The Big Bang Theory
This weekend Hawk and I watched the the final two episodes of The Big Bang Theory. It wrapped up 12 seasons on broadcast TV. For those not familiar with the show, take a look at IMDb's series page.
Though its one-line description, "A woman who moves into an apartment across the hall from two brilliant but socially awkward physicists shows them how little they know about life outside of the laboratory" covers only one piece of the story.
We had these episodes on DVR and watched them delayed. Prior to watching them our newsfeeds already had articles about the finale. Most of them were negative, panning the episode for being contrived. That made me consider not bothering to watch. I am a casual watcher of the series, not particularly a fan. But I went ahead and watched it, and I'm glad I did. I was pleasantly surprised I enjoyed the finale.
There were two twists in the finale that seemed to irk a lot of viewers. I thought they worked. Here's my view:
[Final episode spoilers! Tap to open.]Sheldon's Nobel acceptance speech was touching. His realization that he hurts the feelings of people around him, after all these years of not noticing, was not contrived, IMO. Seeing that his friends were willing to abandon him instead of celebrate his pinnacle of success was the right kind of shock to wake him up to that. Yeah, such a dawning moment doesn't track with psychological studies of narcissistic personality disorder or autistic spectrum behavior, but as drama it works.
Also, I've seen many fans upset by Penny's embrace of being pregnant. It rings true to me, though. When I was in academia in my 20s virtually none of my female peers were interested in starting families. Many took it to the extent of being overtly anti-marriage and even anti-family. A few years later... many of them were married, pregnant, and happy. Not all of them, of course, but a good many.
Though its one-line description, "A woman who moves into an apartment across the hall from two brilliant but socially awkward physicists shows them how little they know about life outside of the laboratory" covers only one piece of the story.
We had these episodes on DVR and watched them delayed. Prior to watching them our newsfeeds already had articles about the finale. Most of them were negative, panning the episode for being contrived. That made me consider not bothering to watch. I am a casual watcher of the series, not particularly a fan. But I went ahead and watched it, and I'm glad I did. I was pleasantly surprised I enjoyed the finale.
There were two twists in the finale that seemed to irk a lot of viewers. I thought they worked. Here's my view:
[Final episode spoilers! Tap to open.]Sheldon's Nobel acceptance speech was touching. His realization that he hurts the feelings of people around him, after all these years of not noticing, was not contrived, IMO. Seeing that his friends were willing to abandon him instead of celebrate his pinnacle of success was the right kind of shock to wake him up to that. Yeah, such a dawning moment doesn't track with psychological studies of narcissistic personality disorder or autistic spectrum behavior, but as drama it works.
Also, I've seen many fans upset by Penny's embrace of being pregnant. It rings true to me, though. When I was in academia in my 20s virtually none of my female peers were interested in starting families. Many took it to the extent of being overtly anti-marriage and even anti-family. A few years later... many of them were married, pregnant, and happy. Not all of them, of course, but a good many.