The Big Bang Theory: The Wedding Gift Wormhole (12x02)

This episode is educational in the specific way that The Big Bang Theory often fails. Let's take a look.

Cons:

So, there's a subplot where Stuart accidentally gets a spray tan and turns too orange. This... it's so cliche that it's a parody of itself. This happened to Ross on Friends over two decades ago. It's just lazy writing. I'm so uninterested in Stuart's new love life with a woman who is probably far too good for him. Also, Stuart was the very last holdout for a potential queer character on this show, and we didn't get it. Not that I'd actually want to see the writers write a non-straight character, because they'd probably suck at it... but still.

Okay. So. As I said, this episode is a good educational example of how this show fails at being comedy. The premise has a lot of intriguing possibilities. Basically, Amy and Sheldon get a mysterious wedding gift from Leonard and Penny, and they can't figure out what it is. They go crazy trying to figure it out, and end up deciding that it's a scavenger hunt to find the real present. We learn early on that instead, Penny and Leonard just passed along a weird gift they got from Howard and Bernadette, and we then learn that initially Howard had received the gift from Raj for his wedding. It's a quartz wand thing. It's... decorative? It's useless.

With this premise in place, there are a couple of different directions you could go. Show an elaborate treasure hunt, with Amy and Sheldon getting more and more convoluted to convince themselves that this was all a plan. Watch as Leonard and Penny laugh at their folly. Then, provide a sweet ending, where Leonard and Penny cave, tell them the truth, and provide them with an actually thoughtful gift for their best friends' wedding. Or, you could go another route, where instead of telling the audience early on that the gift is meaningless, you string us all along. Or maybe Penny and Leonard decide that they have to quickly make a scavenger hunt for Amy and Sheldon to follow, because they feel guilty for getting them so excited. You'd have one couple making up clues while the other couple was solving them, with heist-like hijinks involved.

Instead, we get a setup with no funny punchline. Amy and Sheldon think it's a scavenger hunt, they find a locket, they think it's the real gift, and they tell Penny and Leonard about it. They don't learn the truth. The only "consequence" of this is that the newlyweds return the favor by giving Penny and Leonard a code to crack, which they're not happy about. I can think of so many scenarios that would have been more funny and creative than what they went with. Again and again, this show disappoints.

Pros:

I really don't feel a lot of sympathy for Raj in his loneliness, because he's kind of a dick to women. However, I am cautiously interested in this arranged marriage plot thread. I actually hope that it works, that Raj and his new fiance are happy with one another. Maybe the show ends with Raj moving back to India? Maybe something with actual impact happens on this gosh darn show? I don't know. All I'm saying is, my interest was piqued and I'm watching closely.

That's all for now!

4/10