This is the wonder of the Internet. It unfailingly turns up the one person in the world who gets it while everyone else is wrong.
How many times do you plan to repeat that?
That was Chekov.
nm
Adam West stood up when he made his toast to Sheldon.
And he was never seated in Sheldon’s spot. He was in the middle of the couch.
The best thing about this episode was that Emily wasn’t in it.
She’s definitely not one of Sheldon’s nine friends.
ETA: “Emily or Cinnamon” is hilarious.
If Stuart ever DOES get a girlfriend, she’ll need to be played by either Mila Kunis or Lacey Chabert.
Seriously? So many of the actors were out of character, it felt like I was watching a different show altogether.
Whiny Sheldon is funny. Mellow Sheldon is not. His complete lack of reaction upon seeing Adam West was unbelievable.
Sheldon is the Frank Burns of Big Bang Theory. Allow him to change in any way, and you undermine the humor inherent in the character.
Bitchy Leslie Winkle is funny. Sweet Leslie Winkle is not. Even if you believe people are capable of a 180 degree change in personality, there was no reason for it other than to wedge the actress into the episode.
Kripke hitting on Beverly was just plain stupid. The woman is old enough to be his mother, too.
Menopausal Beverly as a cougar was equally as dumb. (Maybe her divorce has finally fired her hormones.)
Was that really Stephen Hawking on Skype, or a still photo pulled off the Internet? (How could you tell the difference?)
Why weren’t Mary and Missy shown Skyping their congratulations too? Or even Raj’s parents (separately or individually)?
LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner could have come to the party along with Wil Wheaton, but I suspect that would have put the show way over budget.
Tiny Spock, or Professor Proton making an another Obi-wan appearance, could have been funny. End the episode with a dream sequence as a result of Sheldon eating so much cake and ice cream he has tummy upset. Have Goofy or a Gorn wish him a happy birthday. These would all be classic (funny) Sheldon.
Since he and Sheldon are such good buddies, James Earl Jones should have made an appearance too!
Courtney Ford (“Alice,” the artist who hit on Leonard) would be a much better choice. They ought to have a lot in common, and she goes for nerds anyway.
…whiny Sheldon is boring. You just need to read these threads every week to see that people hate whiny Sheldon. Mellow Sheldon is interesting. You might not agree with me, but hey, its a television programme. What are you gonna do?
His complete lack of reaction upon seeing Adam West was believable. Why do you think he would react otherwise?
Larry Linville left MASH after five years because he got frustrated that they never changed his character. Why couldn’t they give him a few wins? Fortunately after nine years of Big Bang Theory, Sheldon isn’t the same Sheldon that was in the pilot, because that would be very boring for most viewers. He’s grown and changed as a character, in very specific ways, shown in several key episodes over the last three years.
I’m sorry that the episode didn’t end with Sheldon having a tummy upset. I’m sure that ending would have been a laugh a minute. But the writers chose to go in another direction and do you know what? I’m perfectly fine with that.
Hadn’t thought of that. I would have loved to see James Earl Jones at the party!
For that matter, where the hell was Mee-Maw, whom they went to so much trouble setting up just a couple of weeks ago? :dubious:
While Leslie has been shown not to get along with Sheldon in the office, nothing about her suggests that she is a one-note bitch-- in other words, she is capable of recognizing that when she is a guest at someone’s birthday party, she needs to reign in her usual. In fact, she pretty much* says* that.
Barry hits on anything with a vagina and a pulse. And Beverly’s hormones get going when she’s had a few drinks. Besides, I didn’t notice that she was responding to Kripke all that much. He *said *she was, but his radar has been off before.
Does it matter? It was probably a real photo that Hawking gave permission to use. Apparently he is a big fan of the show, and when he had his guest spot, he actually went to California to do it-- I’d always assumed they sent Jim Parsons and a small crew to the UK.
It’s on the cutting room floor.
I think the changes in Sheldon and Amy have been done very well. Amy actually went through the developmental stages that she seemed to have missed as a child. She was a toddler in one season, then an elementary schooler in the next, then a teenager in the next (emotionally), in her interpersonal life, while always being a very competent adult at work. And Sheldon’s changes have been dropped in very-- miserily, for lack of a better word, but that’s good. Too many shows drop an established characterizations over just an episode or two. The only other time I can think of a show handling character growth in an adult so well is when MASH *showed character growth in MAJ Houlihan over a couple of seasons to change her from the female versions of Frank Burns, to someone who was still very much “regular Army,” but slightly more flexible, better at being friends with a variety of people, and more importantly, not afraid to show that she needed friendship.
Sheldon still approaches life on his own terms, but the shell he built as a result of being bullied and picked on so much has finally been cracked. Also, a lot of what people perceive as “autistic” traits in Sheldon is really probably (assuming for the moment he is real) the result of improper socialization. Sheldon is a good example of why schools don’t actually super-promote kids anymore (that is, have them skip grades). They put them in special gifted and talented programs, and if they are bright beyond what the G&T program is designed to handle, recommend they be privately educated-- someone like Sheldon would have easily gotten scholarships to any private school he wanted-- and either way, they remain with children around their own age, and abilities, and have a social life.
In my day, every school had a student who skipped a grade every couple of years. Now it’s almost as rare as a hen’s tooth, since any student who is exceptional is in a G&T program. G&T programs started being implemented about the time I was in the 6th grade.
She used up all her frequent flyer miles.
The party was a last-minute thing, and plane tickets ain’t cheap, especially last minute ones. Leonard’s mother is a best-selling author, and has money; Sheldon’s family does not. And as has already been said, Missy probably had a party, so they may have had a prior commitment. Her party was probably planned months ago.
Like Frank Burns, Sheldon is a comedic contrivance. They should never have changed him or “let him grow.” Just because he’s “different now” (e.g., no longer thinking of selling his sperm) doesn’t mean he’s funnier. He isn’t.
Anyone into comic books/movies/TV shows would have been ecstatic at meeting Adam West, especially if he came to their birthday party. If he’d show up at mine, I’d be pissing my pants with joy! (The only thing that would make it better would be if he were there with Burt Ward.)
Penny or Bernie, both of whom make a buttload of money, could have bought Mee-Maw a round-trip coach ticket, no sweat. And what would keep Mary and Missy from Skyping for a few minutes? 
Who says they didn’t, and we just didn’t see it? Maybe they Skyped while Sheldon was in the bathroom with Penny, and Leonard said he’d call them back when Sheldon came out of the bathroom.
EVERYTHING about her suggests that! If she’s not insulting Sheldon, she’s using Leonard and Howard, or putting down Penny.
Since when? Name another instance. Just one.
When she’s blitzed after a night of binge drinking with Penny, yeah. The next morning, she reverts to her normal frigid self. It’s like watching Spock go through pon farr.
Why couldn’t they have done an actual Skype hookup and made him look, you know, alive somehow?
Amy, yeah. It would have been strange if she hadn’t changed, once she started hanging around with (relatively) normal people. There was never any hint that she suffered from a behavioral disorder, or anything other than a bad childhood. And her character is much funnier now than when she was introduced.
Sheldon, on the other hand, is (if I may quote Howard) “looking at ‘quirky’ in the rear-view mirror.” If a friend of mine were undergoing such a drastic personality change, I’d be worried about him.
Quite frankly, I always preferred “Hot Lips” to “Margaret.”