Quick thoughts on tonight's "Big Bang Theory" coming up just as soon as I ask for more than a comic book and a robot... There are episodes of "BBT" where it feels like the show has caught up to Jim Parsons' great work as Sheldon. And then there are episodes like "The Guitarist Amplification," where Parsons seems way too good for the rest of the show.
So many parts of the episode drove me up a wall, from the repetitive and unfunny Leonard/Penny argument (which would have had me going for the blender as well were I in the room) to yet another nails-on-a-chalkboard fight between Howard and his mom(*), to the way the writers keep selling Stuart out as a loser after giving him such a promising introduction at the end of last season.
(*) Seriously, I want to find whatever member of the "BBT" writing staff who dreamed up Howard's mom and/or the one who keeps arguing to include these scenes, and I want to lock him in a room where he can do nothing but hear those two actors yelling at each other for at least 72 hours. Maybe then he'll understand how I feel about that.
And yet Jim Parsons had that perfect moment where Sheldon acted out every argument his parents ever had. (As Fienberg put it, it was like Alec Baldwin's Emmy-winning therapy scene from "30 Rock," only played for real - and still screamingly funny.) Watching it in the middle of this otherwise lame episode was like going to see a band give a mediocre concert punctuated by the guitar player surprising everyone with a face-melting solo. There are nights when the rest of the band can almost keep up with the guy, but mostly he's carrying the group all by his lonesome, and the imbalance can get awkward.(**)
(**) If you prefer to put faces to analogies, "The Big Bang Theory" is Stillwater from "Almost Famous," and Parsons is Russell Hammond. I look forward to his "I am a golden god!" moment.
What did everybody else think?
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