The Big Bang Theory, March 13, 2014 -- "The Mommy Observation"

I don’t know… I grew up in SW Houston and went to school in a school district that wasn’t HISD, and I got several trophies for academic competitions of various kinds… and this was middle school in the mid-80s (1984-1986).

My pet theory is that Sheldon grew up somewhere not too far east of Houston- like Liberty, Winnie or maybe Anahuac. They’re close enough for him to have been born in Galveston, far enough east to be “East Texas”, and close enough for Sheldon and Howard to drive there from the JSC after Howard’s speech.

I’m pretty sure one was a Browning semiauto shotgun.

I thought the Sheldon/Mother storyline was hilarious, and the Raj/Mystery storyline was completely lame. So, on average, the episode was just okay.

This is how it’s been for me for a couple seasons now.

It’s sad how much the characters have changed in to caricatures of themselves.

Sheldon has gone from “too smart for the crowd” to “semi-functionable social retard”

Raj went from “overwhelmed foeign shy kid who’s too scared to talk to women” to “effeminate semi-gay”

Penny went from “too hot for these guys but they took me in and they’re cute and sweet in their own way” to “borderline alcoholic who mooches off of her idolizes her friends”

The only ones who have grown positively are Howard (tries to hard love guy to calmed down married one) Amy (robot freud thing with Penny to mature woman), and Leonard (shy scared awkward kid to a more confident proud nerd).

The plots are whatever, those come and go in TV all the time…but the characters are the ones who changed and narry for the better

Unaired pilot: http://video.anyfiles.pl/videos.jsp?id=78111&pos=1136

I have never seen it before. I am glad they went the other way.

Remember the last 2 or 3 years of The Office? They were a disaster.

I guess Hollywood TV shows just have a desire to stay on 2 or 3 years after they jump the shark to cash in as much money as possible.

I’m done with this show. It has turned into a complete piece of shit.

I’m fed up of reading this on here. If you think she is even “borderline” alcoholic then you have never dealt with an actual alcoholic. She’s not even close.

Penny likes to drink. Penny gets drunk. Penny jokes about being drunk. This does not make her anywhere close to being an alcoholic.

It makes her 20-something.

Seriously though. This thread. Fucking hell, you guys really know how to suck the fun out of something, don’t you?

And you would be correct. The schools in metro Houston along the Gulf Freeway are generally VERY good and academically rigorous.

After watching that, which I also have never seen before, I’m glad they went the other way too.

Any idea who the two actresses were? The one who played the female nerd looked sort of familiar.

Yeah, but a TRUE geek would know that the title of the other Harlan Ellison Outer Limits episode is “Soldier”, not “THE Soldier”. BBT loses points for that one.

The Bradbury Building was used for lots of other TV shows and movies, too. Notably the original D.O.A., which has its climax there.

Thank you. Penny just drinks a lot. Believe it or not, you can do that and not be an alcoholic, or even close to one.

Iris Bahr played Gilda. Amanda Walsh played Katie.

I remember having this problem when Sheldon saw Santa Claus at Baybrook mall. That’s at least a 4 hour drive from any place that I would call East Texas. I thought it was just a problem with Californians not realizing that Houston is not East Texas, but Jim Parsons is from Spring; he should know better.

Thanks, GuanoLad!

I live about ninety minutes west of Houston. I agree with you here. He clearly is from somewhere in southeast Houston. They keep saying he is from East Texas, which is generally an area north of Houston and east of Dallas. No place in metro Houston would be called East Texas.

It says here that he was born, at least, in Galveston:

Not too long for a day trip in that part of the country.

For some reason I thought the Coopers were from Beaumont.

Looked to me like she just did up a couple more buttons on her cardigan. Maybe Melissa Rauch has been getting uncomfortable with the “noise-cancelling breasts” stuff?

I remember Sheldon saying something about his hometown having a large population of Vietnamese fishermen, which made me think Beaumont or Port Arthur.

They mention East Texas quite often, and as someone who grew up behind the The Pine Curtain, I would not tend to consider Houston or its suburbs “East Texas”.

Thanks for posting that link. I quite enjoyed the unaired pilot. It would have been a different show had they gone that direction. Katie would have been a darker and edgier character than Penny. Sheldon wold have been much different.