The Big Bang Theory Blows Up in My Face

So I had seen The Big Bang Theory once or twice on an airplane and then happened to catch an episode or two this season and found its portrayal of hopelessly nerdy science geniuses fairly entertaining. In particular, I was enjoying Jim Parsons' portrayal of the socially hopeless Sheldon who always insists on intelligence, correctness and order, correcting people's sentences, making fun of their gaps in knowledge - he has a certain way of putting things that makes me laugh. So this week I decided that I should be taping this show and make it a part of my regular Monday TV night (having dumped Heroes I have the extra time).

However, last night's episode sucked all the humor right out of me. The premise, in essence, was that Sheldon requires everyone to not interfere with his compulsive tendencies and gives them demerits including banishing them from the apartment when they get in the way. His friends understand that it's not worth fighting him since, one can assume, it is easier to be nice to their friend than try and mess with his uncontrollable compulsions. However, his neighbor decides to interfere with his needs and make him as uncomfortable and miserable as possible.

Now I know I'm taking this way too seriously and reading too much into it but as someone with a few OCD issues myself, I did not find it remotely amusing for the neighbor to taunt poor Sheldon who has no control over his needs to have things a certain way. Of course when someone messes with my irrational sense of order, I don't ban them from my apartment but to have the neighbor go out of her way to do things that mean nothing to her but make him upset was just plain mean. His insistence on order is supposed to be an endearing quality and part of the joke is that everyone caters to it. I'm going to keep watching but I do hope the writers can refrain from torturing Sheldon in the future.

Rant over. Thank you for listening.