The Big Bang Theory Monday 9/25--The Proposal Proposal

I assumed this was a case of real life writes the plot. So I had just checked and verified that this morning.

Will it turn out Stuart is dating an older widow? I strongly suspect it.

The show is still entertaining but of course more like a pair of comfortable old sneakers than anything great at this point.

I just read how the original 5 each took a $100,000 an episode pay cut so that Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bialik can get raises and can achieve pay parity by the end of the show’s run. Everyone seems to be in agreement that the 12th season will be the last.

This after the main three stars, Galiki, Cuoco and Parsons went the Friends route once it became clear the show was going to be a hit. When they negotiated their last contract before this final one, they included Nayyar and Helberg. And now all 5 banded together after the scuttlebutt indicated Rause and Balik would not get the raises they requested.

P.S. Parsons does get extra as an Executive Producer on Young Sheldon. Although I think his job as Executive Producer was to put flesh on the written bones of Sheldon Cooper. Good on all of them. Makes me like the show that much more.

I agree with others re: Raj, they really need to figure something for him out.

I really do think one of the reasons Kaley Cuoco works so well is she really nails the physical humor and facial expressions.

I do like that Penny and Leonard have become the ‘normal’ or at least drama-less couple at the moment. They’re the only ones I can really see myself as - the ones who feel fairly set and get to comment on everyone else’s drama.

I figured this was the reason Bernie got pregnant in the first place, only to find out that Rauch wasn’t pregnant and they were using fake belly props and such. Kinda funny how that works.

A lot of people want a baby until they have one.

Re: bolding. Maybe, maybe not.

I thought it was good but it could have been funnier. At least Penny and Leonard were more funny than usual.

As someone who has had a baby, and more importantly, works at a preschool, can tell you, having a toddler and an infant is something no one envies. Any time the mother of one of our really young ones becomes pregnant, everyone says, “What were they thinking,” (or not thinking, more likely). And there are comments about how tough it will be having two in diapers. And no one envies people with twins, no matter how cute they are.

Howard and Bernie’s reaction is totally realistic, totally what I would have predicted, and I could totally relate. I didn’t have a period for a full 18 months while I was breast-feeding, but I still used my diaphragm religiously from day one after the baby was born. Thanks goodness I didn’t accidentally get pregnant again.

I loved the ending. Amy hugging Ramona was so perfect.

I’m not a romantic at all, but Sheldon saying “The only woman I want to kiss for the rest of my life is Amy” had me tearing up.

I hope this (probably) last season ends with the Shamy Wedding.

This season will not be the last season. They have already signed up for season 12, which will probably be the last.

I gotta say that something about Sheldon saying it struck a chord with me. You know he can’t be making it up.

Binge-watching the show in order-- it turns out to be a dramedy about Sheldon becoming a real boy, with Leonard as his Jiminy Cricket. I don’t think that was the original vision of the show at all.

Which goes to the heart to the “Sheldon isn’t autistic” thing I’ve maintained for a long time. He was improperly socialized, as are a lot of other TV characters who are quirky. Pheobe on Friends, for example or Reid on Criminal Minds. Parents with different degrees of nuttiness, on-off schooling, or being in a grade several years ahead of one’s age mates, and no one really looking out for your social development. It happens really, really rarely in real life, but it does happen, and you get people who need therapy to take them through the developmental stages, but it’s not impossible. I once knew a daughter of an ambassador, who had been schooled mostly by tutors, was an only child, and hadn’t had a lot or opportunity to play with other children until she was 10. She was in the 6th grade, because that’s where she placed, she spoke three languages, was very bright, and she was strange in a way you couldn’t put your finger on. She and I had both lived in Moscow, although at different times, and I kind of felt sorry for her because she got picked on. She was Canadian, and her father worked at the consulate, but her parents were separated, and so she was living an ordinary life for the first time in Queens, NY, and in a public school (I think her mother finally got a clue about her social skills).

I’ve known genuinely autistic people, and I can see where a lay person could confuse someone poorly socialized with someone with autism, but it’s a different thing.

So we get to see Sheldon go from being a self-centered infant, to a toddler who is beginning to grasp that other people exist outside of his needs, but isn’t happy about it, to a child, who is constantly seeing something new in people every day, and finding it fascinating, to a horny teenager, to an adult, who understands what being in love is.

Incidentally, we watched Amy go through the developmental stages a few seasons back. It started when she had her “girls’ night” with Penny. It was really interesting, because the writers were pretty consistent in how Amy came out of he shell, almost like they had a copy of Piaget on the desk.