Television Review - The Big Bang Theory season 8 Premiere

With much anticipation regarding the shows return, I felt like there was added pressure for BBT team to deliver once again this season, but would they be able to cope with the pressure and give us a solid opening two episodes, episode 1 The Locomotion Interruption the season 7 finale (The Status Quo Combustion) had Sheldon leaving to go on a train journey (as it seems that’s what happens on BBT someone leaves at the end of a season) but the difference in this case, though Sheldon was gone for 45 days he spent no time “off-screen” and honestly I don’t blame the writers, since a lot of the shows material is centred around Sheldon.

I felt like Sheldon running round with no pants on in a train station (I assume that’s where he was) felt a lot like when he gets robbed twice in Bozeman bus station, I digress, Sheldon left because he was having a personal crisis about how things were changing in his life and how he couldn’t cope with these changes, but it seems that his time away on the trains eating vender food and drinking Imodium seems to have somehow fixed his problems, though you know that the problems that he was facing (Leonard and Penny getting married and then Sheldon would be without a roommate, and that Amy would happily become his roommate) are going to be something he’s inevitably going to have to face again.

Speaking of Amy I was glad that they mentioned the fact that he just left without even telling/seeing her which I did think “no way is he just going to go without even seeing her” but he did, and then the person he called for help was Leonard and not her, which he does kind of explain in the car, but it does seem like she just forgave him way too quickly for his once again unkindness, the sub plots were a lot better though, Penny’s job interview (with mentions of her new hair) finally seems like a step forward for her stale character, and then the Stuart/Wolowitz stuff was strong also.

Overall I felt this was a very average episode for a season premiere, it was textbook big bang, slow building storylines and then seemingly forgetting or thinking we forget what happened in the past. Though the show does work I’d like to think if they have given it 3 more seasons the character arc’s need to develop, after all who stays the same for what 10 years? Again Bernadette had the best line and involved in the best scenes. (Also the line about the cloud is more than apropos at the minute)

3 stars

As this was a double bill premiere the second episode The Junior Professor Solution I was really hoping BBT’s second episode would really deliver and honestly I feel it had to with the very average first episode, something needed to set the tone for the season. Luckily the second episode was far better than the first, it just felt more enjoyable, more old school BBT, this episode was much more drama free, it seems Sheldon’s problems are something to be kept for future episodes, but there was an issue from last season that was addressed in this episode, and that was Sheldon’s desire to abandon String Theory, Caltech had a compromise to make Sheldon a Junior Professor so he could study what he wanted but he’d have to teach.

Thus created a new conflict between Sheldon and Wolowitz as the latter decided to take Sheldon’s class, this made for some great moments, as viewers know these two seem to have a great little rivalry and Sheldon is often having digs at Wolowitz for not having a doctoral degree and only being an “engineer” so they had some great back and forth which went from high brow to low brow in an instant, from complex questions to a spit ball, with Sheldon’s fantastic reaction being the episodes highlight.

I feel like this episode will be the last we see of Wolowitz taking Sheldon’s class but I would like to see more episodes of Sheldon teaching I think that could be highly entertaining, again the episode’s sub plot was great with Amy getting to be centre of attention with the girls as she “played high school” and talked about one girl with the other and vice versa this probably only would have worked with Amy because of her character and the way she is, it would have made others just look bad,

Overall I feel like this episode delivered highly in comparison to the first episode it was “classic” BBT in humour and tone, as I stated earlier I’d really like to see the show develop more this doesn’t change with one good episode, I’d like it to happen at a good steady enjoyable pace as to be expected, but if they continue to deliver episodes of this quality I can’t imagine there’d be too many complaints.