The Big Bang Theory
Episode 8: The 43
Peculiarity
Mini-Review
By: Carlos Uribe
The
Big Bang Theory is about a group of friends who happen to be nerds
and the girl next door.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
The
43 Peculiarity feels like a rejected plot from before Amy and
Bernadette were introduced. It might have been pitched in the second
season but put in the library of rejected ideas. The writers must
have needed to write an episode last minute so they picked this out
of the group of bad ideas. They adjusted it enough some of the
elements but kept most of it intact. This is the only way to explain
the episode. It doesn't feature Amy or Bernadette and the jokes
largely fall flat. The plots themselves were weak. There's the main
plot that involves Leonard and Penny. Leonard finds out that Penny
met a British guy at school and he's coming over to do a project. He
acts insanely jealous because he's afraid that Penny will cheat on
him. Leonard becomes so insufferable in this episode that it's
shocking Penny doesn't dump him. He really deserves it which I'm
pretty sure was not the intention of the episode. The series instead
has Penny proclaim that she loves him. She runs away to cry and
Leonard is relieved to find out his girlfriend. The entire plot is
largely so boring and lifeless that it calls into question on what
they're even doing together.
While
this is all going on, Howard and Raj realize that Sheldon spends
twenty minutes of his day disappearing and doing something. They
decide to try and solve this mystery. They find out that he goes to
an old supply closet in the basement only to find out that the door
is locked. They later sneak in when Sheldon isn't there and discover
a number. They try their best to decrypt it but they can't. This
leads to them putting in a camera in the closet but Sheldon sees it
and plays a trick on them. They don't find out what he does but the
audience does. He plays hacky sack for twenty minutes in order to let
off steam. The number is the record of how many times he's played the
game before dropping the ball. I'm not saying this doesn't seem
uncharacteristic of Sheldon but...this seems slightly out of
character for him. The idea that Sheldon might be doing something
mysterious with this time seems like a good idea but it failed in
execution.
I
might be wrong and this is just an episode the writers put together
in haste because of a deadline or maybe they just lacked inspiration.
Whatever the case might be, The 43 Peculiarity is a forgettable
episode and it's easily amongst the worst this show has done. Here's
hoping it's back to top form next week.
Other Notes:
Despite
being insanely terrible, this is now the most viewed episode of the
season. Wikipedia claims this is because Penny accidentally professed
her love to Leonard at the end. That claim rings false considering
how late in the episode it came.
My
thoery on what they changed in my completely baseless speculation
that this is a rejected script from season two: they probably had
Leslie be the one who flirted with Leonard but changed it to Alex
while they made the reason the guy is visiting school related rather
than work related.
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