This Show Looks Awful, do I have to watch it? October 25, 2007
Posted by gordonwatts in Pop Culture, TV.trackback
A friend of mine, Ann, pointed this out to me. If you look carefully at the paper white board there you’ll see a t->Wb decay written out, and a simple branching ratio calculation (which is basically correct, as far as I can make out — can’t make out the lower matrix well enough — CKM??).
Ok — so any popular TV show that puts that up, I need to watch, right? So — if you click on the “About” for the series “The Big Bang Theory”, you get:
Two nerdy physicists sharing an apartment have their lives disrupted by a beautiful new neighbor.
Sounds really bad!!! At least in the Numb3rs show they had a string theorist who was interesting (they may still have, but I’ve really stopped watching shows since I got here to France). And it has a lot of personal tension, which is about the only thing that makes a drama on TV last more than 1/2 a season. Has anyone seen this Big Bang show? Is it any good? Or just a filler show that plays on typical stereotypes?
I don’t know know “The Big Bang Theory”, but the in the show “Supernova” they don’t even try to get the science right. They seem to shout some technical terms and hope it sounds believable. But it’s a fun show to watch.
Stereotypes can be funny, especially in the real world. I love to watch geeks do stereotypical geeky stuff. I even have a blackboard in my bedroom I use to write down equations and I collect old computers. If that’s not stereotypical behaviour I don’t know what is.
Hmmm — I never heard of supernova before — actually, the plot outline on the IMDB reminds me of Northern Exposure (which I like). So worth it enough to put on my Netflicks list when I get back, eh?
BTW, I agree with your comment — you can get the science wrong and still have a good show — afterall this is about telling a story. And stereo types can be fun to play with — and they exist for a reason — but some themes get a little worn out. I’ve not seen the Big Bang show, but it looks like it already is.
Gordon,
You can check if it is still there, but the first “Big Bang Theory” was free on iTunes. I watched it on a plane last week, had some funny parts, but I’m not sure I could watch the show every week. Besides, now they are bringing back all the other people from Rossane(sp).
the whiteboard says “but Flavour Changing Neutral Currents…”. it is probably the cliff-hanging for the next chapter.
Hmm next slide shows some spectroscopy, probaby quarkonia of some kind, but not sure. Also, we are informed that the names of the protagonists are “Penny”, “Leonard” and “Sheldon”. I can imagine the pun is on Susskind and Glashow… Any conjecture for the origin of “Penny”? Come to suggest a name, I’d voted Olivia, for the grand-daughter of Max Born (ok, ok, the “Born approximation” seems more a title for an spy film than for a TV comedy)
I don’t know if Supernova is actually worth paying for. I don’t have netflix, or an iTunes account. The tv shows I watch are the ones I accidently bump into when I’m bored. I guess I’m still old fashioned in some ways.
The show is pretty terrible. Apart from the stereotypes and the sexism, there’s a weird mismatch between the physics dialogue and the equations. Sheldon gestures at the top decay Feynman diagrams and says something about “a spoof of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation” and something about string theory. Obviously they’re paying someone to supply the physics….
UCLA is blamed somewhere about providing the physics part.
It is both funny and offensive. In one episode the group of physicists are trying to assemble the pretty neighbor’s IKEA entertainment center. They quickly decide it is inadequate and start planning to reinforce it, add cooling, power, and other flourishes. They all go off to collect the needed equipment, and she is left to assemble it herself. I recognized myself and a lot of my friends in that scene. On the other hand, there are way too many jokes about the social inadequacies of physicists.
I cannot get overly upset about them getting the physics wrong. You need to know a lot of physics to get real physics jokes.
Mike - you are totally right - I’ve done something like that more than once! And as to your last comment — I totally agree if they are trying to tell a story; physics can be amazingly complex. But you can also do qutie a bit without having to go into detail and without having to be wrong. But some bending is just fine for me.
Before guessing the origin of their first names, check out “Sheldon Leonard” on imdb
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