“The Big Bang Theory” is currently my favorite sitcom on television and in its fifth season, it’s managed to show that its characters have evolved greatly since the pilot. Only four years ago, the series was very much about four geniuses who learned how to socialize thanks to their sexy and ditzy neighbor. And now in its fifth season, the characters have grown, changed, and evolved.
The cast grew from an original five in to seven characters, and the once womanizing obnoxious Howard Wolowitz is a man on the verge of marriage and experiencing a major step forward in his career as an engineer. As with all the seasons of the series, this season is ripe with geek references and major geek guest stars, and it doesn’t let its fan base down a bit.
The addition of Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bialik has been a real shot in the arm of a show that was already packing in the laughs, and has evened out the ration of men to women allowing the character Penny a fighting chance against the males in the series. What stays the same is Penny’s introduction in to the universe where intellect and genius is a norm for everyone around her. She’s still the odd man out, but has learned to fit in perfectly. While Mayim Bialik’s introduction as stiff female genius Amy Farrah Fowler was awkward at first, the talented comic actress has managed to find her place in the series as a regular and has formed a unique and hilarious relationship with the show’s main source of comedy, Sheldon Cooper. The episodes revolving around their relationship are unique and thankfully void of clichés. Sheldon is still a social outcast with a God complex, but Amy spends most of the season trying to work around that to make him in to a worthy companion (“The Launch Acceleration”).
And Raj’s mutism is touched upon further with his romance with his Siri phone, and brief relationship with an arranged bride who reveals herself to be a closeted Lesbian. The best addition is still Melissa Rauch as the dysfunctional but incredibly charming Bernadette whose soft spoken disposition is a consistent source of comedy for the series. Her relationship with Howard is often entertaining and her role as an impending bride is an added spice to her character. Rauch has a charm and incredible beauty that makes her tough to resist, and she can handle one-liners with her own unique flavor. Whether it’s screaming at kids at a birthday party, or muttering “Pew! pew” during a video game session with the guys, she’s irreplaceable at this juncture. Even though the show is still packing in laughs and wonderful performances, “The Big Bang Theory” is still about the geek fan base, and it delivers in spades quite often. Season five is the year where the show offers its one hundredth episode, and to mark the occasion, the season provides some excellent guest stars.
In the hysterical “The Transporter Malfunction,” Sheldon and Leonard are given a vintage Star Trek transporter toy as a gift, and Sheldon is greeted with a dream of his hero Leonard Nimoy as a Spock action figure insisting he play with his transporter. After Sheldon breaks it, he swaps it with Leonard’s, and must face Nimoy’s spirit in toy form yet again, plagued with the guilt of conning Leonard. And of course in the hilarious “The Hawking Excitation,” Sheldon agrees to be Howard’s personal slave in exchange for meeting his one and only hero Stephen Hawking. And who can forget Will Wheaton who shows up for Howard’s bachelor party in “The Stag Convergence” where a drunk Raj reveals a shocking bit of information about Howard’s sex life that is posted on Youtube and puts his relationship with Bernadette in jeopardy. While the series has changed and admittedly waned from its original charismatic writing, “The Big Bang Theory” is still going very strong and can still offer some raucous laughter from its sharp writing and top notch performances.
This fan intends to follow it until the end. Or at least until the writers write in a pregnancy for one of the characters. Unless it’s Sheldon. That would make things interesting and horrific. Among the entire season there is the ten minutes “The Big Bang Theory @ 100” where the cast and crew celebrate the series’ milestone one hundredth episode and shoot the episode in front of a live audience. There’s the fifteen minute “Professors of Production,” a large tour of the various departments that work on the production of the show including the writers, and the producers. There’s the twelve minute “Laws of Reflection” where the cast share their own memories of Season Five, and finally there’s a nine minute Gag Reel filled with long outtakes from choice episodes.