History Headscratchers / TheBigBangTheory

** We can live in hope that this is a BrickJoke, given who else is now signed up for eHarmony, of course...

[[WMG:Main/TheBigBangTheory]]
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** Since when have Sheldon and Penny have anything other than a borderline FoeYay relationship? He's CONSTANTLY critiising her. Often worse than anyone else! I hae nothing against the pairing (though I've been a Penny/Leonard shipper since the obvious foreshadowing started). Current Leonard is more or less a case of CharacterDerailment. Hopefully the writers will re-watch the first two seasons and learn to write him properly again.

* [[TheScrappy Leonard]] as a whole. [[DesignatedHero The hero of this sitcom.]] He seems to continually fail to hold all of the roles assigned to him. Instead of being the [[OnlySaneMan normal geek]] he seems to be constantly criticizing the personality quirks of what appear to be his only friends. He has no chemistry with his crush. He has no confidence. [[ThisLoserIsYou We're supposed to identify with him.]] and the writers apparently switch from Sheldon being officially asexual to having relationships mainly to deter the Penny/Sheldon shipping. When they have the most sexual chemistry in the show, albeit [[BelligerentSexualTension BST]]. Sheldon, with his personality problems, always projects confidence, and lives his life on his own terms. He is the type of geek that the fan's identify with. Leonard, however, is overflowing with self-loathing, and self centered. And why is his voice cracking? Sheldon's voice has high inflections and low inflections. People talk this way. This troper would make a drinking game over how many times Leonard's voice cracks unnecessarily, but it would result in alcohol poisoning.

** Yeah, and of course, if you're a scientifically literate, sceptical person who wishes to embrace the world as it is with as much knowledge as possible, lords knows it's definitely a rich font of comedy to put that principle aside in the name of sex. Oh, that wacky Leonard.

* He pronounced manga wrong. Sheldon pronounced the word manga wrong, back in Season One and it's bothered me every since. I understand it's a common mistake even among fans, but from someone as particular as Sheldon it's unacceptable. Sheldon is the type of guy who should be correcting someone for a mistake like that. Considering Sheldon's character anything but the correct Japanese pronunciation doesn't make sense. He probably knows it's history or anime and manga and is very aware of Japanese culture, how could he get it wrong?

** What actually bothers me about that is that at least where I live (SW Ohio), all the Cheesecake Factories are huge, ornate, and reminiscent of the dining hall from Harry Potter. They don't look like the bland dining area you see on the show.
** She explicitly had no feelings for him during the experiment or before or after copulation. However, she felt a strong urge to experience the chemical high induced by orgasm and preferred that it be triggered by the interactions of two people with no necessary emotional attachment, or as I believe one might call it, a "booty call". It's perfectly consistent, if you assume the premise that she was significantly more "horny" during the events of the fifth episode (particularly after a rousing session of musical accomplishment) than she was after heating up a cup of noodles and skipping a hypothetical date.

* OK, seriously. These are all college professors. There's no reason that Howard should live with his mom. Even more grating is that fact that nobody likes Sheldon yet Leonard lives with him. Even if they couldn't but an apartment alone, why didn't Leonard just room with Howard or Raj instead? WHY WOULD ANYONE LIVE WITH SHELDON?
** They're not actually professors, they're researchers, so their salaries are probably not that great. And there is actually an upcoming episode that explains why Leonard and Sheldon are friends in the first place. It's television, sometimes you just have to wait for things to be explained.
** Sheldon [[spoiler:saved Leonard from going to a federal prison by unknowingly preventing him from revealing state secrets to a North Korean spy]], later he [[spoiler:saved Leonards life in the same event that destroyed the elevator]] and [[spoiler:didn't denounce Leonard to the authorities for having super secret rocket fuel on his apartment, and destroying the elevator with it.]]

*** But where would he ever get a roomate as mediocre as Leonard? Every other person he interviewed was ''horrible'' (from his point of view).

* Penny getting pissed at Leonard for sleeping with Dr. Plimpton. Hello, she dumped him and she always has 36 hours of sex after a breakup. What's Leonard supposed to do? Stay celibate and pine over her?

** Not only did she dumped him, but did so in an extremely sudden and unjustified way.

** Isn't she just a nymphomaniac?

**** Why do you think it was something Walowitz did? She could have gotten bored of him (Leslie Winkle'd), realised they really didn't have that much in common and felt that one of them was holding the other back from being truly happy, cheated on him and smashe his mom's headlights and car windows with a baseball bat... Not that she is ''likely'' to have done something so out of character as that last one, I'm just making the point that it isn't ''just'' he who might have caused the breakup. It's perfectly possible that it was decided upon mutually, and he was trying to avoid bringing it up specifically ''because'' he knew he wasn't over her despite having agreed that it was for the best. Or she could have been eaten by a pterodactyl, and "we broke up" was his way of casting suspicion off of himself and his time-machine. ''You don't know the situation''.

* In "The Excelsior Acquisition", why are we supposed to find what happened to Sheldon funny at all? First, he gets a fine for something that wasn't anyone's fault (and, if someone '''had''' to be fined, it really should have been Penny, as it was her car), Penny didn't support him at all (going as far as to deny that it was the night she hurt herself, which is just incredibly unfair). I admit, what he did in court was incredibly stupid, but then Penny's attempt to make it up to him? She didn't call ahead about it? Come on! And then, we're supposed to find it funny when Sheldon gets a restraining order against Stan Lee, for something that was Penny's fault? Granted, it was Sheldon who went into Stan Lee's house, but it has been stated on multiple occasions that he doesn't understand sarcasm. This is just horrific on all possible levels.
** Sheldon was driving, Sheldon broke the law. Regardless of the situation it is the responsibility of the ''driver'' to observe and obey all traffic laws, therefore the fine was his to pay for and his alone. He also decided to mouth off to the judge with landed him (rightfully) in contempt of court. Every bad thing that happened to him is his own fault.

**** But where would he ever get a roomate as mediocre as Leonard? Every other person he interviewed was ''horrible'' (from his point of view).

** The most common opener in traditional Rock-Paper-Scissors is Rock. People know that, so they play paper to cover rock. Other people also know that so they throw scissors first. Which causes people to throw rock, etc etc. The entire game (even with the extra options) is one giant PrisonersDilemma.

**** ...Wow. Even [[MDEnvy a]] [[ButtMonkey string theorist]] would consider that absolutely ridiculous. That's not just a misguided attempt at DoingInTheWizard, it's straight-up ''{{technobabble}}''.
**** Well unfortunately Penny might not understand if he were to spew {{technobabble}} about quantum entanglement but maybe if he were to simply refer to it as [[StarTrek reversing the polarity]] then she might have a better idea.

** Don't forget that Sheldon is a TedBaxter who ''thinks'' he knows more than he actually does. Just look at his efforts to learn Chinese.

** Oh my God, completely agree. I literally screamed when he said MAIN-guh. But, to be honest, manga was never brought up again, and anime was only brought up as a ShoutOut to ''TwoAndAHalfMen'' - in Season Three. It's very possible that Sheldon just doesn't know enough about Japanese art to know the difference. Also, when I first got into anime and manga about eight years ago, there was a very real rift in the US fandom over whether the pronunciation was MAHN-guh or MAIN-guh. Although this rift eventually dissipated and most fans began using the pronunciation MAHN-guh, given Sheldon's inability to let anything go, he may have been on the opposite end of the debate, and refuses to acknowledge the correct pronunciation out of stubbornness. (Obviously, I put way too much thought into this show.)

* Leonard as a whole. [[Designatedhero The hero of this sitcom.]] He seems to continually fail to hold all of the roles assigned to him. Instead of being the [[theonlyperson normal geek]] he seems to be constantly criticizing the personality quirks of what appear to be his only friends. He has no chemistry with his crush. He has no confidence. [[ThisLoserIsYou We're supposed to identify with him.]] and the writers apparently switch from Sheldon being officially asexual to having relationships mainly to deter the Penny/Sheldon shipping. When they have the most sexual chemistry in the show, albeit [[BelligerentSexualTension BST]]. Sheldon, with his personality problems, always projects confidence, and lives his life on his own terms. He is the type of geek that the fan's identify with. Leonard, however, is overflowing with self-loathing, and self centered. And why is his voice cracking? Sheldon's voice has high inflections and low inflections. People talk this way. This troper would make a drinking game over how many times Leonard's voice cracks unnecessarily, but it would result in alcohol poisoning.

* Leonard as a whole. [[DesignatedProtagonist The hero of this sitcom.]] He seems to continually fail to hold all of the roles assigned to him. Instead of being the [[theonlysaneman normal geek]] he seems to be constantly criticizing the personality quirks of what appear to be his only friends. He has no chemistry with his crush. He has no confidence. [[ThisLoserIsYou We're supposed to identify with him.]] and the writers apparently switch from Sheldon being officially asexual to having relationships mainly to deter the Penny/Sheldon shipping. When they have the most sexual chemistry in the show, albeit [[BelligerentSexualTension BST]]. Sheldon, with his personality problems, always projects confidence, and lives his life on his own terms. He is the type of geek that the fan's identify with. Leonard, however, is overflowing with self-loathing, and self centered. And why is his voice cracking? Sheldon's voice has high inflections and low inflections. People talk this way. This troper would make a drinking game over how many times Leonard's voice cracks unnecessarily, but it would result in alcohol poisoning.