The Big Bang Theory: The Tangerine Factor

The Big Bang Theory: The Tangerine Factor
CBS
May 19, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This story by Lorre & Prady, teleplay by Aronsohn & Molaro, has Penny (offscreen) breaking up with her latest boyfriend, and Leonard finally asking her out.  She worries it might ruin their friendship, and Leonard worries he might blow it, but Sheldon offers them the wisdom of Schrodinger's cat.  OK, this isn't exactly a Tony & Angela build-up.  It's only been a season (and an abbreviated season at that), and, yes, Peonard (or whatever the ship would be called) turns out to be incredibly successful, but ending the season with the beginning of their first date isn't a bad stopping point.  James Hong returns as Chen at the Chinese restaurant, this time dealing with Sheldon's complaints in terrible Chinese.

TBBT in its first season ranges from C to B, and as ten of the seventeen episodes get a B-, it's probably no surprise that this averages out to a B-.  I'm not going to run out and buy Season Two, but I probably will be taking a look at it for my next blog, details when we get there.  For now, I can sort of see why this show was renewed, if not why it's been such a hit for so long.  Galecki is nowhere near as good as he was on Roseanne most of the time, and Parsons's Leonard is really the only character I consistently enjoy.  That said, this is definitely better than Season Five of 30 Rock, which also might appear on my next blog.

The Big Bang Theory: The Peanut Reaction

The Big Bang Theory: The Peanut Reaction
CBS
May 12, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
C

Not even the return of Vernee Watson as Althea can make me care about this story by Aronsohn & Prady, teleplay by Goetsch & Molaro, where Penny convinces Leonard's friends to throw him a surprise party, and Howard fakes and then actually has a reaction to eating peanuts in order to keep Leonard from going home.  For one thing, they could've thrown the party at Penny's, and the episode could've had a different focus.

The Big Bang Theory: The Pork Chop Indeterminacy

The Big Bang Theory: The Pork Chop Indeterminacy
CBS
May 5, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This Lorre & Prady story, turned into a Aronsohn & Prady teleplay, introduces Sheldon's twin sister Missy, who's as tall as he is but gorgeous.  Courtney Henggeler is actually quite good in the role, and it's a surprise that she's never returned in the almost decade since.  She's not a genius but she is a lot better at assessing people than "Shelly" is.  All three of Sheldon's friends want to go out with her, so Leonard tries to make a genetic argument that Sheldon should have some say in who his sister mates with, but Missy sets Sheldon straight.  It's also nice to see Penny actually interact with another woman.  I understand that more of the regular cast would become female over time, but the imbalance is glaring in the first season, and this is definitely a series from a particular male perspective, where women have to point out that they're people.

The Big Bang Theory: The Nerdvana Annihilation

The Big Bang Theory: The Nerdvana Annihilation
CBS
April 28, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
B

Bill Prady wrote the story, Engel & Molaro the teleplay, where Leonard bids on the time machine from the movie The Time Machine, thinking it's a miniature, when in fact it's a beautiful full-size model.  He can't even afford the $800, but his friends chip in so they can all share.  It's unclear how they would shuffle it back and forth between their homes, when it's hard for them to even get it up the stairs.  They're blocking the stairs when Penny is running late for work.  She has a series of mishaps when trying to go to work using the neighboring building and she in fact misses a day's pay.  She's so angry that, although usually sweet-natured, she yells at the guys, which is understandable.  However, she also calls them immature, which hits Leonard hard.  He's ready to give up his fandom merchandise, even after Penny apologizes.  Penny kisses his cheek and he wants to ask her out, but then her date shows up.

Watching this, I kept wishing that Leonard would go after a girl who would think the time machine was cool.  I understand that his pining for Penny is part of the set-up, and they would later date and marry, but it did bother me that he was willing to give up things that are important to him for a girl who thinks of him as a friend.  That said, his conflict is well done (Galecki can still act, even if he's never given anything as meaty as he got in the glory days of Roseanne), and the time machine and the gleeful geeking out over it are adorkable.

The Big Bang Theory: The Bat Jar Conjecture

Note the Red Shirts on Sheldon's team

The Big Bang Theory: The Bat Jar Conjecture
CBS
April 21, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
B-

While not everything works in this story by Engel & Glickman, teleplay by Cohen & Prady, it is at times more of a character study than we usually get in the first season of this series.  When Sheldon proves unwilling to be a team player for the Physics Bowl, Leonard reluctantly recruits Leslie Winkle.  Gilbert still has great comic delivery, as when she gets a T-shirt for the team named Perpetual Motion System and says, "PMS?  Well, it's a few days early, but OK."  The final scene is probably the weakest, since I'm not buying that Penny would, one, be so up on '70s and '80s pop culture, and two, see such knowledge as a sign of "going outside and talking to people."

Mark Harelik returns as Dr. Eric Gablehauser and continues to make little impression on me.  Note the irony of the discussion of "TV's Blossom," when Mayim Bialik would become a regular on this show in 2010.

The Big Bang Theory: The Jerusalem Duality

The Big Bang Theory: The Jerusalem Duality
CBS
April 14, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Engel & Glickman wrote the story, Goetsch & Molaro the teleplay, and it's about Sheldon's insecurities when a 15-year-old genius arrives, as well as Sheldon's friends' attempts to distract the genius with a girl.  Mark Harelik returns as Dr. Gablehauser.  It's nice to see Joel Brooks, as Professor Goldfarb, still has his comic timing three decades after his Three's Company cameos, and I wish they'd given him more to do.

The Big Bang Theory: The Pancake Batter Anomaly

The Big Bang Theory: The Pancake Batter Anomaly
CBS
March 31, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
C+

In this story by Lorre & Aronsohn, turned into a teleplay by Engel & Prady, Sheldon gets sick and is selfish about it, while Leonard is equally selfish in trying to avoid him, so poor Penny gets lied to and used again.  Erin Allin O'Reilly again plays Cheryl, I guess Penny's co-worker at the Cheesecake Factory.  Carol Ann Susi again provides the shrill voice of Howard's mother.

The Big Bang Theory: The Loobenfeld Decay

The Big Bang Theory: The Loobenfeld Decay
CBS
March 24, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
B-

In this Chuck Lorre story turned into a teleplay by Aronsohn & Prady, Sheldon feels so uncomfortable about Leonard's white lie to avoid hearing Penny perform in a musical, he comes up with a much more elaborate lie, even recruiting someone who had a Physics & Theater double major for the role of his drug-addicted cousin.  This episode isn't terribly plausible, but it is interesting to see it play out.

The Big Bang Theory: The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization

The Big Bang Theory: The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization
CBS
March 17, 2008
Sitcom
DVD
C+

Prady & Engel wrote the story, Aronsohn, Goetsch, and Lorre the teleplay, where the title situation happens when Leonard wants to present a paper he co-wrote with Sheldon, but Sheldon doesn't want to participate.  Penny tries to reconcile them but only makes things worse.  I would've gone with a B-, but Howard is extra creepy towards Penny this episode, making a robot car film under her skirt and posing with her when she's sleeping and posting the picture as a shot of him and his girlfriend.

The Big Bang Theory: The Grasshopper Experiment

The Big Bang Theory: The Grasshopper Experiment
CBS
November 12, 2007
Sitcom
DVD
B-

In this story by Goetsch & Molaro, turned into a teleplay by Aronsohn & Cohen, Raj skypes with his parents (Alice Amter, who'd return nine times, and Brian George, who was Ranjit Sudar on two episodes of Ellen and who would be back thirteen times) and finds out that they want to marry him off to a girl who was formerly a fat bully.  He wants to live his own life, and he has trouble talking to girls anyway, until Penny's bartending skills remove his verbal inhibitions.

This is the only TBBT episode directed by Ted Wass of Soap, but apparently he's done a lot of TV directing.

The Big Bang Theory: The Dumpling Paradox

The Big Bang Theory: The Dumpling Paradox
CBS
November 5, 2007
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Lorre & Prady wrote this story that became Aronsohn & Glickman's teleplay.  Howard begins a fling with Penny's visiting slutty frenemy, which throws the geek foursome off balance, especially when Leonard invites Penny to sleep over.

Kimberly D. Brooks, who provides the voice of the Automated Cell Phone, would later twice do the voice for a computer.  Carol Ann Susi, who was Ginger on Who's the Boss?, does the voice of Wolowitz's mother Debbie for the first of forty times.  (She died in 2014.)  James Hong, who's Chen the waiter for the first of two times, also did Who's the Boss?, as Thomas Ping, and he played a nameless man on The Bob Newhart Show, Peking Tom on Soap, and a different Waiter on Ellen; in fact his career goes back to the '50s and he was 78 at this point.  And, with the boost of his time on Roseanne, Johnny Galecki has now reached his 100th of my shows.

The Big Bang Theory: The Middle Earth Paradigm

The Big Bang Theory: The Middle Earth Paradigm
CBS
October 29, 2007
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Dave Goetsch's story, turned into Litt & Cohen's teleplay, has the four friends attending Penny's Halloween party, where Leonard confronts Penny's ex, Kurt (Brian Patrick Wade again).  When Leonard is humiliated, he retreats to his apartment, where Penny seeks him out, cries on his shoulder, and kisses him.  But he realizes that she's drunk and not over Kurt, so he doesn't pursue her now.  As always, Sheldon has the best lines, including about his Doppler Effect costume.

Erin Allin O'Reilly would return as Cheryl.

The Big Bang Theory: The Hamburger Postulate

The Big Bang Theory: The Hamburger Postulate
CBS
October 22, 2007
Sitcom
DVD
B

Jennifer Glickman wrote this story and would do five more, while the teleplay is by Goetsch & Molaro.  Leslie Winkle seduces Leonard and, although it's just a one-night stand for her, we can see that Galecki & Gilbert still had chemistry.  Penny is happy for him getting together with Leslie, and sympathetic when she hears it didn't work out.  Leonard overanalyzes all this.  And poor Sheldon has to deal with all these interpersonal relationships.  Note that although Leslie is a very different character from Darlene Conner, we see a bit of snark in her put-downs of Sheldon.

Andrew D. Weyman directed 45 episodes of Roseanne and five of Ellen, but this is only one for TBBT.

The Big Bang Theory: The Luminous Fish Effect

The Big Bang Theory: The Luminous Fish Effect
CBS
October 15, 2007
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Lorre and Prady wrote the story turned into a teleplay by David Litt (who'd do only one more) and Lee Aronsohn (who'd done three for Who's the Boss? and would do forty-three more for TBBT).  The plot has Sheldon insulting his boss, Dr. Eric Gablehauser (Mark Harelik in his first of five appearances in the role), and then getting fired and being at loose ends.  It's a bit slow but perked up by the introduction of Sheldon's Bible-Belt mother, Mary Cooper (Laurie Metcalf, another of Galecki's Roseanne costars).

The Big Bang Theory: The Fuzzy Boots Corollary

The Big Bang Theory: The Fuzzy Boots Corollary
CBS
October 8, 2007
Sitcom
DVD
B

Chuck Lorre wrote the story that became a teleplay by Bill Prady and Steven Molaro (his first of 202 TBBT scripts!), and it's laugh out loud funny.  Leonard sees Penny kissing another guy, which leads to him kissing, after much negotiation, his colleague Leslie Winkle (Sara Gilbert reuniting with Galecki, in her first of nine appearances in this role), and later going on an awkward non-date with Penny.  Sheldon again has the best lines, although not the only good lines this time.

The Big Bang Theory: The Big Bran Hypothesis

The Big Bang Theory: The Big Bran Hypothesis
CBS
October 1, 2007
Sitcom
DVD
C+

Lorre & Prady did the story that turned into a teleplay by Robert Cohen, who would do three more, and Dave Goetsch, who do sixty more!  And director Mark Cendrowski would do 211 more!!!  (So far.)  Yet it feels like a bit of a letdown from the pilot.  Although there are moments I laughed at, like Leonard using a lightsaber for a flashlight, it's hard to get past the idea that Sheldon goes into Penny's apartment while she's asleep in order to tidy up and sees nothing wrong with this, and Leonard, who does know better, goes along with it.

The Big Bang Theory: Pilot

The Big Bang Theory: Pilot
CBS
September 24, 2007
Sitcom
DVD
B-

The pilot introduces roommates Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki a decade after Roseanne), their friends Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) and Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), and their new neighbor Penny (Kaley Cuoco, who'd played Little Ellen on Ellen, as well as one of the daughters on 8 Simple Rules, which I don't own, and no, this character doesn't seem to have a last name).  It also establishes the blend of sex humor and geek humor.  (I'm not an expert on the series, but surely the title, with its Barenaked Ladies theme song, is a double entendre of sorts.)  There's not much plot here, other than the guys meeting Penny, and Sheldon and Leonard unsuccessfully trying to get her TV back from her ex-boyfriend Kurt (Brian Patrick Wade, who would return).  Sheldon has most of the good lines.  I own only this season at the moment and haven't decided whether to buy more, especially since it's still going and that would be a big investment of money and time.  I have seen episodes from different seasons, usually on hotel TVs.

This episode was written by show creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady.  Veteran director James Burrows didn't do any more episodes.  I'm pleased to see that Vernee Watson, still looking great and still with a dry delivery three decades after Welcome Back, Kotter, will be back as Althea the nurse.  And, yes, this is my first CBS sitcom since Square Pegs and M*A*S*H!