The Big Bang Theory - Season 4 [DVD]

Once every few years an American sitcom arrives on these shores and seems to dominate the TV schedules. Currently doing the rounds is `The Big Bang Theory' and thankfully, unlike dross such as `2.5 Men' or `Raymond', it is actually good. In fact, the show is great. I am someone who likes to watch TV in clumps, therefore viewing the Season 4 boxset is ideal for me, rather than seeing random episodes piecemeal on the bogglebox. With over 70 episodes already in the can, Season 4 is a dangerous time for `Big Bang', will it become samey and wear the joke too thin?

To an extent yes! Every episode of Season 4 is not unlike those previous, the same geeky group of men children struggling to live in a world of average intelligence, but the joke is still very funny. To add to the appeal of this season is the further emergence of the female cast. Penny has always been around, but her friendship with Bernadette and Amy Farrah Fowler is as strong as that between the fellas. Viewing the various geeky goings on through both the eyes of those who relish it (the boys) and those disturbed by it (the girls), really adds to the appeal of the show.

The stand out roles this season are Jim Parsons as Sheldon (as always), but his comedy foil of Mayim Bialik as Amy is brilliant. I also like the softening of Howard, no longer too sleazy. `Big Bang' does suffer slightly from déjà vu storylines, but with witty one-liners flying left and right it remains the best traditional US comedy on TV at the current time.

There are not a huge number of extras in the boxset, but the cast interviews are fun. Rather than having a generic interviewer the different cast members question one another, you get some interesting answers, as well as seeing that they genuinely like one another.

Sammy Recommendation

In the cult tradition of SPARTACUS, the halls of every science department now echoes: "I AM SHELDON"!

Currently into its fourth season, THE BIG BANG THEORY proved to be one of the most funny TV sitcoms ever aired. I had not laughed out loud this hard ever since the best days of FRASIER and SEINFELD - and BIG BANG is **consistently** brilliant!

Sheldon Cooper is unavoidably the king of the show - the massive black hole this Universe revolves around if you will. A child prodigy, now a 24 years old theoretical physicist PhD with absolutely no social skills or known sexual drive. Sheldon may be on the verge of unifying the fields but cannot drive a car to save his life or break a smile even remotely resembling that of a mere homo sapiens.
And now, he starts going out on dates...Well, sort off. He still cannot drive and yet his fusion into Shamy may produce what can only be described as the...Kwisatz Haderach!
(On a more sober note: producers, please get rid of Amy - she only gums up the show's flow!)

Leonard Hofstadter is Sheldon's roommate and primary ...keeper. An experimental physicist himself, he juggles Sheldon's idiosyncrasies with his personal neurosis - not to mention his crush on his neighbor Penny. Which crush, like lunar eclipses, follow a predicted yet unavoidable periodicity.

Howard Wolowitz is the only one with no PhD yet (and Sheldon never lets him forget it). An electrical engineer whose crowning achievement is a mechanized arm that is used in the space shuttle (and is now working on its liquid waste management solutions). He also managed to wreck the Mars rover in hopes of landing a girl - but he made sure no one can prove anything.
The fact that he is a short man with a severely outdated and misguided sense of fashion, still lives with his mother, insists on using a collection of pickup lines straight from men's magazines advice columns - and yet carries himself as God's gift to women is just hilarious.
Now, if only he could find a practical use for that mechanized arm...

Rajesh Koothrappali is a particle astrophysicist with a fashion sense close to absolute zero and a severe case of shyness - to the point that he cannot speak in front of women unless inebriated. He keeps using the "poor Indian" defense although his father is a rich doctor who drives a Bentley.

Finally, Penny. She is the proverbial good girl next door who came to California with stardom aspirations but so far works as waitress and suffers a sequence of bad boyfriends (Sheldon has in fact calculated the exact number of them, extrapolated from a bell-curve that started at 14)- and, obviously, from her neighbors.

The show unavoidably makes use of previous sitcom combinations (the odd couple, the unfulfilled love-interest mismatch) but even if one manages to discern them they are used in such a fresh manner that all that is left is great entertainment!

The way to truly enjoy this is to own it on DVD. The writing is so smart and the jokes fly so fast (many of them non-verbal) there is just no way to savor it during its weekly air time. Well, may be Sheldon could but then again, who can compare his intellect with his?

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

What shines so brightly in the fourth season of the show is how it has grown. Chuck Lorre has stuck with characters introduced in previous seasons and allowed them to expand. We even know what to expect from bit parts like Kripky now. This has been executed so well that I didnt even notice until some episodes started to revolve around the girls. This show has evolved so much since the pilot episode but at a natural pace so that it all feels natural. It still retains its core qualities and now there are even more characters to love. Expertly done.