The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Review
We Left Things in a Hot Dense State
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, July 29, 2012
If you're reading this review of
The Big Bang Theory's second season, I assume that you're
already familiar with the show and aren't concerned about spoilers, to the extent there are any for
a series that's largely episodic. If you're new to the show, then stop now and switch to the review
of
season 1. This is
your first and only warning.
After leaving viewers on a cliffhanger at the end of season 1, as Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and
Penny (Kaley Cuoco) headed out the door on their first official date, series creators Chuck Lorre
and Bill Prady must have been sorely tempted to indulge fan desires by bringing back the two
neighbors as the newly minted couple everyone wanted them to be. Fortunately for the fans,
Lorre and Prady gave them what they
really wanted, which was to keep Leonard and Penny apart
for another season, because, let's face it, frustration is a whole lot funnier than fulfillment.
Besides, it was too soon to restructure the world so carefully laid out in season 1. Seventeen
episodes weren't nearly enough to chart the neurotic topography of Leonard, Sheldon (Jim
Parsons), Raj (Kunal Nayyar) and Howard (Simon Helberg), the token non-Ph.D. of the
group—not to mention Penny, who has her own secret cache of crazy, as Sheldon discovers when
he makes the mistake of introducing her to online gaming. Prematurely reshuffling the group
would have meant passing up the comic potential that remained in the existing relationships. And
oh what riches they still had to yield.
A friend of mine has a pet phrase to describe an ongoing situation: "more of the same, only more
so". The expression aptly captures
Big Bang's second season, in which each character progresses
further along the same path, and deeper into the same thicket of hang-ups and delusions, that
established the show's template.
Raj still cannot talk to women, but that hasn't stopped him from trying. If anything, his non-verbal communication skills have broadened now that
Penny has become a regular member of
their group. With brief bursts of confidence, either from alcohol or from unusual occurrences like
being named to
People Magazine's list of "Top 30 Visionaries Under 30" (episode 4), Raj makes
brief forays into the world of dating, but mostly he tags after Howard on crazy quests like
locating the house where
America's Next Top Model is filmed (episode 7). Perhaps his most
intriguing adventure of the season is his fanboy encounter with
Firefly and
Sarah Connor
Chronicles star Summer Glau on a San Francisco-bound train (episode 17). The exotic physicist
and the beautiful actress seem to be getting along famously, until Howard points out that the beer
Raj is drinking is non-alcoholic, so that all his smooth talk is a placebo effect. The curtain of
silence instantly descends.
Howard continues to find ever more inventive ways to disgrace himself with the opposite sex. He
even makes a play for Penny, which leaves him needing medical attention (episode 12). More
serious consequences await when Howard tries to impress a pick-up by inviting her to drive the
Mars Rover (episode 8). The Rover ends up in a ditch on Mars, and Howard desperately calls his
friends to help him sneak the lady out of the secure government facility he's breached, then cover
his tracks in the computer logs. And it turns out Howard never had a shot with the woman
anyway. But for sheer degradation, nothing can beat the decision by Leslie Winkle (Sara Gilbert)
to adopt Howard as her boy toy, only to dump him unceremoniously when she's had enough,
leaving him devastated (episode 21). A trip to Vegas and a (sort of) Jewish hooker are the only
cure.
Penny has begun a subtle evolution, of which the most obvious sign is her growing comfort
hanging out with a group of nerdy physicists (and one engineer) whose jobs and hobbies she
generally doesn't understand. After her failed date with Leonard, she rebounds, briefly, with one
of the vacuous hunks that had been her type until recently (episode 2). Leonard, just as briefly,
runs into the arms of Leslie Winkle; both relationships are for show, and both end as soon as
they've achieved their purpose. Midway through the season, Penny makes the startling discovery
that there's such a thing as a physicist hunk, in the person of David Underhill (played by
Battlestar Galactica's Michael Trucco, in a sly bit of stunt casting; episode 11). David rides a
motorcycle, looks like a million bucks, talks like two and knows how to party. For a brief
moment, Penny seems to have it all, but she quickly discovers that a wolf is a wolf, even in
physicist's clothing. By the end of the season (episodes 20 and 22), Penny has graduated to a full-blown nerd: Stuart (Kevin Sussman) from the
comic book store. The only problem is that she
slips and calls him "Leonard" when they're making out. I wonder what
that means.
Leonard remains the glue that holds the group together. He's the one always looking for a way to
heal rifts, asking people to take it easy on each other, or hoping that problems will blow over.
Special insight into Leonard arrives in episode 15, when he suffers through a visit from his
psychiatrist mother, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter (Christine Baranski), whose detachment and self-absorption rival that of Sheldon. So proficient is Dr.
Beverly that she has Penny bawling about
her childhood within the time it takes to ascend the apartment building stairs. Beverly and
Sheldon bond almost immediately, like two parents clucking over a problem child, and Leonard
seeks refuge across the hall downing tequila shots with Penny. The results are not what either of
them hoped for.
As for Sheldon, he remains the star of the show, certainly in his own mind and in reality as well.
His distinctive combination of intelligence, eccentricity and shamelessness endows Sheldon with
unusual power, allowing him to triumph over such seemingly unbeatable foes as a DMV
employee (played by future Oscar winner Octavia Spencer; episode 5). He's able to enforce his
friends' compliance with a lengthy list of seemingly petty rules, on pain of expulsion from his
life, as Penny learns to her horror when she unknowingly accumulates three strikes and is
"banned" (episode 7). The ensuing battle disrupts everyone's lives and ends only when Leonard
slips Penny a covert tip about the ultimate weapon against her opponent (a/k/a "Sheldon's
kryptonite").
In episode 6, Sheldon attracts what appears to be a groupie (Riki Lindhome), prompting Penny to
ask the others what Sheldon's "deal" is. No one really knows, though various speculative
theories are offered. If one can look past the abrasiveness, the whining and the acts of personal
pettiness—admittedly not an easy thing to do—it often appears that Dr. Sheldon Cooper is
motivated by nothing more than a genuine desire to advance human knowledge and share his
findings with the rest of the world. (Such appears to be the desire behind the train trip to San
Francisco on which the group meets Summer Glau, because Sheldon believes that Nobel Prize
winner Dr. George Smoot
must read his latest paper.) He is capable of surprising acts of
generosity, as in episode 14, where he discovers that Penny is short of money and offers her a
loan at no interest and with no set term, or in episode 18, where he volunteers to help get her
start-up business off the ground. As with many great characters, Sheldon is a mass of
contradictions, which is why his possibilities have yet to be exhausted.
