Watching Newhart act is interesting. He seems really tired and slow. Like he’s barely able to perform. Fortunately, his naturally slow verbal pacing fits in with this. I was wondering how slow he was in real life and then there was the bit where he walks quickly across the room to get to Penny. So, maybe the tiredness is an act.
The best lines were Amy’s. She’s had some good ones lately. That’s not good. The main characters should have better lines.
In previous threads about “What’s the deal with Raj?” I’ve suggested that Raj is a lesbian woman trapped in a man’s body. Hence his highly developed feminine side plus an interest in women.
The part with Sheldon accosting Newhart at the pharmacy line was painful. In real life, any one of those people would have told Sheldon that Newhart’s Rx is a private matter and asking about it is just not done, hence laws like HIPAA. Sheldon does follow social conventions and rules, you only need to make him aware of them. There was just way too much of this crap in this episode.
Sheldon is funniest when he flips around on something stupid and does it overboard, but naively, the other way. Doubling down on the stupid doesn’t go anywhere.
As to the light-saber belt buckles. Saw it coming, knew it was going to be bad, and it was. Seeing something that bad coming always makes it doubly worse.
You must have missed the pathetic and cynical young and middle aged Bob Newhart. That is his schtick. His material was just not as good here as the writers were not writing only for the purpose of setting him up, which on his own show they did. I’ll agree, he was under-used here, but he did very well with what they gave him.
To a guy who is conflicted about his sexual orientation, losing a girlfriend just confirms the idea that he’s incapable of having a straight relationship . . . which is something he’s still clinging to. He’d be VERY heartbroken.
Just got to watch this tonight. I was disappointed.
Sheldon is annoying. Yes. But him repeating it over and over again is more annoying. And I know that was the point of it, but it doesn’t work for me.
And Newhart is a genius, but I don’t find “old and slow” to be funny.
Before Sheldon got more annoying by repeating the “annoying” phrase over and over again, I liked that he showed that he was baffled and hurt that people thought that. “I’ve been hearing it my whole life - I’m annoying!” seemed like he was cracking a bit while talking about it with Amy.
…I remember not laughing at this at all 20 years ago. Now: this scene cracks me up. I have no idea if my sense of humour has improved or degraded over the years.
I think we definitively destroyed the “Raj might be gay” meme way back in the Burnadette/Bollywood episode. Raj has his own brand of awkward - each of them has one.
You’re thinking of Eddie Izzard.
I found this episode profoundly unsatisfying. It feels like everyone from the writers to the actors is trying to wean us off of the series so they can go on to other projects.
