The Big Bang Theory: The Separation Agitation (10x21)

I want this show to just be about the Wolowitz family now. I can't believe I'm saying that.

Cons:

Penny and Leonard have become useless lumps of characters. That is all.

One of the main plots this week focused on Bert. This is a character I normally find funny. He can come into any scene, make a couple of deadpan remarks, and then depart. But when the spotlight was focused on him for so long, the joke wore out pretty quickly. He gets a hot girlfriend by buying her things, then decides to respect himself and so dumps her, and then gets her back by buying more stuff. We don't really learn anything or develop his character much. A fairly useless plot thread.

Pros:

Amy and Sheldon's Fun with Flags Retrospective was pretty great. That's a recurring bit that I always find pretty funny.

As is typical lately, the best part of this episode was the stuff with Bernadette, Howard, and Stuart. It's time for Bernadette to go back to work, but all three of the adults are having separation anxiety about leaving baby Halley in daycare. Cue shenanigans. Cue Howard and Stuart taking Halley to the aquarium instead of going to work. Cue my favorite line of dialogue, when the three of them are crying over saying goodbye to Halley, and Stuart says "at least Halley isn't crying," and Bernadette responds: "she's not going to see us all day and she doesn't even care!" So great.

I remember when Bernadette got pregnant, I worried that this new addition to her life would be treated the way babies in sitcoms are often treated. They get pushed aside, and the characters have the same busy social lives as they always did. We see this in Friends, in How I Met Your Mother, even in Scrubs, a show that I think does a better job showing parenthood than most. But The Big Bang Theory, a show I do not think is very good at all, has actually managed to do something really lovely with this whole parenthood story line. I want more of it.

And that's all I've got. The rest of the episode was pretty bland, but Bernie and baby saved it from total obscurity.

7/10