for the attention of Leonard. They are friends, as each has stated on several occasions, only because Leonard "made them". If this was real life, Lenny would have long been living on their own at Penny's insistence. C. Since romance or sex between them is made impossible by the very characteristics given to their characters, TPTB has settled on their interaction as being: fabricated family members (mother/son or sister/brother) or Master/pet. Either way this is sometimes suggested and it comes off as creepy. They never come off as equals in their friend ship. Penny either says something about his being a big baby or the family dog. Sheldon will make some comment about Penny being stupid as a gorilla or a moral reprobate (You Tramp!!) TPTB seldom ever seem capable of them being just a couple of people with something in common enjoying each others company. Shenny scenes showing them at odds over Leonard are always fun since that is the setup since the pilot. That makes up the bulk of Shenny over 9 seasons (with some pleasant exceptions). But the writers/producers don't seem able to write much more than that.

I think your math is correct. Steve Malaro mentioned before season 6 that Penny was growing up and that she was almost six years younger than Leonard. Since we know Penny's birthday is December 2, 1985 that means she is now 30 years old and Leonard will be 36 this May. Penny was 21 years and 10 months when the show started and Leonard was 27 years and 4 months. I believe the conversation about Leonard being closer to 40 than 30 is technically correct but is still implying that he could be older. Maybe they were trying to make the age of Leonard closer to Johnny's age (40). The writers were really getting cutesy with the inside jokes during that conversation, like Kaley's love of "The Bachelor".

Your feeling is the exact opposite of the folks who are most sensitive about all things Shenny: ShennyHQ. They keep track of every second of Sheldon/Penny interaction and they have clocked just two scenes where there is any positive interaction between the two this season. Several times Penny is looking disgusted or irritated, such as the shower scene. She came right out and implied to the psychiatrist she was sick of living with the "Man-Child". She is the biggest cheerleader for Shamy which ticks off Shennys more than anything. Penny is married to Leonard now and in TV land that means couple snarkiness increases substantially for laughs. Plus, Penny is written as being romantically impaired. She lets Leonard, as she has said in the previous three seasons, be the sensitive one in their relationship. Amy is far from superfluous. Mayim just won the critics choice award for her portrayal of Amy and has three Emmy nominations. The taping report indicates that Sheldon and Penny had only one brief moment together while it was Amy's party for Sheldon. There is little evidence to support your feeling. And the experts in Shennyland would agree.

KC gets asked a great deal more about JG and Lenny than about her gay associate. Plus, Jim is riding the wave of the Shamy phenomenon. The +7 day uptick in the ratings for the "Coitus" episode set an all time record. A turn to Shenny would be a bridge too far for the casual viewer; it would make no sense to anyone who has any remembrance of the show's original setup. And new fans only have Lenny and Shamy events for the past 5 years. But back to the future of the show after season 9. The producers are not going to destroy the whole premise of the show after marrying Lenny, hooking up Shamy and showing how Howdette deal with family life. If they have 2 or even 3 more seasons after 9, they will have just enough time to bring those relationships to maturity and no time to start over with new combinations of the characters. No reason to start over since this show will be so expensive to produce after season 10.

That would guarantee that would kill a large portion of the audience for the perpetual episodes in syndication. Loyal veiwers would remember that the investment in Lenny and Shamy was a complete waste. The memory of the build up to the the finale is all you have left once the show is off the air. That's what they have to protect.

5.24 The Countdown Reflextion

She promised Leonard she "would get better" and she did!

It would have been great to see how Sheldon would have handled an even more compatible women than Amy. But no woman would have logically put up with Sheldon's expectation of a girl friend: sit on the couch and adore him as he lived in his own mine. This is what he told Raj and Howard he wanted. Especially a woman who looked like that with that kind of brain power. Sheldon would not have been acceptable for more than one date. Still, it was nice to see Sheldon the condescending, sexless, wet blanket of the early seasons.