[Spoilers] Discussion: Season 10

[Stephen Hawking]

14 minutes ago, Chrismo said:

I wasn't. I was just suggesting another pairing.

Sorry. I thought you were identifying Amy and Raj as a previous pairing.

[JE7]

34 minutes ago, Capt. Hilts said:

This whole 'Raj living with Leonard and Penny' just makes no sense to me, on any level.  He's a physicist at a major research institution. Raj as welfare case makes no sense. The writers are destroying this character.  A guy like he is would have NO problems finding a girlfriend - even one from India - in the circumstances he's in.  There was even an episode where Howard and he go to a Hindu temple.  LOTS of folks go to religious services to meet people.  Trinity in Georgetown [washington dc] is known as the "Catholic meat market."  None of it makes sense.

Raj has never really made sense. Charecter wise over the shows run he is like 5% scientist, 10% Richie Rich, maybe 5% caring friend, 5% ambiguous metro sexual and 75% self centered douche 

The Charecter has never been given any real growth or lasting change and at this point i think he is beyond redemption. It would take to much story and screentime and honestly after 10 years of his behavior does anybody care anymore, i can truthfully say I dont and I would be fine with it if he moves back to India, I mean come on shouldnt his visa be up by now?

Edited March 17, 2017 by JE7

[mirs1]

36 minutes ago, Capt. Hilts said:

This whole 'Raj living with Leonard and Penny' just makes no sense to me, on any level.  He's a physicist at a major research institution. Raj as welfare case makes no sense. The writers are destroying this character.  A guy like he is would have NO problems finding a girlfriend - even one from India - in the circumstances he's in.  There was even an episode where Howard and he go to a Hindu temple.  LOTS of folks go to religious services to meet people.  Trinity in Georgetown [washington dc] is known as the "Catholic meat market."  None of it makes sense.

I agree that the Raj's financial problems make no sense whatsoever. They could have, if he were a Ph.D. student which had counted on his parents' money to live beyond his means, but not at this point in his career. However, I can see plenty of reasons why he isn't in a relationship, and they rely on things happened well before the character assassination started. Raj is a spoiled, insecure, needy guy, he is the character who has less evolved since the show started, I might say that he is the same person (minus not being able to talk to women) he was when the show started.

Edited March 17, 2017 by mirs1

[spidergirl]

22 minutes ago, JE7 said:

Raj has never really made sense. Charecter wise over the shows run he is like 5% scientist, 10% Richie Rich, maybe 5% caring friend, 5% ambiguous metro sexual and 75% self centered douche 

The Charecter has never been given any real growth or lasting change and at this point i think he is beyond redemption. It would take to much story and screentime and honestly after 10 years of his behavior does anybody care anymore, i can truthfully say I dont and I would be fine with it if he moves back to India, I mean come on shouldnt his visa be up by now?

Agree. I think the biggest problem about Raj was the writers only seem to develop characters in romantic relationships . Raj has so many stuff that could be develop such is career, study field, the pov of someone who belong to a culture so different from the american and so one. This la arrangement with lenny could be the salvation of his character but it began without any sense about his finatial situation that suppose made him to move in 4A. Really curious about what is going to be up for him but my expectations  are really low...

Edited March 17, 2017 by spidergirl

[April]

What exactly would they be "destroying" anyway? Raj being a spoiled brat? Yeah, nothing of value is lost here. Being spoiled is not something that makes him more interesting as a character.

And yes, the writers have no concept of how much income someone like him would realistically have - but to be fair they don't really for any of the characters. The financial situation of pretty much everyone is all over the place with the writers probably assigning who has and who hasn't money by randomly throwing darts at a wall and see what sticks.

Now, for Raj's situation they at least tried to sell us the idea that he accumulated some extra debts over the years which is what's causing this financial issues to be more dire than they normally would be. Seeing how Raj in the past would spend his money on a lot of useless nonsense I think that's a fair enough idea so I'm willing to roll with it. /shrugs

[Cloud Strife]

3 hours ago, snapepans said:

But sadly, three years later, not that much unusual pairing episodes I can think of.  

There is one coming up.  

[Stephen Hawking]

42 minutes ago, JE7 said:

I mean come on shouldn't his visa be up by now?

His Visa is valid, so long as he is employed at Caltech.

From The Pirate Solution:-

Raj: So, my visa’s only good as long as I’m employed at the university, and when they find out I’ve got squat, they’re going to cut me off. By the way, when I say squat, I mean diddly-squat. I wish I had squat.

[Jonny]

21 minutes ago, April said:

What exactly would they be "destroying" anyway? Raj being a spoiled brat? Yeah, nothing of value is lost here. Being spoiled is not something that makes him more interesting as a character.

And yes, the writers have no concept of how much income someone like him would realistically have - but to be fair they don't really for any of the characters. The financial situation of pretty much everyone is all over the place with the writers probably assigning who has and who hasn't money by randomly throwing darts at a wall and see what sticks.

Now, for Raj's situation they at least tried to sell us the idea that he accumulated some extra debts over the years which is what's causing this financial issues to be more dire than they normally would be. Seeing how Raj in the past would spend his money on a lot of useless nonsense I think that's a fair enough idea so I'm willing to roll with it. /shrugs

Yeah they can be so inconsistent with the financial status of all the characters, in their defense I think most viewers don't really care about small details like that. The episodes are just so short in terms of time, hard to fit everything in dialogue wise.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Jonny

[Stephen Hawking]

Just now, Jonny said:

Yeah they can be so inconsistent with the financial status of all the characters like that.

Sheldon's financial situation is all over the place.

From The Financial Permeability:-

Sheldon: My expenses account for 46.9% of my after-tax income.

From The Dumpling Paradox:-

Sheldon: Well first, we don’t have house guests, frankly if I could afford the rent I’d ask you to leave.

[JE7]

8 minutes ago, Jonny said:

Yeah they can be so inconsistent with the financial status of all the characters, in their defense I think most viewers don't really care about small details like that.

It would be if it was at least consistent in each character. Sheldon needs a roomate/Sheldon has a drawer full of uncashed checks. Penny has huge debts/Penny has a guy/Penney has huge debts. Lather, rinse, repeat for every character 

 

[Jonny]

2 minutes ago, JE7 said:

It would be if it was at least consistent in each character. Sheldon needs a roomate/Sheldon has a drawer full of uncashed checks. Penny has huge debts/Penny has a guy/Penney has huge debts. Lather, rinse, repeat for every character 

 

I would like to know their financial status for sure, Amy for example is still a great mystery to me. Super frugal, or does her family actually have some wealth?

It's obvious we care about details like that lol this is a fansite we want to know everything about their lives and discuss everything lol. Most of the viewership I suspect aren't too bothered about continuity things like the financial status of characters, they just want a laugh after a hard days work for example.

[Stephen Hawking]

And look at Howard.

Both he and Bernadette work (and she is being paid "a butt load of money"), and they have no Mortgage or rent to pay, yet he was panicking about them providing for their child.

14 minutes ago, Jonny said:

Amy for example is still a great mystery to me. Super frugal, or does her family actually have some wealth?

She is definitely Super Frugal.

From The Infestation Hypothesis:-

Amy: I do appreciate a bargain. This entire ensemble once belonged to my dead grandmother.

Penny: You’re kidding.

Amy: Everything except bra and panties. And they’re a leopard-spotted secret I share with Victoria.

From The Skywalker Incursion:-

Amy: Can I be in charge of pricing? I’ve been going to garage sales my whole life. Can you believe I got these pantyhose for a nickel?

------------------------------------------

And, with an image of Amy (dressed in nothing but leopard-spotted Bra and Panties) lodged firmly in my mind, I'm just going to take a shower and "brush my teeth".  

Edited March 17, 2017 by Stephen Hawking

[snapepans]

IMO, they should hire some die-hard fans for proofreading the scripts in advance, because the inconsistency problems are getting more and more ridiculous and obvious, to the point even the casual audiences noticed some of them, and they thought those contradictory plots were stupid, and they are NOT happy. Believe me. 

[Mario D.]

14 hours ago, Tensor said:

I think it's terrible.  The fact that there is nothing romantic going on isn't what bothers me. It's that TPTB can't seem to write a cute episode for Leonard and Penny.  All the seem to be able to do is an episode that is mostly disagreement between them.  That's why I dwell on it. 

Have to agree with you on this.  While it may not be romantic it does present an  uncomfortable situation for Leonard.  Why is she spending so much time with Raj instead of her husband. Cannot help to think that S4 E24 will come back up again JMO, but I hope not. Maybe if Leonard gets so annoyed by this that he will tell Penny how he really feels and they can move on as a happily married couple. Think the writers  have to come up with a meaningful heart-to-heart scene for Lenny.

[Tensor]

Skull, you are free to have all the opinions you want, about the show show. What you are not allowed to do is make oblique snarky, and/or derogatory comments about other posters opinions.

We hide those posts these days, especially from repeat offenders. It takes too much time, and we are not an editing service.  Follow the rules, and your post won't be hidden.  If you think replys are outside our rules, report them, don't answer them.  If we think they are outside the rules, we will take action on those.

 

 

[Mario D.]

13 hours ago, Tensor said:

And I disagree it's cute.  I haven't seen a cute Leonard and Penny Episode this year( an most of the last three  years).  There have been a few cute episodes in eight and nine, dirty store, slutty carrot, a couple of others.  But this year, there's been some cute moments here and there, but that's about it. 

Think their best episode together this year was the Fetal Kick Analyst where Penny signed autographs at a comic-con convention

[April]

In terms of consistency they handle some characters better than others.

Sheldon for instance started out needing a room mate to afford the rent but that was early S1 and the idea was still that the guys would be post grads or whatever with not that much money. Later on they went with the "Sheldon has piles of money/uncashed checks, doesn't really care about money and is generous towards his friends" angle - and they kept that over the years.

Bernadette went from being a doctorate who had to work at the cheesecake factory to being hired by a company that's paying her a ton of money. So she's doing fine and nothing has ever changed that.

We don't really know much about Amy's income but it seems like she doesn't really spend much money for herself and is also able to buy generous gifts - so it stands to reason she's doing fine with her finances

Then we have Leonard who for some reason doesn't seem as well off as Sheldon even though it would make sense. Does he make so much less than Sheldon?? Idgi. At some point they offered the explanation that he is still paying off student loans which is fair enough, I guess (and don't tell me Beverly would have paid for that - we all know her lol).

With Howard the situation is kinda weird cause you'd think a guy with his job would make a decent amount of money but then again he's also an irresponsible spender buying all sorts of over priced bullshit - so I guess the latter might be the bigger problem here. His woes about how he doesn't earn enough money are still weirdly out of place. I can buy him freaking out when he heard the (factually wrong, but still) number of needing $1million to raise a child in LA but by now he's had enough time for a fact check and going over his and Bernie's finances to see that it's not that terrible.

Similarly Raj is a big spender because he's Indian Richie Rich and never had to care about finances. I can easily buy that he went totally overboard with that but going to completely broke and a pile of debts immediately after his daddy stopped paying the bills is a pretty hard crash when he should be doing just fine with his income. Well, here's hope he gets his shit together!

Last but not least Penny: With her being a poor waitress/aspiring actress for the longest time I can believe that the accumulated quite a bit of debts over the years as we've seen her struggle with her finances plenty of times. Then she gets a job that pays her twice as much as Leonard (Hey, show, how much does he make again??) and has "a guy" and yet she still thinks those 6k savings he hid from her are a big deal she could do so much with? What!??? If we're going with what Leonard would realistically make at CalTech by now and double that she makes 6k in like two weeks. What does she need the 20 bucks from Leonard's grandma for???

[Tensor]

8 minutes ago, Mario D. said:

Have to agree with you on this.  While it may not be romantic it does present an  uncomfortable situation for Leonard.  Why is she spending so much time with Raj instead of her husband. Cannot help to think that S4 E24 will come back up again JMO, but I hope not. Maybe if Leonard gets so annoyed by this that he will tell Penny how he really feels and they can move on as a happily married couple. Think the writers  have to come up with a meaningful heart-to-heart scene for Lenny.

See, a meaningful heart to heart just doesn't matter.  They had a wonderful heart to heart in 9.02 (another example of a cute/sweet moment, in an otherwise crappy Lenny episode).  It appears to me that TPTB, don't care about Lenny as long as the show gets their drama from them. It's not all that much fun anymore. 

5 minutes ago, Mario D. said:

Think their best episode together this year was the Fetal Kick Analyst where Penny signed autographs at a comic-con convention

And even there, it was ruined by the "I/he wore her down" comments, and the fact that Leonard treated her like a trophy, not a wife he loves. 

[Stephen Hawking]

19 minutes ago, April said:

Later on they went with the "Sheldon has piles of money/uncashed checks, doesn't really care about money and is generous towards his friends" angle???

Not that much later on.

The Dumpling Paradox (where Sheldon implies he can't afford the rent by himself) was series 1, episode 7, and The Financial Permeability (where Sheldon spends less than half his after-tax income on expenses) is series 2 episode 14, around 15 months later.

Did something happen, during those ~ 15 months, that boosted Sheldon's salary, out of all proportion?

[Cloud Strife]

9 minutes ago, Tensor said:

They had a wonderful heart to heart in 9.02 (another example of a cute/sweet moment, in an otherwise crappy Lenny episode). 

An otherwise crappy Lenny episode? If you're talking about the fact that they both went out of their way to save their marriage, that Penny was able to forgive Leonard while they both talked about their biggest fears (losing each other) and received a wedding gift from someone who's usually a major pain in the ass, then sure, I can see how that's total crap.

24 minutes ago, Tensor said:

And even there, it was ruined by the "I/he wore her down" comments

The entire episode is ruined because of one meaningless comment that was supposed to make you laugh? I don't know how to process that.

[SRAM]

15 minutes ago, April said:

In terms of consistency they handle some characters better than others.

Sheldon for instance started out needing a room mate to afford the rent but that was early S1 and the idea was still that the guys would be post grads or whatever with not that much money. Later on they went with the "Sheldon has piles of money/uncashed checks, doesn't really care about money and is generous towards his friends" angle - and they kept that over the years.

Bernadette went from being a doctorate who had to work at the cheesecake factory to being hired by a company that's paying her a ton of money. So she's doing fine and nothing has ever changed that.

We don't really know much about Amy's income but it seems like she doesn't really spend much money for herself and is also able to buy generous gifts - so it stands to reason she's doing fine with her finances

Then we have Leonard who for some reason doesn't seem as well off as Sheldon even though it would make sense. Does he make so much less than Sheldon?? Idgi. At some point they offered the explanation that he is still paying off student loans which is fair enough, I guess (and don't tell me Beverly would have paid for that - we all know her lol).

With Howard the situation is kinda weird cause you'd think a guy with his job would make a decent amount of money but then again he's also an irresponsible spender buying all sorts of over priced bullshit - so I guess the latter might be the bigger problem here. His woes about how he doesn't earn enough money are still weirdly out of place. I can buy him freaking out when he heard the (factually wrong, but still) number of needing $1million to raise a child in LA but by now he's had enough time for a fact check and going over his and Bernie's finances to see that it's not that terrible.

Similarly Raj is a big spender because he's Indian Richie Rich and never had to care about finances. I can easily buy that he went totally overboard with that but going to completely broke and a pile of debts immediately after his daddy stopped paying the bills is a pretty hard crash when he should be doing just fine with his income. Well, here's hope he gets his shit together!

Last but not least Penny: With her being a poor waitress/aspiring actress for the longest time I can believe that the accumulated quite a bit of debts over the years as we've seen her struggle with her finances plenty of times. Then she gets a job that pays her twice as much as Leonard (Hey, show, how much does he make again??) and has "a guy" and yet she still thinks those 6k savings he hid from her are a big deal she could do so much with? What!??? If we're going with what Leonard would realistically make at CalTech by now and double that she makes 6k in like two weeks. What does she need the 20 bucks from Leonard's grandma for???

Here is how I see it, Leonard probably accumulated a lot of student loan debt during his undergraduate and graduate years.  I bet Beverly made him pay his own way just to see how he did so she could put his results in her book.  So with  huge student loans, living in California and other bills, I could see him not having a lot of money, but him squirreling away a few thousand for emergencies is very IC for him.

Penny was able to live by her waitress job, Leonard's help and her credit cards which she ran up and now has a lot of debt.  If she has a 'guy', like she says, then he probably put a plan together for her that has a credit card pay off schedule plus involves investing part of her salary.  Penny probably has more money to spend but she probably doesn't see most of her salary because it goes to pay her debt, her investments, and to pay her and Leonard's shared bills, so the money he has squirreled away just may interest her.

Amy is definitely frugal and Sheldon is too, except for his toys, let's face it, what they wear doesn't cost much and they don't seem to spend much on dates.

Howard and Bernadette are the well off members of the group, she makes 'buttloads' of money, Howard makes probably almost as much as the other guys and they got a free house from Howard's mother.  So Howard freaking out about the kid makes no sense.

Raj is a spoiled rich kid who has never lived within his means.  His apartment, car and expenses are way too costly for what he makes.  So now living on his own salary is difficult for him and he needs to cut expenses so that is why he moved.

anyway that is how I see them financially.

[Capt. Hilts]

9 minutes ago, SRAM said:

Here is how I see it, Leonard probably accumulated a lot of student loan debt during his undergraduate and graduate years.  I bet Beverly made him pay his own way just to see how he did so she could put his results in her book.  So with  huge student loans, living in California and other bills, I could see him not having a lot of money, but him squirreling away a few thousand for emergencies is very IC for him.

 

People in physics generally get scholarships and don't have the burden of huge loans, as medical, law and undergraduate students have.

For those in science fields, your income is often a function of the grants you are able to bring in to the university.  Remember Amy skyping with Sheldon about being the ?? number wife of the Saudi guy who helps fund her research, and how he had to get out there and lobby/market for money, otherwise "the dirt people" will get it?  That's how it works.  

[Tensor]

 

15 minutes ago, Cloud Strife said:

An otherwise crappy Lenny episode? If you're talking about the fact that they both went out of their way to save their marriage, that Penny was able to forgive Leonard while they both talked about their biggest fears (losing each other) and received a wedding gift from someone who's usually a major pain in the ass, then sure, I can see how that's total crap.

As I said, it was a cute moment in an otherwise crappy episode. Actually, it was a crappy three episode arc.  The beginning of 8.24 and the end of 9.02 were the only redeeming features for me.  

I would also recommend you look at our rules about snarky/sarcastic comments about other members opinions. 

15 minutes ago, Cloud Strife said:

The entire episode is ruined because of one meaningless comment that was supposed to make you laugh? I don't know how to process that.

Sorry, there have been multiple instances of that comment, not just one.  And the key phrase there is "supposed to".  It didn't make me laugh, all it did was piss me off, because it's been used several times (not just once) this year. If you don't know how to process that, that's fine.  But, it's how I, and more than several other Lennys here processed it. 

[SRAM]

10 minutes ago, Capt. Hilts said:

People in physics generally get scholarships and don't have the burden of huge loans, as medical, law and undergraduate students have.

For those in science fields, your income is often a function of the grants you are able to bring in to the university.  Remember Amy skyping with Sheldon about being the ?? number wife of the Saudi guy who helps fund her research, and how he had to get out there and lobby/market for money, otherwise "the dirt people" will get it?  That's how it works.  

I personally knew someone who had a scholarship for his masters which paid all tuition.  However it was from an expensive NE college in a high cost of living area.  He racked up a lot of debt in student loans for living expenses and for the college costs not covered by his scholarship.

[Stephen Hawking]

21 minutes ago, Capt. Hilts said:

Remember Amy skyping with Sheldon about being the ?? number wife of the Saudi guy who helps fund her research

Actually, she said he was her Fiance.