The Rhinitis Revelation – Reviewed

Many shows find the fifth season a hurdle but to date The Big Bang Theory has easily cleared that obstacle and is sprinting off down the track.  Their two hour premier averaged out to be good and the following episodes have taken a swing at some of the issues I have had in previous series but this week’s episode has proven to be the strongest of this season.

One of the strengths of TBBT is their superior supporting cast.  They never seem to shy away from grabbing big named celebrity and high defined actors to fill out their cast.  They’ve had Wil Wheaton and Brent Spiner this season and Katee Sackhoff and George Takei last season but what really make the show shine are the two actresses who play the mothers of Leonard and Sheldon.

This week’s premise follows Sheldon’s mother (Laurie Metcalf) coming down to visit her son and his friends.  While Sheldon wishes for his mother’s attention to be strictly on himself she ends up spending a great deal of time with the remainder of the cast as she has no interest in Sheldon’s pre-planned activities.

Metcalf is the gem of the episode.  She took what could have been a poor Sheldon episode and made it into an amazing episode.  Metcalf, who any fan knows as the highly religious southern small town single mother of three.  One of the reoccurring themes of the show is how our two main characters have mothers that better fit the other’s personality instead of their own.  Mary Cooper brings her small town mentality to the big city.  The overly religious and slightly racist speech could have proven to be a poor or controversial dialogue but due to the talented craftsmanship of Metcalf the material not only proved to be exceptionally funny in a fish out of water manner, but provided a great deal of material and energy for the remainder of the cast to draw upon and use.

The Sheldon portion of the episode was a little flimsy, his selfishness and childishness being momentarily amplified for the sack of the episode.  I despise when character attribute fluctuate for the sake of an episode much like Mr. Burn’s frailty.  This episode took Sheldon and firmly placed him into a cartoonish parody of himself (much like was talk about in a previous editorial).

Of course the episode ended with the source of great fanfare, the Soft Kitty song.  It is great to see Laurie Metcalf shining in her role and I greatly miss seeing her on a weekly basis.