Spoilers Leonard And Penny Season 7 *spoiler* Discussion Thread

[Kasey]

NO!!!!

 

Okay sorry...

[I.Am.Molly]

You know it would have been nice if Leonard had a better homecoming. I am glad we got two second worth tho. Now we are back to the 'Sheldon Show' and Leonard pushed to the background again.

I don't think Leonard has been pushed to the background. I think you are being overly negative here.

There wasn't much of Leonard in the premiere, but that was to be expected with him being away. The second episode revolved around him coming home. He was the centre of that episode. Everything that happened in that episode, besides the Howard and Raj stuff, happened around him.

This episode I think is going to be split between the three different teams. The taping report only consisted of the Sheldon/Penny scenes mostly but it was said that they carried on filming after the audience left or still had more scenes to shoot. I don't think this episode is going to be any more focused on Sheldon than the rest of the gang and I don't think Leonard will be pushed into the background.

[hamerman55]

I am just reacting to what we see in the taping report. They pair Penny and Sheldon together for the scavenger hunt, when they had three other possibilities. Girls against guys was pretty funny before, but the choose Sheldon and Penny after pairing them in the premier?

Edited September 5, 2013 by hamerman55

[Chrismo]

You know it would have been nice if Leonard had a better homecoming.  I am glad we got two second worth tho.  Now we are back to the 'Sheldon Show' and Leonard pushed to the background again.

Actually the show seems to center around Penny. Her boyfriend didn't want to be paired with her, her bestie didn't, Sheldon didn't, and Raj didn't have a winner because he thought someone would have been stuck with Penny. In reality if there had been an actual winner in the scavenger hunt the way the taping report reads it would have been Penny(and Sheldon). I'm not sure what you wanted for a homecoming for Leonard he got some alone time with Penny. I think most guys would have been happy with that. But if you wanted to see more  they would have to show that on pay per view instead of CBS.

[Disgusted]

I wonder if they are trying to feed the Shenny. Two episodes out of three with Sheldon and Penny together. It is true that Penny found Sheldon insufferable, but still. This is like the run after Penny's ILY. Are they trying to keep Leonard and Penny, and Amy and Sheldon apart?

 

 

I am just reacting to what we see in the taping report. They pair Penny and Sheldon together for the scavenger hunt, when they had three other possibilities. Girls against guys was pretty funny before, but the choose Sheldon and Penny after pairing them in the premier?

 

 

 

Posted by Disgusted on 01 August 2013 - 08:53 PM in Season 6

I personally have no problem with Penny and Sheldon together, I think they are hilarious. The Christmas gift scene is my all time favorite.

From a purely business standpoint, Sheldon has a lot of name recognition, and Kaley has become very high profile due to her commercials. It only makes sense to put them together for the first few episodes, because they are the ones new viewers will be tuning in to see. If they can hook new viewers, without chasing away current viewers, it's a win.

 

[I.Am.Molly]

Oh actually there's another thing I quite like about this episode and that's that leonard didnt want to be paired with Penny. It shows how comfortable he is in the relationship that he would rather team up with Bernadette in order to have a better chance at winning than go with Penny just to keep her happy. It shows that even although he knows she probably won't be happy with him for it, he's confident that decision won't result in a huge fight and a break up like he may have thought in L/P 1.0. This is a good sign for our couple, that they can have these little fights and have no major consequences. It's also a good sign from the writers point of view. They are keeping our couple strong.

Gotta feel for Penny though! Going from prom queen to the last one to be picked! Haha

[Chiara]

I am just reacting to what we see in the taping report. They pair Penny and Sheldon together for the scavenger hunt, when they had three other possibilities. Girls against guys was pretty funny before, but the choose Sheldon and Penny after pairing them in the premier?

I can see why it is a bit disheartening but I wonder how much of the writers' decision was dictated by circumstances.

 

As Tensor pointed out on the S7 Spoiler thread, from sundown Sept 4th to tonight (Sept 6th) it is Rosh Hashanah and it seems that both Mr. Helberg and Ms Bialik observed the holiday since neither of them was at the Wednesday night taping (while the Tuesday taping took place during the day, I believe). 

It is therefore entirely possible that both actors warned the production team ahead of time telling them that they could not work on Tuesday night (Sept 4th) -regular taping night- due to religious obligations and the writers sort of worked that into the story. The probable absence of two actors on the same night might have helped them realise that Amy and Howard had yet to share any meaningful scene. So they decided to pair them up in some way and came up with the idea of the group being divided into "inorganic" binomes. 

 

"Inorganic" may be too strong a word; what I mean by it is that amongst this seven-people group, there are pairs of characters that assembled "organically", due to mutual romantic attraction or immediate and intense friendship whereas other associations owe their existence to more circumstancial factors. For the sake of the argument, the "organic" pairs are : Bernadette/Howard; Howard/Raj; Sheldon/Amy; Amy/Penny; Penny/Leonard and Leonard/Sheldon. All either lovers or besties. 

 

Amy/Howard is not an "organic" binome. Once you remove these two characters (and Raj, because there needs to be a ringleader and because seven cannot be divided by two), there is only one option remaining for the others. If Bernie goes with Sheldon (inorganic pairing), it leaves Penny and Leonard together (organic). If Bernie goes with Penny (sort of inorganic, though debatable), Sheldon and Leonard end up paired (organic). So to stay in keeping with their "inorganic" theme, the writers had to go for the only other combinations : Leonard/Bernadette; Penny/Sheldon.  

 

 

On a more "intra" level, I do believe there might be some trouble ahead for Leonard and Penny. 

Now, before anybody starts throwing sharp ones and zeroes at me, allow me to explain. Some time ago, Bangermain pointed out that the writers like to introduce the elements of an issue in the very first couple of episodes in a season only to solve the problem later on. I believe it is correct. 

Season six was a textbook case : the season premiere introduced the "Penny's ILY" conundrum through the unexpected medium of a drunken and overly enthusiastic Raj. The issue made Penny stumble, caused her to make mistakes (she envisaged breaking up with Leonard) but eventually she found her way back by realising how much and why she loves him ("Sometimes I forget how smart you are" - The Holographic Excitation) and, at last, we got the long awaited ILY in The 43 Peculiarity. After that, it was pretty much smooth sailing... By Leonard and Penny's standards of course.

This season's issue, as far as the Lenny is concerned, may very well be the "Penny's physique/Penny's brain" dichotomy. The season premiere will contain a scene in which Leonard shows off Penny's remarkable anatomy to some of his crewmates and we now know that the third episode will feature a scene in which he refuses to pair up with her for fear she might slow him down in the course of an "intellectual" game. There might be something in there that will get developped a bit later in the season. 

Just like Penny had to be reminded of how much she loves Leonard back in the early days of season six, this year Leonard may have to remember that his gorgeous girlfriend is also a pretty smart cookie. 

 

There might be some to and fro; there might be some frustration along the way. But do not fear ! They will see it through. 

Edited September 5, 2013 by Chiara

[ArmyGirl]

Actually the show seems to center around Penny. Her boyfriend didn't want to be paired with her, her bestie didn't, Sheldon didn't, and Raj didn't have a winner because he thought someone would have been stuck with Penny. In reality if there had been an actual winner in the scavenger hunt the way the taping report reads it would have been Penny(and Sheldon). I'm not sure what you wanted for a homecoming for Leonard he got some alone time with Penny. I think most guys would have been happy with that. But if you wanted to see more  they would have to show that on pay per view instead of CBS.

 

 

I notice you complained about the dump Penny trope.  I was wondering if you feel the same about the constantly trope of Leonard not being a man (7x03).  Or how about all the trope that Leonard is bad in bed as we have more of this in 7x02.

 

I am glad Leonard had a chance to be paired with someone different (Bernie) and I don't care that P/S is paired again.  I was going by the taping report where there are barely any scenes of Leonard and Bernie.  I understood why Howard/Amy didn't have scenes but everything in report was of P/S and that's why I said Leonard was in the background. 

Edited September 5, 2013 by ArmyGirl

[Chrismo]

I notice you complained about the dump Penny trope.  I was wondering if you feel the same about the constantly trope of Leonard not being a man (7x03).  Or how about all the trope that Leonard is bad in bed as we have more of this in 7x02.

 

I am glad Leonard had a chance to be paired with someone different (Bernie) and I don't care that P/S is paired again.  I was going by the taping report where there are barely any scenes of Leonard and Bernie.  I understood why Howard/Amy didn't have scenes but everything in report was of P/S and that's why I said Leonard was in the background. 

But in reality he was being a man. He didn't want to be paired with Penny.(although in reality being teamed with Penny woulfd have better). I just thought it was ironic because my first choice for a partner in a scavenger hunt would actually been Penny because she is actually quick thinking and it is somewhat advanageous to be athletic. It seems Bernadette was just trying to "motivate" Leonard by her comments so they would win. I'll be honest I must have missed something in the 7X02 taping report about Leonard being badin bed.

[Occam's Chainsaw]

I think you are all overreacting here. Sure there are a lot of Penny/Sheldon scenes in the taping reports, but we also know that they are not done filming the episode. They filmed all of the P/S scenes in a row because it makes sense to do it that way, they still have all the L/B scenes and all of the H/A scenes to film. Reading the P/S scenes I'm only seeing about 5 minutes of actual show, I highly doubt that they will be the focus of the episode since the 'Penny has to tolerate Sheldon's "quirks"' is done so much that the episode would be redundant and unoriginal. Odds are that once we get a description of the whole episode it will seem like P/S is a sub-plot to either the H/A or L/B plot.

 

And as for the whole  "Sheldon Show" thing that ArmyGirl keeps harping on, Sheldon is the kind of person who inserts himself into EVERYTHING!!! It would be totally OoC for him not to make at least one of the plots about himself in every episode. The only way to get less Sheldon in the show is to cut him out completely, which would be a gross overreaction.

[Chrismo]

I think you are all overreacting here. Sure there are a lot of Penny/Sheldon scenes in the taping reports, but we also know that they are not done filming the episode. They filmed all of the P/S scenes in a row because it makes sense to do it that way, they still have all the L/B scenes and all of the H/A scenes to film. Reading the P/S scenes I'm only seeing about 5 minutes of actual show, I highly doubt that they will be the focus of the episode since the 'Penny has to tolerate Sheldon's "quirks"' is done so much that the episode would be redundant and unoriginal. Odds are that once we get a description of the whole episode it will seem like P/S is a sub-plot to either the H/A or L/B plot.

 

And as for the whole  "Sheldon Show" thing that ArmyGirl keeps harping on, Sheldon is the kind of person who inserts himself into EVERYTHING!!! It would be totally OoC for him not to make at least one of the plots about himself in every episode. The only way to get less Sheldon in the show is to cut him out completely, which would be a gross overreaction.

The thing too is that people on  this thread are Leonard and Penny fans.

[SRAM]

The thing too is that people on  this thread are Leonard and Penny fans.

Yeah, so we are a little sensative.

I guess the only thing I don't like about 7.03, is that Leonard and Penny are a little too snarky to each other, so soon after he comes back

[Zhalen565]

Actually the show seems to center around Penny. Her boyfriend didn't want to be paired with her, her bestie didn't, Sheldon didn't, and Raj didn't have a winner because he thought someone would have been stuck with Penny. In reality if there had been an actual winner in the scavenger hunt the way the taping report reads it would have been Penny(and Sheldon). I'm not sure what you wanted for a homecoming for Leonard he got some alone time with Penny. I think most guys would have been happy with that. But if you wanted to see more  they would have to show that on pay per view instead of CBS.

Am I missing something, the report says Leonard suggest drawing names out of a hat, this is perfectly in character for him as the fair way to do things. Penny makes the assumption then Amy jumps back to the hat.

[terriblewaitress]

Considering this is the Leonard & Penny thread, there's not that much Leonard & Penny love going on... 

 

They don't seem to be being overly snarky to each other. Just having a lovers spat ha ha And it's good, at least their relationship hasn't been made all weird and taken a step backwards while he was away, they're back to their usual selves! 

[Chrismo]

Am I missing something, the report says Leonard suggest drawing names out of a hat, this is perfectly in character for him as the fair way to do things. Penny makes the assumption then Amy jumps back to the hat.

But in the report someone suggest couples (L/P,S/A, H/B). Then Leonard suggests names out of a hat. I guess couples can be interpteted two ways. But then there would be no reason for Penny to be mad

[Zhalen565]

But in the report someone suggest couples (L/P,S/A, H/B). Then Leonard suggests names out of a hat. I guess couples can be interpteted two ways. But then there would be no reason for Penny to be mad

Well Penny does have a short fuse. Another one that may play differently on screen when we see how the characters play it.

[Chrismo]

You know it would have been nice if Leonard had a better homecoming.  I am glad we got two second worth tho.  Now we are back to the 'Sheldon Show' and Leonard pushed to the background again.

on the other thread some think it's been the Penny show lately.

[Kasey]

But in the report someone suggest couples (L/P,S/A, H/B). Then Leonard suggests names out of a hat. I guess couples can be interpteted two ways. But then there would be no reason for Penny to be mad

 

The writers don't seem to like pairing couples against couples if you've noticed and I think that leads to more comedy.  We, as fans of Lenny, or Shamy, or Howardette, may not like that our couples aren't together.  But I think for the comedic value of being able to be snarky at each other seems the better choice.  Also, unless I missed it, there was no discussion between Sheldon and Amy or Howard and Bernadette so it's possible that those scenes were not in that day's schedule.

 

I don't think we got a full 31 scene report did we?

[eirwinrommel]

The writers don't seem to like pairing couples against couples if you've noticed and I think that leads to more comedy.  We, as fans of Lenny, or Shamy, or Howardette, may not like that our couples aren't together.  But I think for the comedic value of being able to be snarky at each other seems the better choice.  Also, unless I missed it, there was no discussion between Sheldon and Amy or Howard and Bernadette so it's possible that those scenes were not in that day's schedule.

 

I don't think we got a full 31 scene report did we?

I believe they're supposed to be shooting some more today because of the large number of scenes Not to mention the co-incidence of Labor day weekend and Rosh Hashanah.

Edited September 5, 2013 by eirwinrommel

[Nogravitasatall]

I'm glad that TPTB ration out the goodies. With 21 eps to go this season I have so much to look forward to. And there is no sign that there will ever be another break up. But I think they will run around on this plateau until they level up again. L/P drama may be on the back burner for a bit, but its not going to go away. I still think we deserve some odd "honeymoon" moments, but a lot of this season is going to be about how L/P maintain their new equilibrium.

[terriblewaitress]

 

I love that she has been wearing the locket he gave her all along  

[Nogravitasatall]

 

I love that she has been wearing the locket he gave her all along

I vaguely recall that Chiara was hoping it would make her skin go green. LOL. I really think it will be on all the time, unless it clashes with her more formal outfits. It might be a bit understated for some events. I wonder if Leonard will get a clue and drop the odd bit of bling on her. Earrings have always been well received in my experience. I guess they won't make a big issue of anything until it's a ring.

Are there any couple photos?

[I.Am.Molly]

I vaguely recall that Chiara was hoping it would make her skin go green. LOL. I really think it will be on all the time, unless it clashes with her more formal outfits. It might be a bit understated for some events. I wonder if Leonard will get a clue and drop the odd bit of bling on her. Earrings have always been well received in my experience. I guess they won't make a big issue of anything until it's a ring.

Are there any couple photos?

 

We should be getting the promos for episode two soon should we not? Hopefully there will be a nice one of them in that bunch

[terriblewaitress]

We should be getting the promos for episode two soon should we not? Hopefully there will be a nice one of them in that bunch

 

Ahh I hope so!! <3 Probably not too many to keep it mysterious for the people who don't read spoilers though.

[eirwinrommel]

I vaguely recall that Chiara was hoping it would make her skin go green. LOL. I really think it will be on all the time, unless it clashes with her more formal outfits. It might be a bit understated for some events. I wonder if Leonard will get a clue and drop the odd bit of bling on her. Earrings have always been well received in my experience. I guess they won't make a big issue of anything until it's a ring.

Are there any couple photos?

I believe Chiara was comparing the locket to one she had received as a child from an admirer, that had turned her skin green.  She was contrasting the difference between love as a child and an adult. i.e. Locket that turns skin green as a child, no big deal (the thought that counts).