TV: Thursday CBS Comedies (10/6/11)

Thursday night was plopped in front of the TV to enjoy some cupcakes for my wife's birthday and watch some comedies.

Here's what I thought of this week's the Big Bang Theory and How To Be a Gentleman.


The Big Bang Theory - "the Wiggly Finger Catalyst" was a bit different than the other episodes so far. It dealt with Penny setting up Raj with her hearing impaired friend (since, you know, Raj has a hard time talking to women unless he is drunk - this way he can do it because she cannot hear). Conveniently, Howard knows sign-language thus putting the A-story focus mostly on the two of them. That seemed to be okay as these two are very funny characters together. Where things sort of go off the rails is the sudden revelation of Raj's family wealth. Turns out Sheldon, being a notary, knew this all along for he often had to notorize financial drafts from Raj's parents for his friend. Okay... The B-plot was kind of silly with Sheldon using Dungeons and Dragons percentile dice to make decisions for him. Overall, I didn't find this episode nearly as humorous as the earlier ones this season. It all seemed a bit contrived.

How to Be a Gentleman - second episode in and it already got weird. Stuffy Andrew has a date with a woman he just met, has sex with her and then feels he is in love. Bert stays over on the couch, refusing to let Andrew call the woman until seventy-two hours have passed. Bert's view is that real men don't act needy and call the next morning. Okay... While the episode had a few funny moments, overall it didn't work for me as well as the pilot. And, it appears, I am not the only one who felt that way. I just read today that the show has stopped production. They have finished filming nine episodes total, so CBS is pulling it from the Thursday line-up immediately and dooming the failing show to Saturday nights at 8:30pm to run out the production before fading off completely. Bad news for them.

Good news for the Thursday night line up though as Rules of Engagement is being pulled out of the Saturday night death slot and moving instead to Thursdays at 8:30 beginning October 20th, with its season debut. That is where this show belonged any way. Now I can have a solid hour block to wind up my week. Score.