“The Precious Fragmentation”
March 8th, 2010
The opening to “The Precious Fragmentation” was like a big improv skit. A box of random nerd objects that the gang picked up at a garage sale is revealed to feature a variety of cheap gags, whether it’s Raj wiping a drawn-on penis off of an Aquaman action figure, or Leonard finding a Spock doll with a Mr. T head and suggesting that he “pities the fool who is illogical,” or Wolowitz finding an Alf doll and flashing back to his father’s abandonment. I felt like the show just put out a random box of items that these characters could potentially make jokes out of and let them go.
On the one hand, I think this speaks to the potential humour from this group of people with the right, nerd-friendly material. On the other hand, it’s kind of extraordinarily lazy, the simplest of stories that fails to offer any sort of depth or really any sort of character commentary. It is literally the story of “What happens when the gang finds a single collectible related to nerddom and all of them desire it,” pure sitcom in every form.
And to be entirely honest, I think that’s why the episode was mostly pretty darn pleasant.
Cultural Learnings 