The Big Bang Theory: The Convention Conundrum (7x14)

You know what, I'm so sick and tired of seeing this supposedly "nerdy" show dismiss nerdy things as childish and insignificant. It makes me so mad when something like Comic Con is treated like the punchline to a joke instead of as a meaningful community experience. Ugh. Let's look at the plot.

The guys try to get Comic Con tickets, but they don't succeed. Leonard, Raj, and Howard decide to buy scalped tickets, but they chicken out at the last second, worried that they'll get in trouble. Sheldon decides to start his own comic book convention, and after he fails to get any good guests, he uses twitter to track down James Earl Jones. He shows up where Jones is eating dinner, and the two of them bond over their shared love for Star Wars. They make a fun night of it, singing karaoke, going to a carnival, and even ding-dong-ditching Carrie Fisher. By the end of the night, Sheldon is a bit exhausted, but it's all worth it when James Earl Jones invites Sheldon and his friends to attend Comic Con as his guests.

Meanwhile, the girls try to think of something more "grownup" to do, while all of the boys are behaving like children. They decide to go to a tea service, but when they get there, they realize that most of the people there are little kids with their mothers. Penny, Amy, and Bernadette discuss the fact that they don't want to be grownups if it means doing things they don't think are fun.

So. As you probably guessed from the way this review started, I do have a very large fundamental problem with this episode. It's not childish or immature or stupid to place value on fan culture. It's just not. This show runs on the platform of being "nerdy," but it spends much more time making fun of nerds than it does showing them to be complex and real people. And yeah, I get that it's just a sitcom or whatever, but I get really fed up when this show pretends that it's a friendly show for nerds, but then just pokes fun at this stuff instead.

My other main problem was that only one of the three plots was actually interesting.

So, you've got the girls and their tea party, which couldn't hold my attention at all. It was a lazily written plot thread with very few memorable jokes, and a very obvious theme. The boys, other than Sheldon, basically just hung out in the apartment and talked about how scared they were to get in trouble. A few funny moments, such as Howard's daring exploits with Pepto Bismol, were not enough to lift this plot from its general mediocrity.

However, this episode wasn't a total flop. Sheldon's plot was hilarious. We've had a lot of famous guest stars on this show, playing themselves. Wil Wheaton, Bill Nye, Leonard Nimoy, and more. But James Earl Jones was my favorite by far. I love how enthusiastic he was, and how Sheldon ended up being the one a bit tired of hanging out with him, instead of the other way around. The Carrie Fisher cameo was brilliant. There were several jokes about her being crazy, so I didn't expect to actually see her. Too funny.

So, there it is. Mostly, I was really, really not a fan of this one, but the stuff with James Earl Jones was so funny that I can't write it off entirely.

5/10