TBBT 7x04: The Raiders Minimization

Amy watches Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time. When explains how Indy has no effect on the outcome, Sheldon's jaw drops.

Since she ruined Raiders for him, he has to ruin something for her. First he tries Pride and Prejudice, but he finds it too perfect.

Then he tries to ruin Marmaduke and Garfield, but winds up falling in love with the latter.

He does a good job of ruining Little House on the Prairie, but Amy gets wise to his tricks and tells him that they're in a relationship, so he should talk to her and not just try to seek vengeance.

He agrees and they talk it out. Then he gets revenge by telling her Garfield has no reason to hate Mondays, since he's a cat and doesn't have a job.

Meanwhile, Penny is reading Leonard's mother's book for her psychology class. He's not happy about it, because it's about his childhood.

The book brings up lots of painful memories that make Leonard sad, so Penny does what she can to make him feel better.

Then he gets greedy and lies about being sad so he can get out of going to a sports bar.

And to get some at-work sex.

Eventually, Howard spills the beans to Bernadette, who tells Penny, who tricks Leonard into talking to his mother. She wants to talk about his sex life, which makes him sad for real.

Elsewhere, Raj needed something to do in this episode, so he and Stuart make online dating profiles. They get a lot of views, but no messages.

So they go to a bar and get shot down by women in real life. It feels even worse.

What I Liked
-They remembered that Penny's going to college. I thought they totally forgot about that.
-One of the chapters in Leonard's mother's book is about how Leonard favoured her left breast when he was a baby, and he still goes left today. Hee-hee.
-On his dating profile, Raj puts down "My parents' money" as his best feature. In reality, that probably would get him a lot of girls. The ladies love a guy with money, even if it's not really his.
-Sheldon's mom got revenge on his dad for staying out all night by putting hamster poop in his chewing tobacco. That's some good vengeance right there. Not too punishing, but fairly disgusting.
-The faces Stuart makes for his profile picture.

I've seen worse.

What I Hated
-Somehow, Amy made it into her 30s without seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark. For someone who hangs out with enormous dorks on an exclusive basis to have not seen that film is preposterous. TV shows do that sort of thing with some regularity: Someone's favourite movie is a hugely popular thing that everyone has seen, and yet their boy/girlfriend has never seen it.
-Bernadette would rather take a bath alone than have sex. That's not a good sign. Her relationship with Howard is about to become one of those stereotypical TV relationships where the man wants sex, but the woman doesn't. It happened to Ray Romano, so it can happen to them, too.

Final Thoughts
Geez, Kevin Sussman really is on the show more when he's in the end credits than he was when he was in the opening credits.

It's a bit weird how Penny busts Leonard by putting on sexy lingerie and starting a video chat with his mother. Sure, men like boobs, so it's a good trick, but I don't know anyone who would sit around in their underwear in front of their boyfriend's mother just to get back at him. At any rate, as I've mentioned...

Men like boobs.

Raj and Stuart's plot was highly underdeveloped; a casualty of once again having three plots in a single episode. It also wasn't terribly realistic. I've used a couple dating sites in the past and I can say that no man gets 162 profile views in two hours. Men outnumber women to such a great extent on those sites that it's just not mathematically possible. Plus, in general, men have to take the initiative and contact the women first. It's basically the same as going to bars, only faster and more convenient.

The whole three plot thing never really works out right. Seven minutes is not enough time to develop things properly, so at least one of them will always seem half-assed. They've been jamming all seven main characters and Stuart into the show lately, and I'm starting to wonder if there's even enough room for them all. Other ensemble shows tend to write people out for a couple episodes rather than trying to fit them all in. But I understand that can be a bit difficult when you're paying someone at least $60,000/episode. You want to get your money's worth and they want to work.

One final point: If not for Indy, the Germans would have tortured and mutilated Marion. He saved the girl. He's a hero.