The Big Bang Theory: The Communication Deterioration (8x21)

This episode wasn't great. It fell into the trap that this show often falls into - they set up some interesting scenarios with a lot of potential, and then failed to deliver. Let's take a look.

Raj gets the honor of working on a proposal for NASA about a message sent out to from Earth to potential aliens. Raj asks the other guys for suggestions. When Howard and Sheldon start bowling him over and making all of these decisions, Raj decides that he and Leonard will work on it alone. Sheldon and Howard are upset about being excluded. Raj and Leonard realize that since neither of them are natural leaders, they can't get anywhere without Sheldon and Howard. They ask them to come back in on the project. However, as they all work together, Raj, Howard, and Leonard slowly realize that Sheldon is the one who always gets his way. In the episode tag, we see aliens receive Sheldon's message and discuss how delicious he looks.

Meanwhile, Penny is torn about her future. She doesn't know if she should go audition for the part in the Kevin Smith movie, or just keep going with her sales career. She goes to Sheldon for advice, who at first insists he won't help her, since he's just learned that he tends to boss people around too much. Eventually, he caves and tells Penny that she should go to the audition and get more information, but there's no reason to make a decision yet. Penny goes to the audition, but she remembers how much she hates the competitive atmosphere, and she decides to stick with her job. She thanks Bernadette for getting her the job, and Bernadette pressures her to take her and Amy out to a thank you dinner.
 

So... with the whole message to the aliens thing, I just felt like there was a lot of wasted potential. They could have done so much more with coming up with a creative idea, and anyway, their idea didn't make any sense. What if there are forms of intelligence that exist as waves of light? Tactile, physical existence isn't a guarantee. And what if they're not carbon-based, and can't interact with the physical material as the Earthlings present it? There also could have been much more exploration of what the message would actually be. I was disappointed with the wasted opportunity.

Penny's plot thread was even worse. Last week, we had this tantalizing idea of Penny re-exploring her dream to be an actress. But instead of actually exploring that, we had two seconds of Penny in an outer chamber at an audition. We didn't even get to see her read for the part, and suddenly she's decided that acting isn't for her. Okay... It annoys me, because it seems like all of Penny's long years of dreaming have been pushed aside rather quickly. And here we had a chance to actually explore that, and see if maybe Penny has some lingering doubts. And they waste it on a few seconds, without any great jokes!

That's not to say there was nothing good about the episode. I loved the moment between Penny and Sheldon. She does the whole knocking routine like Sheldon always does for her, and admits that she kind of liked it. Sheldon advises her against trying again, because she'll be stuck with the compulsion for the rest of her life. They talk about trains, and Sheldon ends up giving some good advice. He also admits that he knows he needs to work on being so controlling. Their friendship is so delightful.

I also liked the moment when Raj and Leonard finally come up with an idea for the message to the aliens, but then Leonard points out that this idea is the exact same one Howard and Sheldon had come up with on the spot, the minute they started brainstorming. That was pretty funny.

I guess that's all I've got. A mediocre episode of this show is still better than one that insults my intelligence or contains blatantly offensive messages. Still, after a long stretch of surprisingly enjoyable installments, I'm feeling a bit let down.

5/10