The Big Bang Theory S7/E18 Review: “The Mommy Observation”
Truth be told, I have never been partial to episodes involving the gang’s parents. Even for a show with occasionally outrageous characters and stereotypes, the parents on The Big Bang Theory can be a little overbearing at times. As the title may suggest, tonight’s episode revolves around Sheldon and his Mother, after he observes her in a certain romantic situation. We have seen Sheldon’s mother flirt with men before, like when she got together with the University president to get Sheldon’s job back. Plus we have known for a long time that her husband died, and they didn’t have a great marriage to begin with.
I suppose it was only natural that Mrs. Cooper would eventually move on to a new man, and “The Mommy Observation” was a suitably observant episode. Not just with Sheldon’s story, but for the rest of the gang as well. More on them in a moment. Sheldon is still in Texas with Howard, where Howard gave a speech at NASA. I’m guessing that this NASA storyline IS going to continue. While the episode mainly centered on Sheldon and his Mother, part of the episode was also dedicated to seeing Sheldon and Howard bond. Keeping up with this season’s trend of “different” character pairings, the two have several nice bonding moments, particularly one in a bar where Howard consoles Sheldon over alcohol.
On the home front, the rest of the gang is finally roped into one of Raj’s awesome murder mystery dinners. We have heard a ton of talk about these events, but haven’t actually seen one until tonight. Unless you count the scavenger hunt episode, but that was a whole different game… kind of. The gang has their normal mixture of good natured ribbing and genuine heartfelt moments. Stewart also makes an appearance in this episode and has one of the best insights of the whole episode. I won’t spoil who the murderer was, but the end of the episode is pretty hilarious, if not slightly predictable.
In case you hadn’t heard the big news yet, The Big Bang Theory was renewed for another three season deal, which it is actually just coming off of. It is normally rare for a network to commit that far in advance, but I believe Big Bang Theory has been hitting record numbers with no sign of slowing down. This season might have been their most successful yet in terms of viewership. It’s rare for a show to last as long as this one has, and it would no longer be farfetched to compare it with the likes of Taxi or Cheers at least in terms of length. Influence and legacy are yet to be determined, but I imagine The Big Bang Theory will go down along with How I Met Your Mother as the best sitcoms this generation had to offer.
Even going into this episode with the lowered expectations I carry for parental episodes, I found “The Mommy Observation” to be a particularly well-oiled episode that moved seamlessly from story to story. Again, slightly expanding on the show’s normal set of settings. Season seven has been fantastic so far but, sadly, we will be off for the next couple weeks.
