Courtney Ford guest stars on Big Bang

You're all already watching The Big Bang Theory, right? a) Because it' a great show and you have excellent taste and were already watching it, or b) I'm such fantastic writer that my inaugural review of last weeks episode converted you into an instant fan. But in case you weren't, I'm gonna give you a little more incentive to in the form of some glorious crossover goodness. Courtney Ford, who has previously been seen as Christine Hill in Dexter and Portia Bellefleur in True Blood (when I said 'crossover goodness' I meant 'has appreared in my other fave shows') is going to be guest starring in this weeks ep as a hot comic book artist and potential romance for Leonard. Comics, Courtney, comedy. Whats not to look forward to?

'Christian Quarterly gave it their highest rating, five thorny crowns.' The Big Bang Theory 5.06

If you haven’t been watching Season Five of The Big Bang Theory (it’s one of the few shows that is fast tracked to Australian commercial television, think it’s only a couple of weeks behind) then do start, because every episode so far has been marvellous.

This week’s ep, the sixth of the season titled ‘The Rhinitis Revelation’ was centred around the visit of Sheldon’s bible-bashing, ultra-conservative, politically incorrect, stereotypically Texas mother. She’s the type of woman who goes on Christian cruises to shoot clay pigeons with sins written on them, calls Asians ‘ching chongs’ and spends her sightseeing time in Hollywood dragging her son’s friends, including a Jew and a Hindu, into various churches. The fact that her character is based on people who really are that closed minded and just don’t realise it’s ass-backwards makes her both deeply cringe-worthy and completely hilarious, especially when you add her super-awkward interactions with the gang and her relationship with Sheldon, who still wants and needs to be coddled by his mommy despite being an arrogant genius. 

 All the episodes that have featured one of the gang’s parents (see Keith Carradine as Penny’s Midwestern man’s man dad in Season Four and any appearance by Leonard’s amazingly blunt psychiatrist mother) have been great, mostly for the same reason. The parent, usually wildly different in opinions and lifestyle to the child, visits Pasadena and spends the whole time humiliating their poor baby with harsh truths about everything from their love life to their infantile obsession with their own genitalia (I’m looking at you, Leonard’s mom) while also making their friends hideously uncomfortable.

The art of sitcoms is taking situations that in the real world would be very unpleasant or even tragic, and somehow making them funny, and Big Bang excels at this. We shouldn’t be laughing at this stuff, but we are. This week Raj has yet another bout of self-pity and borderline alcoholism brought on by chronic loneliness, Sheldon’s mom is so un-PC it hurts, she basically calls Penny a slut, and Sheldon is forced to compete with his friends for his mother’s attention, is robbed of his fried chicken and is forced to endure the absolute of horror of, wait for it: getting around like a common man. A common man! And it’s all comedy gold. Even if the laughing is sometimes a bit painful because it’s done through a cringe at Sheldon’s mom.