Episode 4 - The Griffin Equivalency
13 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Raj discovers a star and gets featured in People Magazine as a result. The fame soon goes to his head and he alienates all his friends. The Good: Charlie Sheen’s brief cameo was unexpected. The writers have the good sense to address Leonard’s feelings for Penny albeit very briefly. And Leonard is given the most sensible line of the episode when he convinces Sheldon to be nice to Raj by pointing out that this may be the highest achievement he ever attains. Even I smiled at Raj using the word “Ridonculous.” The Bad: Everything else. Finally the writers focus on a character other than Sheldon and they produce a clichéd, poorly thought out waste of time. The biggest problem is that Raj doesn’t have a well established character. His inability to talk to women has been very thinly explained and becomes more implausible the longer the show goes on. We haven’t even learnt exactly what Raj does at the university, which is criminal after so many episodes. All we know for sure is that when he gets drunk, he becomes obnoxious (see 108). While there is nothing wrong with that basic concept, in execution it is irritating to watch. It’s always irritating when a character’s behaviour completely changes under the influence of alcohol because it is not reflective of real life. The story being told is an old sitcom classic. A character gets some fame, it goes to their head and they alienate everyone else before coming crashing to earth. Again nothing wrong with the idea, but in practise Raj’s descent into arrogance happens in unrealistically swift fashion. To make matters worse the guys ditch him immediately without much time for his behaviour to really sink in. They end up looking like bad friends for abandoning him based on one day of rude behaviour. Comic Highlight: Sadly it has to be Howard hitting on Penny at the start of the episode. “Come to papa you un-kosher delight. I’m not necessarily talking to the food.” His delivery is confident, true to his character and consistent as always. In Conclusion: The writers clearly aren’t interested in giving Raj (or Howard for that matter) a well established character that might steal focus from Sheldon and that is sad. It means we have to sit through bargain basement episodes like this one.
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