As part of my ongoing project to blog more (in addition to part of my ongoing project to alleviate boredom at work), I’ve decided to try and blog more about my random opinions on things that I like. Or maybe even things that I don’t like if I’m feeling sassy. I’ll try to keep the content from devolving into complete drivel that absolutely no one wants to read. Bear in mind that those of you who are more West Coast-ly, or who record now, watch later may want to hold off on reading this until after they’ve watched tonight’s Big Bang Theory. Don’t watch it? Well, you should!
So. Big Bang Theory. It’s one of my favorite TV shows, and one of the few shows that I literally go out of my way to watch it when it airs. It’s some combination of impatience and the fact that all my friends post spoilers about the show on Facebook that leads to this, but I’m not complaining. It’s worth going out of my way. One of the reasons that I like Big Bang Theory is that the humor is multidimensional. There are inside jokes that only geeks would get, and there are more overt jokes that the average person would get. Now, one of the downsides to this is the fact that the overt jokes are all typically laughing at the geeks, and not with the geeks, and this tends to make some of my more geeky friends dislike it. However, I see this as a price that we have to pay in order to get an entertaining show on network TV, even if it does “set geeks back” a bit. C’mon, we’re a subdivision of humanity that does things fully knowing that others will laugh at us for them, stop taking things so seriously!
Anyhow, my biggest gripe with the show has always been the female characters that Leonard is attracted to. I’ve always seen Leonard as the geek guy that really aspires to have a girl to share common interests with, and the writers tend to like having him pine after attractive women that he has little in common with (ie: Penny and Priya), or “unattractive” nerd girls (like Leslie Winkle) who he actually shares commonalities with. I’ve been hoping for a while that they’d ditch those two stereotypes and present a geek girl who’s actually attractive, which they have come close to on occasion (Bernadette is a reasonably strong candidate, Leonard’s Ex Stephanie was alright). Still, every geek girl has fallen short in some regard, and sadly the best recurrent female character that we see is Amy Farrah Fowler, who’s most admirable in the fact that her character has developed and adapted over time.
So tonight’s episode was particularly promising to me when the character of Alice was introduced. She’s attractive, talented, she likes comic books… she’s exactly the type of woman that Leonard and the show both need. Admissibly, I don’t like the thought of Leonard cheating on Priya because he’s a good guy, but I was really hoping that this would be the last kick that he needed to break off his silly long-distance relationship. It’s still too soon to judge, but based on Alice’s reaction to him, I suspect that we might not be seeing the likes of her any more. I know that long term fans of the show have hopes of him getting together with Penny, and I have to give Penny some credit for at least trying to understand some of the more geeky aspects of Leonard’s personality, but I still think that the show would be much better with more strong female geeks involved.
Or, you know, more Wil Wheaton cameos. I can’t say that I would complain if he and Leonard both switched teams to be together. Whatever it takes to get him in more episodes!
