# The Big Bang Theory - 5/17/2010 "The Staircase Implementation"



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

No thread yet?

So now we know the secret of the elevator. I thought this was a funny episode. 

*Love Sheldon's comments about the iPod 

*Loved that the Asian girl that Leonard was sleeping with was a N. Korean spy


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## dilbert27 (Dec 1, 2006)

I also loved Sheldons's mention of Firefly.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

dilbert27 said:


> I also loved Sheldons's mention of Firefly.


Not a Firefly fan, so I didn't get the joke, but I guess it was supposed to be funny 

There was enough other funny things that I could let that pass


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## TIVO_GUY_HERE (Jul 10, 2000)

Thought this was the best episode in quite awhile. 

Loved the "Firefly" comment. Don't need to be a fan to figure out the joke, that the show didn't last 1 season.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

TIVO_GUY_HERE said:


> Thought this was the best episode in quite awhile.
> 
> Loved the "Firefly" comment. Don't need to be a fan to figure out the joke, that the show didn't last 1 season.


I had no idea that the show didn't last one season, so I didn't quite get why it was funny, but yeah, overall, this was one of the better ones.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> Not a Firefly fan, so I didn't get the joke, but I guess it was supposed to be funny
> 
> There was enough other funny things that I could let that pass


Firefly debuted to rave reviews.

While the ratings of the debut episode were only so-so, as the result of good reviews and word-of-mouth, the ratings were steadily growing with each episode.

However, it was on FOX, and on FOX, if your Debut isn't number one in its slot, you're canceled, regardless what the subsequent episodes do in the ratings. It lasted 6 episodes, IIRC, on FOX. (The DVD set contains 10, IIRC, that were actually completed.)

Leading to the re-occurring theme on this forum, "Burn in hell FOX!"

Firefly was one of the original examples of "Burn in hell FOX!"


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## Idearat (Nov 26, 2000)

Me, I'd have told that North Korean spy _so_ many secrets...


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Fish Man said:


> Firefly debuted to rave reviews.
> 
> While the ratings of the debut episode were only so-so, as the result of good reviews and word-of-mouth, the ratings were steadily growing with each episode.
> 
> ...


Got it. Guess it was an inside joke


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Idearat said:


> Me, I'd have told that North Korean spy _so_ many secrets...


:up: That made me laugh.

I loved Leonard coming back with his nails done. It was nice to see him and Penny as friends. I still liked the romance, but this was comfortable...he wasn't all hyper nervous about being around her like he was before the sex stuff.

"Die Sheldon, Die" Loved the Simpson's nod.

I would have liked to have seen something that explained Raj's problem with talking around girls.

Especially good - Sheldon saving Leonard's life.

Yep, good episode!


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## dilbert27 (Dec 1, 2006)

And we also now know that Sheldon is evidently running Ubuntu on his laptop.


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

dilbert27 said:


> I also loved Sheldons's mention of Firefly.


I believe the correct syntax is "With whom Leonard was sleeping.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Fish Man said:


> Firefly debuted to rave reviews.
> 
> While the ratings of the debut episode were only so-so, as the result of good reviews and word-of-mouth, the ratings were steadily growing with each episode.
> 
> However, it was on FOX, and on FOX, if your Debut isn't number one in its slot, you're canceled, regardless what the subsequent episodes do in the ratings. It lasted 6 episodes, IIRC, on FOX. (The DVD set contains 10, IIRC, that were actually completed.)


Exactly.

Except the initial reviews were mixed to say the least. And the ratings dropped throughout the run of the show. And there were fifteen episodes, 12 of which aired on Fox.

But other than that, exactly. 

I think Firefly had two problems. One, which may have been insurmountable, was that it was a very hard sell. A hard-edged comedic sci-fi western? Yes, it was great stuff, but it was so different, I wonder if a lot of people would ever have even given it a try.

But that didn't really matter, because Fox really botched their handling of it. Constantly. The best episode was, arguably, the two-part pilot. At the last minute, Fox pulled it (it became the last two episodes to air), and Whedon & Co. had to come up with a new episode, from scratch, over a weekend, to launch the series. And while it wasn't a terrible episode, it A) wasn't as good as most, and B) threw viewers in at the deep end, without the explanation of what the hell was going on which the pilot would have provided.

Sheldon's joke (to get more or less back on topic) stems from the fact that sci-fi geeks had very high (unreasonably high?) expectations for the show, which were dashed by the way things turned out. Hard.


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## YCantAngieRead (Nov 5, 2003)

This was a really fun episode. I love when sitcoms do "back when" episodes. :up:


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

dilbert27 said:


> And we also now know that Sheldon is evidently running Ubuntu on his laptop.


I'm surprised he not running Gentoo. Then again Ubuntu is probably more well known so more people would know what he meant.


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## SeanC (Dec 30, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But that didn't really matter, because Fox really botched their handling of it. Constantly. The best episode was, arguably, the two-part pilot. At the last minute, Fox pulled it (it became the last two episodes to air), and Whedon & Co. had to come up with a new episode, from scratch, over a weekend, to launch the series. And while it wasn't a terrible episode, it A) wasn't as good as most, and B) threw viewers in at the deep end, without the explanation of what the hell was going on which the pilot would have provided.


You forgot to mention that the first episode that did air was a train robbery. It was a train robbery at the insistence of FOX executives because a western has to have a train robbery, right?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

SeanC said:


> You forgot to mention that the first episode that did air was a train robbery. It was a train robbery at the insistence of FOX executives because a western has to have a train robbery, right?


Heh. Hadn't heard that. If it's not true, it ought to be.  It did, on the other hand, have the jet engine scene, which was the perfect cap to establishing Mal's character. I'll give them that.

I also forgot to mention that other episodes were aired out-of-order, in a way that made it hard at times to follow the overall storyline.


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## TIVO_GUY_HERE (Jul 10, 2000)

LOL Firefly was 8 years ago. Time to move on....


Back to BBT


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

Great episode. Loved all the retro comments (iPod, Firefly). The little Penny scene at the end was funny. "High five!"

I knew nothing of Firefly other than having heard the name before (it was before I started watching TV), but it wasn't that hard to catch on to the joke. It was in the "contract" back whenever this episode was set (2002?), and it's no longer on TV today. 2+2=...

[paraphrasing poorly]
"Wait until Microsoft brings out their iPod killer"


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## bigpuma (Aug 12, 2003)

robojerk said:


> I'm surprised he not running Gentoo. Then again Ubuntu is probably more well known so more people would know what he meant.


That was my thought as well. When he said Ubuntu I thought he would be running something much geekier, heck I even have Ubuntu installed on an old laptop.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

astrohip said:


> Great episode. Loved all the retro comments (iPod, Firefly).
> [snip]
> 
> [paraphrasing poorly]
> "Wait until Microsoft brings out their iPod killer"



I'd forgotten how big and clunky those 1st gen iPods were.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

TIVO_GUY_HERE said:


> LOL Firefly was 8 years ago. Time to move on....


*NEVER! NEVER, I SAY!!*
Ahem. Sorry.

That Sheldon, he's such a card...


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## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

The only thing that didn't make sense was the N. Korean girl getting disgusted and leaving. If she really was a spy, she would have pretended to put up with all the nonsense. 

Actually, that was the seconnd thing that didn't make sense. The first thing that didn't make sense was that the flashback was to only 7 years ago but everyone looked like they were from the 80's.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

I, too, loved the Firefly comment. Mainly because I loved Firefly. BURN IN HELL FOX!! (It had to be said -- again!)


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## Wilhite (Oct 26, 2003)

I thought it was funny to see Kaley go out of character and crack up laughing at the very end of the show when Leonard and Sheldon were arguing about Babylon 5.


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

You don't screw the roommate agreement, the roommate agreement screws you!


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## SeanC (Dec 30, 2003)

I was surprised that Howard didn't reference Picard when he trumped Sheldon by using the Roommate agreement against him.


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## TeighVaux (May 31, 2005)

Best episode in a while. Back to basics of the characters, no more silliness and inane plots. The flashbacks worked well and allowed us to get even more insight on Sheldon.


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## dilbert27 (Dec 1, 2006)

WhiskeyTango said:


> You don't screw the roommate agreement, the roommate agreement screws you!


Don't make me turn the flag upside down for you know I will do it!


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

busyba said:


> Actually, that was the seconnd thing that didn't make sense. The first thing that didn't make sense was that the flashback was to only 7 years ago but everyone looked like they were from the 80's.


Yeah, I was wondering that myself, but then thought, well these are geeks.


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## Ment (Mar 27, 2008)

Agree with Sheldon...don't rent to hippies! 

Lol at Keyboard Cat. It appears Sheldon was using a Palm Pilot. Was the 2003 version capable of playing video on email attachments?


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## gschrock (Dec 28, 2001)

Of course, the true geek would note that Babylon 5 ended in 98, so it wouldn't have been on at the same time as Firefly. Although maybe it was running on Scifi at that time.

Has it really been 8 years since Firefly was on the air? Wow, time flies by at times.


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## Keen (Aug 3, 2009)

gschrock said:


> Of course, the true geek would note that Babylon 5 ended in 98, so it wouldn't have been on at the same time as Firefly. Although maybe it was running on Scifi at that time.


I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. I looked it up, and had they changed the script a bit, they could have had them watching it on DVD. At that point, the first half of the series had been released.


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## Neenahboy (Apr 8, 2004)

I dunno, I thought this fell flat with its extensive focus on Sheldon. It's like they were beating us over the head with the fact that his obsessive tendencies were once so much worse, and the laugh track was particularly obnoxious this week. If anything, this episode proved that a sitcom just can't do a flashback episode in 22 minutes...they really could've used an extra half-hour to flesh it out, IMO.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

Anyone else curious what was "CENSORED" on Chuck Lorres Vanity card this week? Here you go: (I'd post it, but it's kind of racy). As busyba mentioned in another thread, there was NO WAY they were going to let him put THAT up.


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## Mars Rocket (Mar 24, 2000)

FOX is the only network that is willing to put shows like Firefly (and Dollhouse, and Sarah Connor Chronicles, etc.) on the air to begin with. I just don't get the BIH attitude that they get as thanks when things don't work out for them.

It's a business. They at least try. No other network does.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Mars Rocket said:


> FOX is the only network that is willing to put shows like Firefly (and Dollhouse, and Sarah Connor Chronicles, etc.) on the air to begin with. I just don't get the BIH attitude that they get as thanks when things don't work out for them.
> 
> It's a business. They at least try. No other network does.


That's more true now than it used to be. They used to have a deserved reputation for screwing around with shows (as in Firefly). In recent years, they've actually been one of the best networks for giving shows a chance (e.g., Terminator & Dollhouse, neither of which really had any business being renewed), but their old reputation still clings in some people's memories.


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## MarkofT (Jul 27, 2001)

robojerk said:


> dilbert27 said:
> 
> 
> > And we also now know that Sheldon is evidently running Ubuntu on his laptop.
> ...


To be perfectly accurate, he would be running FreeBSD and not a Linux variant.


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## Mars Rocket (Mar 24, 2000)

robojerk said:


> I'm surprised he not running Gentoo. Then again Ubuntu is probably more well known so more people would know what he meant.


Gentoo is too wild. I could see him running LFS so he could have more control, or Ubuntu because it always works, but not Gentoo (this from a linux sysadmin who finally gave up on Gentoo in production environments after about 6 years because they kept making drastic changes that required too much maintenance to keep running).


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

Mars Rocket said:


> Gentoo is too wild. I could see him running LFS so he could have more control, or Ubuntu because it always works, but not Gentoo (this from a linux sysadmin who finally gave up on Gentoo in production environments after about 6 years because they kept making drastic changes that required too much maintenance to keep running).


That is now, this was then..


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## IJustLikeTivo (Oct 3, 2001)

bareyb said:


> Anyone else curious what was "CENSORED" on Chuck Lorres Vanity card this week? Here you go: (I'd post it, but it's kind of racy). As busyba mentioned in another thread, there was NO WAY they were going to let him put THAT up.


First time I ever agreed with the sensors. That is one troubled man.


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## grant33 (Jun 11, 2003)

My favorite part was when Sheldon said something like "If either one of us ever invents a time machine we agree to come back to this spot 5 seconds from now". I knew what was coming, but it still made me laugh as they sat there waiting and Sheldon just said "That's disappointing".


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## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

grant33 said:


> My favorite part was when Sheldon said something like "If either one of us ever invents a time machine we agree to come back to this spot 5 seconds from now". I knew what was coming, but it still made me laugh as they sat there waiting and Sheldon just said "That's disappointing".


I agree. The whole interview was howlingly funny, one of the best but-gusters of the season. We had to pause several times. The deadpan delivery of the apartment's flag and then showing it was also perfect.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

grant33 said:


> My favorite part was when Sheldon said something like "If either one of us ever invents a time machine we agree to come back to this spot 5 seconds from now". I knew what was coming, but it still made me laugh as they sat there waiting and Sheldon just said "That's disappointing".


Agreed.

Hilarious.

The funniest part was that _both of them_ waited with some glimmer of hope and expectation. Sheldon voiced it, but Leonard also looked a bit disappointed.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

gschrock said:


> Of course, the true geek would note that Babylon 5 ended in 98, so it wouldn't have been on at the same time as Firefly. Although maybe it was running on Scifi at that time.
> 
> Has it really been 8 years since Firefly was on the air? Wow, time flies by at times.


I assumed from the context that they would be watching it in syndication, perhaps on a local independent TV station, if the timing was wrong for the replay on SciFi.

Jan


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## Waldorf (Oct 4, 2002)

busyba said:


> The first thing that didn't make sense was that the flashback was to only 7 years ago but everyone looked like they were from the 80's.


In their defense, we^H^H they are now dressing like the 90's with the flannel shirts and such. I'm always confused as to what I should be wearing.  I should do like a friend and just go to the GAP or something and buy what the mannequins are wearing.

When Sheldon sneered at the iPod, I was waiting for him to say, "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." The, "Just wait to see what Microsoft comes out with" was great also. 

The Firefly reference brought a tear to my eye. Nobody has mentioned yet that Fox preempted half the episodes due to baseball playoffs.


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## IJustLikeTivo (Oct 3, 2001)

Waldorf said:


> When Sheldon sneered at the iPod, I was waiting for him to say, "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." The, "Just wait to see what Microsoft comes out with" was great also.


The MS comment makes no sense for Sheldon at all.

1. What self respecting geek actually LIKES MS?
2. As you see later on, he's a unix geek.

It was funny though. Especially given how lame the Zune was in the first incarnation.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

gschrock said:


> Of course, the true geek would note that Babylon 5 ended in 98, so it wouldn't have been on at the same time as Firefly. Although maybe it was running on Scifi at that time.
> 
> Has it really been 8 years since Firefly was on the air? Wow, time flies by at times.


Sure, that was my first thought. But I'm pretty sure SciFi was still reairing it in reruns in 2002.

I _know_ they still were in 2001 when I got my 1st DTiVo. I used it to transfer them, w/ commercials edited out, to VHS for long term storage. Obviously before the DVDs were announced. (Anyone need a 70 or so lightly used VHS tapes? )


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## ScubaCat (Jun 26, 2003)

I just saw on Twitter that The Big Bang Theory is moving to Thursday night in the fall - to follow Shatner's new show. I guess they will put a new series on after Two and a Half Men.


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## jbx (May 21, 2005)

IJustLikeTivo said:


> The MS comment makes no sense for Sheldon at all.
> 
> 1. What self respecting geek actually LIKES MS?
> 2. As you see later on, he's a unix geek.
> ...


+1

The whole cast was on Good Morning America today and was really funny. They all seem like really good friends in real life too. Also if you look up the clip from this morning there is a small spoiler about a guest appearance in this seasons last episode. Just FYI.

Also there was a segment earlier in the show talking about Stand up 2 Cancer and Jim Parsons has a video where he dresses as 30 different characters. Hilarious -- I'm still cracking up thinking of some stereotypes he dressed as. I couldn't get the video to inline so here is just a link to it in YouTube.

"Up2 You + Me" Featuring Jim Parsons


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## Wilhite (Oct 26, 2003)

ScubaCat said:


> I just saw on Twitter that The Big Bang Theory is moving to Thursday night in the fall - to follow Shatner's new show. I guess they will put a new series on after Two and a Half Men.


Actually, it's a lead-in for Shatner's new show. I guess CBS is hoping that the audience will continue to watch after BBT. Kind of makes sense - the audience of BBT is more likely to know about s**tmydadsays.com than the general public.


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

jbx said:


> The whole cast was on Good Morning America today and was really funny. They all seem like really good friends in real life too. Also if you look up the clip from this morning there is a small spoiler about a guest appearance in this seasons last episode. Just FYI.


I'm looking on the GMA site (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/), and the cast of BBT is not even mentioned for today's episode. They do have clips of the cast of Modern Family. Am I looking in the wrong place?


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## jbx (May 21, 2005)

scooterboy said:


> I'm looking on the GMA site (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/), and the cast of BBT is not even mentioned for today's episode. They do have clips of the cast of Modern Family. Am I looking in the wrong place?


Oops yeah I don't know why I said GMA it was actually the Early Show on CBS. Sorry about that.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

On a completely unrelated note... Has BBT been running long these past few weeks, or has my Tivo just been cutting out early? I seem to be missing nearly 30 seconds worth of jokes, and the vanity card at the end.

(And I've been too lazy to look into it)

-Ken


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

kdmorse said:


> On a completely unrelated note... Has BBT been running long these past few weeks, or has my Tivo just been cutting out early? I seem to be missing nearly 30 seconds worth of jokes, and the vanity card at the end.
> 
> (And I've been too lazy to look into it)
> 
> -Ken


FWIW, I've been getting the vanity cards every week.


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## Hank (May 31, 2000)

Neenahboy said:


> and the laugh track was particularly obnoxious this week.


I agree that the "laugh track" was overused, but CL claims they don't use one, and it's just the live audience:

http://chucklorre.com/index.php?p=282


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## Einselen (Apr 25, 2006)

Hank said:


> I agree that the "laugh track" was overused, but CL claims they don't use one, and it's just the live audience:
> 
> http://chucklorre.com/index.php?p=282


Well from a poster here we know they many scenes are filmed multiple times and the audience is supposed to laugh just like they did the take before. That however does not mean that the laughing from take 1 is not used with the video from take 3 and/or multiple takes are combined.


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## Hank (May 31, 2000)

I found it particularly odd when Sheldon sits down and says "Ubuntu..." (large laugh here) "... you're my favorite...". I find it kind of curious that the entire audience knew what Ubuntu was and laughed long before the end of the actual joke, and actually started laughing before Sheldon was done saying "Ubuntu". Sure, you might say the audience is all nerds who know that, but even still, to have a huge laugh inserted right there, as say, opposed to the end of the joke? And even his punchline "you're my favorite linux distribution"... if the audience is all nerds, why wouldn't he have just said "linux distro" or just plain "distro"... like most people do? If he had just said "Ubuntu, you're my favorite distro" (large laugh here) that would have been more believable.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

Hank said:


> And even his punchline "you're my favorite linux distribution"... if the audience is all nerds, why wouldn't he have just said "linux distro" or just plain "distro"... like most people do? If he had just said "Ubuntu, you're my favorite distro" (large laugh here) that would have been more believable.


I thought it was a little off at the time, but now that I've had a chance to reflect, I think I was wrong.

Sheldon isn't Most People. Even if you start with the set of all geeks, he still isn't Most People.

Even if most geeks would say 'favorite distro', it's not a Sheldon-like speech pattern.

If Sheldon were talking to someone else, and wanted to show off that he was aware of what Most People said, then sure, he'd be perfectly able to say that it was his _*favorite distro*_ (with tons of over-emphasis).

But to use slang like 'distro' while talking to himself? No, I don't think so.

Jan


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## coolpenguin (Apr 26, 2004)

I just discovered this show...where have I been????


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

coolpenguin said:


> I just discovered this show...where have I been????


Hey, you've had other things on your mind. 

Glad you could join us! The earlier seasons are out on DVD, if you want to catch up (and the sets have some fun bonus material).

Jan


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## Hank (May 31, 2000)

murgatroyd said:


> But to use slang like 'distro' while talking to himself? No, I don't think so.


And I'm sure if I had argued that angle, you'd be arguing mine. Sheldon uses lingo and terms like that all the time, alone or not.


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## PeternJim (Sep 25, 2004)

Mars Rocket said:


> FOX is the only network that is willing to put shows like Firefly (and Dollhouse, and Sarah Connor Chronicles, etc.) on the air to begin with. I just don't get the BIH attitude that they get as thanks when things don't work out for them.
> 
> It's a business. They at least try. No other network does.


Yes, but putting it on out of order, and cancelling it after a relatively few episodes - especially when Joss Whedon's previous efforts had been such relatively big successes - stupid. There are dozens of other ways they could have done it - including running the first episodes as a summer miniseries and then letting word of mouth catch up, for example.

It doesn't count as "at least they try" when the result is killing brilliant shows.

Uh, Dollhouse, not so much.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

Hank said:


> And I'm sure if I had argued that angle, you'd be arguing mine. Sheldon uses lingo and terms like that all the time, alone or not.


Note that in Star Trek, one of the things they did to make Spock different from everyone else is that he did not use contractions. Sheldon also has a different speech pattern which is more careful than the others around him.

I would be hard-pressed to come up with an example where Sheldon used slang that was not in the context I cited above -- deliberately using the term and over-articulating it in an effort to show he is 'up' on the slang term.

Jan


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## Hank (May 31, 2000)

It's not slang -- it's techie jargon that they all use, frequently. In this case, either CL or the network felt that not enough people would know what a "distro" is and changed the script to "linux distribution."


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

Jan


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