Episode 1, Season 1: “’Pilot”
This is the episode that sold the show. It is the first episode to which viewers were treated back in 2007. I don’t have this luxury – I have over four years of family and friends haranguing me with ‘did you see the part’, basic character sketches, and snatches of episodes across all seasons. I’m trying to ignore that information, and go at this as empirically as possible.
So let’s get started. Cold open: Two nerdy gentlemen enter an office, probably doctor or dentist or some such. We know they are nerds by their costuming, and on this particular point, I will give the show some credit. The mismatched clothing and shoulder bags have a certain geek flair to them, and seem reasonable if hyperbolic. While they enter, they are technobabbling away about particle/wave issues, and the punchline’s putting that on a t-shirt. Trouble has already started. As best I can tell, there is no joke in the particle/wave comment – the joke is only present for the viewer laughing at the nerd. Internally, there’s no impetus for the comment. Why the t-shirt? This isn’t like Fraiser’s high-brow kibitzing with Niles: in that case, there were always two levels. The accessible level, where it’s funny to hear two yahoos yammering about their favorite topics, but there was also care taken to include a high level, contextual joke, like that it’s a pun on opera titles. No, this show doesn’t bother. This is no ‘There are 10 kinds of people in the world…’ it’s just asinine.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
My Hypothesis
My family and friends have been after me to begin watching CBS's 'Big Bang Theory' for the past few years. The argument goes something to the effect that, "Hey, you're a nerd, this show is made for you!" I finally submitted, and watched a few alarmingly disrespectful episodes...
My nerd credentials are, no doubt, secure, but I feel need to list a few minor highlights for this audience. I hold a PhD in physical chemistry, have over 10,000 MTG cards (not to mention substantial collection of SW:TCG - Decipher - and WoW cards), a 4,000 point space marine army that I have painted (salamanders) among other miniatures, and separate storage cabinets for my comics, trades, and RPG books. It is from this position that I posit that this show is the moral equivalent of blackface (not to state that there is any similarity in the degree) and should be viewed in the same light as any exploitative genre. I hypothesize that the first goal of this show is to use it's characters as a bludgeon to insult and impugn a social class, mockery of the lowest order with little redeeming value. The writers have little truck with real geek or nerd culture, and this show's commercial success is made by perpetuating shameful stereotypes.
This blog will catalog my trip through the series by DVD, attempting to disprove my hypothesis. I have ordered the first set of discs this morning, and will follow with episode by episode details. Perhaps the episodes I've seen (more recent ones) are misrepresenting the series? Wish me luck.
My nerd credentials are, no doubt, secure, but I feel need to list a few minor highlights for this audience. I hold a PhD in physical chemistry, have over 10,000 MTG cards (not to mention substantial collection of SW:TCG - Decipher - and WoW cards), a 4,000 point space marine army that I have painted (salamanders) among other miniatures, and separate storage cabinets for my comics, trades, and RPG books. It is from this position that I posit that this show is the moral equivalent of blackface (not to state that there is any similarity in the degree) and should be viewed in the same light as any exploitative genre. I hypothesize that the first goal of this show is to use it's characters as a bludgeon to insult and impugn a social class, mockery of the lowest order with little redeeming value. The writers have little truck with real geek or nerd culture, and this show's commercial success is made by perpetuating shameful stereotypes.
This blog will catalog my trip through the series by DVD, attempting to disprove my hypothesis. I have ordered the first set of discs this morning, and will follow with episode by episode details. Perhaps the episodes I've seen (more recent ones) are misrepresenting the series? Wish me luck.
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